We reached Santarem at 11 a.m.The town has a clean and cheerful appearance from the river.It consists of three long streets, with a few short ones crossing them at right angles, and contains about 2500 inhabitants.It lies just within the mouth of Tapajos, and is divided into two parts, the town and the aldeia or village.The houses of the white and trading classes are substantially built, many being of two and three stories, and all white-washed and tiled.The aldeia, which contains the Indian portion of the population, or did so formerly, consists mostly of mud huts, thatched with palm leaves.The situation of the town is very beautiful.The land, although but slightly elevated, does not form, strictly speaking, a portion of the alluvial river plains of the Amazons, but is rather a northern prolongation of the Brazilian continental land.It is scantily wooded, and towards the interior consists of undulating campos, which are connected with a series of hills extending southward as far as the eye can reach.I subsequently made this place my head-quarters for three years; an account of its neighbourhood is therefore, reserved for another chapter.At the first sight of Santarem, one cannot help being struck with the advantages of its situation.Although 400 miles from the sea, it is accessible to vessels of heavy tonnage coming straight from the Atlantic.The river has only two slight bends between this port and the sea, and for five or six months in the year the Amazonian trade wind blows with very little interruption, so that sailing ships coming from foreign countries could reach the place with little difficulty.We ourselves had accomplished 200 miles, or about half the distance from the sea, in an ill-rigged vessel, in three days and a half.Although the land in the immediate neighbourhood is perhaps ill adapted for agriculture, an immense tract of rich soil, with forest and meadowland, lies on the opposite banks of the river, and the Tapajos leads into the heart of the mining provinces of interior Brazil.But where is the population to come from to develop the resources of this fine country? At present, the district within a radius of twenty-five miles contains barely 6500 inhabitants; behind the town, towards the interior, the country is uninhabited, and jaguars roam nightly, at least in the rainy season, close up to the ends of the suburban streets.
From information obtained here, I fixed upon the next town, Obydos, as the best place to stay for a few weeks, in order to investigate the natural productions of the north side of the Lower Amazons.We started at sunrise on the 10th, and being still favoured by wind and weather, made a pleasant passage, reaching Obydos, which is nearly fifty miles distant from Santarem, by midnight.We sailed all day close to the southern shore, and found the banks here and there dotted with houses of settlers, each surrounded by its plantation of cacao, which is the staple product of the district.This coast has an evil reputation for storms and mosquitoes, but we fortunately escaped both.It was remarkable that we had been troubled by mosquitoes only on one night, and then to a small degree, during the whole of our voyage.
I landed at Obydos the next morning, and then bid adieu to my kind friend Joao da Cunha, who, after landing my baggage, got up his anchor and continued on his way.The town contains about 1200inhabitants, and is airily situated on a high bluff, ninety or a hundred feet above the level of the river.The coast is precipitous for two or three miles hence to the west.The cliffs consist of the parti-coloured clay, or Tabatinga, which occurs so frequently throughout the Amazons region; the strong current of the river sets full against them in the season of high water, and annually carries away large portions.The clay in places is stratified alternately pink and yellow, the pink beds being the thickest and of much harder texture than the others.
When I descended the river in 1859, a German Major of Engineers, in the employ of the Government, told me that he had found calcareous layers, thickly studded with marine shells interstratified with the clay.On the top of the Tabatinga lies a bed of sand, in some places several feet thick, and the whole formation rests on strata of sandstone, which are exposed only when the river reaches its lowest level.Behind the town rises a fine rounded hill, and a range of similar elevations extends six miles westward, terminating at the mouth of the Trombetas, a large river flowing through the interior of Guiana.Hills and lowlands alike are covered with a sombre rolling forest.The river here is contracted to a breadth of rather less than a mile (1738 yards), and the entire volume of its waters, the collective product of a score of mighty streams, is poured through the strait with tremendous velocity.It must be remarked, however, that the river valley itself is not contracted to this breadth, the opposite shore not being continental land, but a low alluvial tract, subject to inundation more or less in the rainy season.
Behind it lies an extensive lake, called the Lago Grande da Villa Franca, which communicates with the Amazons, both above and below Obydos, and has therefore, the appearance of a by-water or an old channel of the river.This lake is about thirty-five miles in length, and from four to ten in width; but its waters are of little depth, and in the dry season its dimensions are much lessened.It has no perceptible current, and does not therefore, now divert any portion of the waters of the Amazons from their main course past Obydos.
