A few words on my visit to Para in 1851 may be here introduced.Idescended the river from Ega, to the capital, a distance of 1400miles, in a heavily-laden schooner belonging to a trader of the former place.The voyage occupied no less than twenty-nine days, although we were favoured by the powerful currents of the rainy season.The hold of the vessel was filled with turtle oil contained in large jars, the cabin was crammed with Brazil nuts, and a great pile of sarsaparilla, covered with a thatch of palm leaves, occupied the middle of the deck.We had, therefore, (the master and two passengers) but rough accommodation, having to sleep on deck, exposed to the wet and stormy weather, under little toldos or arched shelters, arranged with mats of woven lianas and maranta leaves.I awoke many a morning with clothes and bedding soaked through with the rain.With the exception, however, of a slight cold at the commencement, I never enjoyed better health than during this journey.When the wind blew from up river or off the land, we sped away at a great rate; but it was often squally from those quarters, and then it was not safe to hoist the sails.The weather was generally calm, a motionless mass of leaden clouds covering the sky, and the broad expanse of waters flowing smoothly down with no other motion than the ripple of the current.When the wind came from below, we tacked down the stream; sometimes it blew very strong, and then the schooner, having the wind abeam, laboured through the waves, shipping often heavy seas which washed everything that was loose from one side of the deck to the other.
On arriving at Para, I found the once cheerful and healthy city desolated by two terrible epidemics.The yellow fever, which visited the place the previous year (1850) for the first time since the discovery of the country, still lingered after having carried off nearly 5 percent of the population.The number of persons who were attacked, namely, three-fourths of the entire population, showed how general the onslaught is of an epidemic on its first appearance in a place.At the heels of this plague came the smallpox.The yellow fever had fallen most severely on the whites and mamelucos, the negroes wholly escaping; but the smallpox attacked more especially the Indians, negroes, and people of mixed colour, sparing the whites almost entirely, and taking off about a twentieth part of the population in the course of the four months of its stay.I heard many strange accounts of the yellow fever.I believe Para was the second port in Brazil attacked by it.The news of its ravages in Bahia, where the epidemic first appeared, arrived some few days before the disease broke out.The government took all the sanitary precautions that could be thought of; amongst the rest was the singular one of firing cannon at the street corners, to purify the air.Mr.
Norris, the American consul, told me the first cases of fever occurred near the port and that it spread rapidly and regularly from house to house, along the streets which run from the waterside to the suburbs, taking about twenty-four hours to reach the end.Some persons related that for several successive evenings before the fever broke out the atmosphere was thick, and that a body of murky vapour, accompanied by a strong stench, travelled from street to street.This moving vapour was called the "Mai da peste" ("the mother or spirit of the plague"); and it was useless to attempt to reason them out of the belief that this was the forerunner of the pestilence.The progress of the disease was very rapid.It commenced in April, in the middle of the wet season.In a few days, thousands of persons lay sick, dying or dead.The state of the city during the time the fever lasted may be easily imagined.Towards the end of June it abated, and very few cases occurred during the dry season from July to December.
As I said before, the yellow fever still lingered in the place when I arrived from the interior in April.I was in hopes Ishould escape it, but was not so fortunate; it seemed to spare no newcomer.At the time I fell ill, every medical man in the place was worked to the utmost in attending the victims of the other epidemic; it was quite useless to think of obtaining their aid, so I was obliged to be my own doctor, as I had been in many former smart attacks of fever.I was seized with shivering and vomit at nine o'clock in the morning.While the people of the house went down to the town for the medicines I ordered, Iwrapped myself in a blanket and walked sharply to and fro along the veranda, drinking at intervals a cup of warm tea, made of a bitter herb in use amongst the natives, called Pajemarioba, a leguminous plant growing in all waste places.About an hour afterwards, I took a good draught of a decoction of elder blossoms as a sudorific, and soon after fell insensible into my hammock.Mr.Philipps, an English resident with whom I was then lodging, came home in the afternoon and found me sound asleep and perspiring famously.I did not wake until almost midnight, when Ifelt very weak and aching in every bone of my body.I then took as a purgative, a small dose of Epsom salts and manna.In forty-eight hours the fever left me, and in eight days from the first attack, I was able to get about my work.Little else happened during my stay, which need be recorded here.I shipped off all my collections to England, and received thence a fresh supply of funds.It took me several weeks to prepare for my second and longest journey into the interior.My plan now was first to make Santarem headquarters for some time, and ascend from that place the river Tapajos as far as practicable.Afterwards I intended to revisit the marvellous country of the Upper Amazons, and work well its natural history at various stations I had fixed upon, from Ega to the foot of the Andes.
