The channels are so intricate that we find, at the bifurcations, bits of sail cloth hung on the bushes, to guide the navigators on the route to Pará. Those channels which lead to Cametá, on the Tocantins, and other places, are not marked.
We passed occasionally farm houses, with mills for grinding sugar-cane. The mills are as rude as those in Mainas, and I believe make nothing but rum.
At 8 p. m. on the 7th, we arrived at the mouth of the creek, which debouches upon the bay of Limoeiro, a deep indentation of the right bank of the Amazon, at the bottom of which is the mouth of the river Tocantins. We had a stormy night, with a fresh wind from the eastward, and much rain, thunder, and lightning.
April 8.—The pilot objected to attempt the passage of the bay; but another pilot, who was waiting to take a vessel across the next day, encouraged him, telling him that he would have feliz viagem.
We pulled a mile to windward, and made sail across, steering E. S. E. The wind from the northward and eastward, encountering the ebb-tide which runs from the southward, soon made a sharp sea, which gave us a rough passage. The canoe containing our animals and birds, which was towing astern, with our crippled negro from Gurupá steering, broke adrift, and I had the utmost difficulty in getting her again; indeed we took in so much water in our efforts to reach her that I thought for a moment that I should have to make sail again, and abandon the menagerie. The canoe, however, would probably not have perished. She was so light that she took in little water, and would have drifted with the ebb-tide to some point of safety.
We had a quick run to an island near the middle of the bay, and about five miles from the shore that we sailed from. The bay on this side of the island has several sand-flats, that are barely covered at low water. They seem entirely detached from the land and have deep water close around them.
Our pilot must have steered by instinct, or the direction of the wind; for most of the time he could see no land, so thick and heavy was the rain. He grinned with delight when we ran under the lee of the island, and I nodded my head approvingly to him, and said, bem feito piloto, (well done pilot.)
We breakfasted on the island, and ran with the flood-tide to its southern extremity; where, turning to the north, we had the flood against us, and were compelled to stop.
The Bay of Limoeiro is about ten miles wide; runs north and south, and has the Tocantins pouring in at its southern extremity. Thirty-nine miles from the mouth of that river is situated the flourishing town of Cametá, containing, by the official statement for 1848, thirteen thousand seven hundred and forty-two free, and four thousand and thirty-eight slave inhabitants. I suppose in this case, as in others, the inhabitants of the country houses for miles around are included in the estimate.
Baena, in speaking of the condition of this town in 1833, says: