the requisite preparations for my voyage, I left Penedo at one o'clock, p.m., on
the 22nd of February, carrying with me letters to some of the principal
inhabitants of the different places at which we were likely to stop.
The canoe in which we embarked was a very large one, being about forty
feet long and four broad. It is seldom that a single tree is of
sufficient dimensions to form a canoe of this size, but when such is
not the case, they hollow out the largest they can find, sawing it in
two through the middle from stem to stern, and then give it the
requisite breadth by the addition of one or more widths of planks
between the two halves : in this same manner our canoe was constructed.
One end of the bow, for the length of ten feet, was thatched over with
cocoa-nut leaves like the roof a house, wliich thus served both as a
place of shelter from the sun during the day, and as a sleeping berth
by night. It had only one mast, which carried two large triangular
sails of a very coarse cotton cloth, manufactured in the country, and
these were stretched out on each side by a long boom. The sea-breeze
generally reaches Penedo about mid-day, blowing right up the river,
and, with the sails spread out in this wing-like fashion, we went up
the stream with great rapidity, notwithstanding that the current
against us was very strong. As it is dangerous for small canoes to
navigate the river when it is flooded, two of them are lashed side by
side, and thus united, they form what is called an Ajojo. At six
o'clock in the evening we reached the village of Propiti, situated on
the south side of the river, and seven leagues distant from Penedo. It
contains about 2!~,Q houses, mostly small, and built of wicker
work and mud; many of those in the street parallel with the river were
hall' full of water, and consequently abandoned; such, also, we
observed to be the case with many houses wliich we passed during our
voyage.
The
most striking objects of vegetation which I observed on the banks of
the river, were many trees of considerable size, belonging to the
natural order Leguminosa, bearing large spikes of light-purple flowers; abundance of a curious kind of Cactus, reaching
to the height of from twenty to thirty feet, the great fleshy and naked
arms of which, stand out like the branches of an enormous
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