In the afternoon we reached the end of the last channel, called the Murut Ipucu, which runs for several miles between two unbroken lines of fan-leaved palms, forming colossal palisades with their straight stems.On rounding a point of land, we came in full view of the Tocantins.The event was announced by one of our Indians, who was on the lookout at the prow, shouting: "La esta o Parana-uassu!" "Behold, the great river!" It was a grand sight- -a broad expanse of dark waters dancing merrily to the breeze; the opposite shore, a narrow blue line, miles away.
We went ashore on an island covered with palm trees, to make a fire and boil our kettle for tea.I wandered a short way inland, and was astounded at the prospect.The land lay below the upper level of the daily tides, so that there was no underwood, and the ground was bare.The trees were almost all of one species of Palm, the gigantic fan-leaved Mauritia flexuosa; only on the borders was there a small number of a second kind, the equally remarkable Ubussu palm, Manicaria saccifera.The Ubussu has erect, uncut leaves, twenty-five feet long, and six feet wide, all arranged round the top of a four-foot high stem, so as to form a figure like that of a colossal shuttlecock.The fan-leaved palms, which clothed nearly the entire islet, had huge cylindrical smooth stems, three feet in diameter, and about a hundred feet high.The crowns were formed of enormous clusters of fan-shaped leaves, the stalks alone of which measured seven to ten feet in length.Nothing in the vegetable world could be more imposing than this grove of palms.There was no underwood to obstruct the view of the long perspective of towering columns.
The crowns, which were densely packed together at an immense height overhead, shut out the rays of the sun; and the gloomy solitude beneath, through which the sound of our voices seemed to reverberate, could be compared to nothing so well as a solemn temple.The fruits of the two palms were scattered over the ground; those of the Ubussu adhere together by twos and threes, and have a rough, brown-coloured shell; the fruit of the Mauritia, on the contrary, is of a bright red hue, and the skin is impressed with deep-crossing lines, which give it a resemblance to a quilted cricket-ball.
About midnight, the tide being favourable and the breeze strong, we crossed the river, taking it in a slanting direction a distance of sixteen miles, and arrived at eight o'clock the following morning at Cameta.This is a town of some importance, pleasantly situated on the somewhat high terra firma of the left bank of the Tocantins.I will defer giving an account of the place till the end of this narrative of our Tocantins voyage.We lost here another of our men, who got drinking with some old companions ashore, and were obliged to start on the difficult journey up the river with two hands only, and they in a very dissatisfied humour with the prospect.
The river view from Cameta is magnificent.The town is situated, as already mentioned, on a high bank, which forms quite a considerable elevation for this flat country, and the broad expanse of dark-green waters is studded with low, palm-clad islands-- the prospect down river, however, being clear, or bounded only by a sea-like horizon of water and sky.The shores are washed by the breeze-tossed waters into little bays and creeks, fringed with sandy beaches.The Tocantins has been likened, by Prince Adalbert of Prussia, who crossed its mouth in 1846, to the Ganges.It is upwards of ten miles in breadth at its mouth; opposite Cameta it is five miles broad.Mr.Burchell, the well-known English traveller, descended the river from the mining provinces of interior Brazil some years before our visit.
Unfortunately, the utility of this fine stream is impaired by the numerous obstructions to its navigation in the shape of cataracts and rapids, which commence, in ascending, at about 120 miles above Cameta, as will be seen in the sequel.
August 30th.--Arrived, in company with Senor Laroque, an intelligent Portuguese merchant, at Vista Alegre, fifteen miles above Cameta.This was the residence of Senor Antonio Ferreira Gomez, and was a fair sample of a Brazilian planter's establishment in this part of the country.The buildings covered a wide space, the dwelling-house being separated from the place of business, and as both were built on low, flooded ground, the communication between the two was by means of a long wooden bridge.From the office and visitors' apartments a wooden pier extended into the river.The whole was raised on piles above the high-water mark.There was a rude mill for grinding sugar-cane, worked by bullocks; but cashaca, or rum, was the only article manufactured from the juice.Behind the buildings was a small piece of ground cleared from the forest, and planted with fruit trees-- orange, lemon, genipapa, goyava, and others; and beyond this, a broad path through a neglected plantation of coffee and cacao, led to several large sheds, where the farinha, or mandioca meal, was manufactured.The plantations of mandioca are always scattered about in the forest, some of them being on islands in the middle of the river.Land being plentiful, and the plough, as well as, indeed, nearly all other agricultural implements, unknown, the same ground is not planted three years together; but a new piece of forest is cleared every alternate year, and the old clearing suffered to relapse into jungle.
