"
brought down a gang of Indians (impressed, no doubt) to build a fort for
twenty guns. The site is in dispute, a Brazilian claiming it as private
property. The white barracks of Tabatinga, the first fortress in Brazil,
are in plain sight, the voyage consuming but twenty minutes. Between San
Antonio and Tabatinga is a ravine, on either side of which is a white
pole, marking the limits of the republic and the empire.

Tabatinga has long been a military post, but, excepting the government
buildings, there are not a dozen houses. Numerous Indians, however, of
the Ticuna tribe, dwell in the neighboring forest. The commandante was O
Illustrissimo Senor Tenente Aristides Juste Mavignier, a tall, thin,
stooping officer, dressed in brown linen. He received us with great
civility, and tendered a house and servant during our stay in port. We
preferred, however, to accept the hospitalities of the "Morona" till the
arrival of the Brazilian steamer. Senor Mavignier was commandante of
Manaos when visited by Agassiz, and presented the Professor with a
hundred varieties of wood. With the like courtesy, he gave us a
collection of reptiles, all of them rare, and many of them new species.
He showed us also a live raposa, or wild dog, peculiar to the Amazon,
but seldom seen. Tabatinga stands on an eminence of yellow clay, and is
defended by twelve guns. The river in front is quite narrow, only about
half a mile wide. Here our passports, which had been signed at
Maucallacta and Loreto, were indorsed by the commandante. They were
afterward examined at Ega, Manaos, and Para. The mean temperature of
Tabatinga we found to be 82 deg..[135] Some rubber and salt fish are
exported, but nothing of consequence is cultivated. Grapes, the people
say, grow well, but are destroyed by the ants. The only fruit-trees we
noticed were the mamai (in Spanish, papaya), araca, and abio. The
papaw-tree bears male and female flowers on different trees, and hence
receives the name of _papaya_ or _mamai_, according to one's view of the
pre-eminence of the sex. The juice of this tree is used by the ladies of
the West Indies as a cosmetic, and by the butchers to render the
toughest meat tender. The fruit is melon-shaped, and of an orange-yellow
color. Vauquelin discovered in it _fibrine_, till lately supposed to be
confined to the animal kingdom.

[Footnote 135: According to Lieutenant Azevedo, the latitude of
Tabatinga is 4 deg. 14' 30"; longitude, 70 deg. 2' 24"; ma