until 1831, and was unfortunately inaccessible to me during the
time I travelled in the same country.

While preparing for my voyage it happened, fortunately, that the
half-brother of Dr. Angelo Custodio, a young mestizo named Joao
da Cunha Correia, was about to start for the Amazons on a trading
expedition in his own vessel, a schooner of about forty tons'
burthen. A passage for me was soon arranged with him through the
intervention of Dr. Angelo, and we started on the 5th of
September, 1849. I intended to stop at some village on the
northern shore of the Lower Amazons, where it would be
interesting to make collections, in order to show the relations
of the fauna to those of Para and the coast region of Guiana. As
I should have to hire a house or hut wherever I stayed, I took
all the materials for housekeeping--cooking utensils, crockery,
and so forth. To these were added a stock of such provisions as
it would be difficult to obtain in the interior--also ammunition,
chests, store-boxes, a small library of natural history books,
and a hundredweight of copper money. I engaged, after some
trouble, a Mameluco youth to accompany me as servant--a short,
fat, yellow-faced boy named Luco, whom I had already employed at
Para in collecting. We weighed anchor at night, and on the
following day found ourselves gliding along the dark-brown waters
of the Moju.

Joao da Cunha, like most of his fellow countrymen, took matters
very easily. He was going to be absent in the interior several
years, and therefore, intended to diverge from his route to visit
his native place, Cameta, and spend a few days with his friends.
It seemed not to matter to him that he had a cargo of