Mr.
Patchett and I tried to get a little sleep, but the cabin was so
small and encumbered with boxes placed at all sorts of angles,
that we found sleep impossible. I was just dozing when the day
dawned, and, on awakening, the first object I saw was the Santa
Rosa, at anchor under a green island in mid-river. I preferred to
make the remainder of the voyage in company of my collections, so
bade Mr. Patchett good-day. The owner of the Santa Rosa, Senor
Jacinto Machado, whom I had not seen before, received me aboard,
and apologised for having started without me. He was a white man,
a planter, and was now taking his year's production of cacao,
about twenty tons, to Para. The canoe was very heavily laden, and
I was rather alarmed to see that it was leaking at all points.
The crew were all in the water diving about to feel for the
holes, which they stopped with pieces of ray and clay, and an old
negro was baling the water out of the hold. This was a pleasant
prospect for a three-day voyage! Senor Machado treated it as the
most ordinary incident possible: "It was always likely to leak,
for it was an old vessel that had been left as worthless high and
dry on the beach, and he had bought it very cheap.
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