The tree is tall, straight, and has a smooth bark. It sometimes reaches a diameter of eighteen inches or more. Each incision makes a rough wound on the tree, which, although it does not kill it, renders it useless, because a smooth place is required to which to attach the cups. The milk is white and tasteless, and may be taken into the stomach with impunity.
The rubber is frequently much adulterated by the addition of tapioca or sand, to increase its weight; and, unless care is taken in the manufacture, it will have many cells, containing air and water. Water is seen to exude from nearly all of it when cut, which is always done for the purpose of examination before purchase. I brought home some specimens that were more than half mud.
The seringeros generally work on their own account, and take their collection to the nearest settlement, or to some such shop as this, to exchange it for such things as they stand in need of.
We navigated all day, after leaving this place, through a labyrinth of island channels, generally one or two hundred yards wide, and forty-eight feet deep. No land is seen in threading these channels, it being all covered; and the trees and bushes seem growing out of the water. Occasionally the bushes are cleared away, and one sees a shanty mounted on piles in the water, the temporary residence of a seringero. At a place in one of these channels, I was surprised to find one hundred and ninety-two feet of water, with a rocky bottom. The lead hung in the rocks, so that we had difficulty in getting it again.
April 4.—The channels and shores are as before; though we occasionally see a patch of ground with a house on it. This is generally surrounded with cocoa-nut trees and other palms, among which the miriti is conspicuous for its beauty. This is a very tall, straight, umbrella-like tree, that bears large clusters of a small nut, which is eaten.
We arrived at Breves, on the island of Marajo, at 11 a. m. This settlement is about two hundred miles below Gurupá. It is a depot of India-rubber, and sends annually about three thousand arrobas to Pará. It has a church, and several shops; and seems a busy, thriving place. Below this we find the flood-tide sufficiently strong to compel us to lie by, though it is but of three or four hours' duration. The ebb is of longer duration, and stronger.
Nearly opposite Breves, at a place called Portal, a village of sixty or eighty houses, two rivers, called the Pucajash and Guanapu, empty into the Amazon close together. A German, whom I met at Pará, told me of these rivers. I can find no mention of them in Baena's essay. My German friend said that the Pucajash was a large river which came down from the province of Minas Geraes, and that he had found gold in its sands. According to his account, the Pucajash may be ascended for eight days in a montaria (quite equal to twenty days in a river craft) before the first rapids are reached. Tapuios and boats may be had at Portal. The savages who inhabit the banks of the Pucajash are nearly white; go naked; but are civil, and may be employed as hunters.
We employed the 5th, 6th, and 7th of April in running through island passages, and occasionally touching on the main stream, anchoring during the flood-tide.
I could keep no account of the tide in these passages. We would encounter two or three different tides in three or four hours. I imagine the reason of this was that some of the passages were channels proper of the Amazon; some of them small, independent rivers; and some, again, furos, or other outlets of these same rivers. On the morning of the 7th, we were running down on the main river, here about three miles wide, and with a powerful ebb-tide. Suddenly we turned to the right, or southward, into a creek about forty yards wide, and with twelve feet of water, and found a small tide against us. After pulling up this creek an hour, we found a powerful tide in our favor, without having observed that we had entered another stream; so that from 5 a. m. to 3 p. m., we had had but a small tide of one hour against us.
I could get no information from our pilot. He seems to me to say directly contrary things about it. The old man is very timid, and will never trust himself in the stormy waters of the main river if he can find a creek, though it go a long distance about.