There are large mud flats near the mouth of this river, which are enclosed with small stakes driven in the mud close together, for the purpose of taking fish when the tide is out. A great many small fish—about the size of a herring—called mapará, are taken and salted for the food of the slaves and tapuios. The fishermen, in ludicrously small canoes, gathered around us, admiring our birds and asking many strange questions.
This river is about two hundred and fifty yards wide, and has a general depth of thirty-six feet. Its banks are lined with plantations of cane, sugar-mills, and potteries. Nearly all the rum and the pots for putting up the turtle-oil that are used on the river, are made in this district. The owners of these establishments are nearly all away at this time celebrating holy-week in Sta. Ana, or other neighboring villages.
The establishments are left in charge of domestics; and we saw no signs of activity or prosperity among them. Most of them have neat little chapels belonging to them.
The river Sta. Ana empties into the Anapui. We anchored at its mouth to await for the flood-tide. Our pilot, who always sleeps on the arched covering over the stern of the boat, rolled overboard in the night. The tide was fortunately nearly done, and the old man swam well, or he would have been lost.
The village of Sta. Ana is eight miles from the mouth of the river, and two hundred and fifty miles below Breves. It is the centre of the rum and molasses trade of the district. It is a small, neat looking village of about five hundred inhabitants; but the country around is very thickly settled; and thus the official account states the population of the town of Igarapé Mirim (which I take to be this Sta. Ana) at three thousand one hundred free persons, with two hundred and eighty-one slaves.
The river opposite the town is one hundred yards wide, and has a depth of thirty feet. Just above the village we entered the mouth of a creek called Igarapé Mirim. This creek has an average width of thirty yards, and depth, at this season, of fifteen feet.
Six miles of navigation on this creek brought us to a canal which connects the Sta. Ana with the river Mojú.
The canal is about a mile long, and has six feet of depth at this season. It seems, at present, in good condition, and large enough to give passage to a vessel of fifty tons.
We found the Mojú a fine stream, of about four hundred yards in width, and forty-five feet deep opposite the entrance of the canal. The water was brown and clear, and the banks everywhere three or four feet out of the water. I was surprised to see so few houses on its banks. It looked very nearly as desolate as the Marañon in Peru.
Forty-five miles of descent of the Mojú brought us to the junction of the Acará, which comes in from the southeast. The estuary formed by the junction of the two rivers is about two and a half miles wide, and is called the river Guajará.