travelling is enjoyable, and one no longer wonders at the love
which many, both natives and strangers, have for this wandering
life. The little schooner sped rapidly on with booms bent and
sails stretched to the utmost; just as day dawned, we ran with
scarcely slackened speed into the port of Cameta, and cast
anchor.

I stayed at Cameta until the 16th of July, and made a
considerable collection of the natural productions of the
neighbourhood. The town in 1849 was estimated to contain about
5000 inhabitants, but the municipal district of which Cameta is
the capital numbered 20,000; this, however, comprised the whole
of the lower part of the Tocantins, which is the most thickly
populated part of the province of Para. The productions of the
district are cacao, india-rubber, and Brazil nuts. The most
remarkable feature in the social aspect of the place is the
hybrid nature of the whole population, the amalgamation of the
white and Indian races being here complete. The aborigines were
originally very numerous on the western bank of the Tocantins,
the principal tribe having been the Camutas, from which the city
takes its name. They were a superior nation, settled, and
attached to agriculture, and received with open arms the white
immigrants who were attracted to the district by its fertility,
natural beauty, and the healthfulness of the climate. The
Portuguese settlers were nearly all males, the Indian women were
good-looking, and made excellent wives; so the natural result has
been, in the course of two centuries, a complete blending of the
two races. There is now, however, a considerable infusion of
negro blood in the mixture, several hundred African slaves having
been introduced during the last seventy years. The few whites are