Our canoe was
a stoutly built igarite, arranged for ten paddlers, and having a
large arched toldo at the stern under which three persons could
sleep pretty comfortably. Emerging from the Teffe we descended
rapidly on the swift current of the Solimoens to the south-
eastern or lower end of the large wooded island of Baria, which
here divides the river into two great channels. We then paddled
across to Shimuni, which lies in the middle of the northeasterly
channel, reaching the commencement of the praia an hour before
sunset. The island proper is about three miles long and half a
mile broad: the forest with which it is covered rises to an
immense and uniform height, and presents all round a compact,
impervious front. Here and there a singular tree, called Pao
mulatto (mulatto wood), with polished dark-green trunk, rose
conspicuously among the mass of vegetation. The sandbank, which
lies at the upper end of the island, extends several miles and
presents an irregular, and in some parts, strongly-waved surface,
with deep hollows and ridges.
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