to navigate vessels. Formerly, when the Government wished to send
any important functionary, such as a judge or a military
commandant, into the interior, they equipped a swift-sailing
galliota manned with ten or a dozen Indians. These could travel,
on the average, in one day farther than the ordinary sailing
craft could in three. Indian paddlers were now, however, almost
impossible to be obtained, and Government officers were obliged
to travel as passengers in trading-vessels. The voyage made in
this way was tedious in the extreme. When the regular east-wind
blew--the "vento geral," or trade-wind of the Amazons--sailing-
vessels could get along very well; but when this failed, they
were obliged to remain, sometimes many days together, anchored
near the shore, or progress laboriously by means of the "espia."

The latter mode of travelling was as follows. The montaria, with
twenty or thirty fathoms of cable, one end of which was attached
to the foremast, was sent ahead with a couple of hands, who
secured the other end of the rope to some strong bough or tree-
trunk; the crew then hauled the vessel up to the point, after
which the men in the boat re-embarked the cable, and paddled
forwards to repeat the process. In the dry season, from August to
December, when the trade-wind is strong and the currents slack, a
schooner could reach the mouth of the Rio Negro, a thousand miles
from Para, in about forty days; but in the wet season, from
January to July, when the east-wind no longer blows and the
Amazons pours forth its full volume of water, flooding the banks
and producing a tearing current, it took three months to travel
the same distance. It was a great blessing to the inhabitants
when, in 1853, a line of steamers was established, and this same
journey could be accomplished with ease and comfort, at all