The Andes and the Amazon Part 14

The "Icamiaba" was an iron boat of four hundred and fifty tons, with two engines of fifty horse-power each. The engineer was an Austrian, yet the captain gave his orders in English, though neither could speak the language. The saloon, with berths for twenty-five pa.s.sengers, was above deck, and open at both ends for ventilation. The pa.s.sengers, however, usually swung their hammocks on the upper deck, which was covered by an awning. This was a delightfully breezy and commanding position; and though every part of the steamer was in perfect order, this was scrupulously neat. Here the table was spread with every tropical luxury, and attentively served by young men in spotless attire. Happy the traveler who sits at the table of Commandante Cardozo. The refreshment hours were: Coffee as soon as the pa.s.sengers turned out of their hammocks, and sometimes before; breakfast at ten, dinner at five, and tea at eight. Live bullocks, fowls, and turtles were kept on board, so that of fresh meat, particularly beef (the first we had tasted since leaving Quito), there was no lack. At breakfast we counted nine different courses of meat. The Peruvian steamers are limited to turtle and salt fish. Rice and farina are extensively used in Brazil, but we saw very little tapioca. Farina is the flour of the country, and is eaten in hard, dry grains; it will not keep in any other form. It can not be very nutritious, as it contains little gluten. All bread and b.u.t.ter are imported from the United States and England. The captains of Brazilian steamers are their own stewards; and in the midst of other business in port, they stop to negotiate for a chicken, or a dozen eggs, with an Indian or Negro. The "Icamiaba" left Tabatinga with only three first-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers, besides our own party. On no Amazon steamer did we meet with a lady pa.s.senger. Madame G.o.din, who came down the river from the Andes, and Mrs. Aga.s.siz, who ascended to Tabatinga, were among the few ladies who have seen these upper waters. But how differently they traveled! one on a raft, the other on the beautiful "Icamiaba."

Between Tabatinga and Teffe, a distance of five hundred miles, is perhaps the most uncivilized part of the main river. Ascending, we find improvements multiply as we near the mountains of Peru; descending, we see the march of civilization in the budding cities and expanding commerce culminating at Grand Para. The scenery from the deck of an Amazonian steamer, if described, appears monotonous. A vast volume of smooth, yellow water, floating trees and beds of aquatic gra.s.s, low, linear-shaped, wooded islets, a dark, even forest--the sh.o.r.es of a boundless sea of verdure, and a cloudless sky occasionally obscured by flocks of parrots: these are the general features. No busy towns are seen along the banks of the Middle Amazon; only here and there a palm hut or semi-Indian village half buried in the wilderness. We agree with Darwin (speaking of the Plata), that "a wide expanse of muddy water has neither grandeur nor beauty." The real grandeur, however, of a great river like this is derived from reflecting upon its prospective commercial importance and its immense drainage. A lover of nature, moreover, can never tire of gazing at the picturesque grouping and variety of trees, with their mantles of creeping plants; while a little imagination can see in the alligators, ganoid fishes, sea-cows, and tall gray herons, the ichthyosaurus, holoptychius, dinotherium, and brontozoum of ancient days. Here and there the river is bordered with low alluvial deposits covered with feathery-topped arrow-gra.s.s and amphibious vegetation; but generally the banks are about ten feet high and magnificently wooded; they are abrupt, and land-slides are frequent.

A few minutes after leaving Tabatinga we pa.s.sed the mouth of the Javari, which forms the natural boundary between Peru and Brazil. Henceforth the river loses the name of Maranon, and is called Solimoens, or, more commonly, simply Amazon. We were ten hours in reaching San Paulo, a wretched Ticuna village of five hundred souls, built on a gra.s.sy table-land nearly one hundred feet high. Steps have been cut in the slippery clay bluff to facilitate the ascent. Swamps lie back of the town, rendering it unhealthy. "On damp nights (says the Naturalist on the Amazon) the chorus of frogs and toads which swarm in weedy back-yards creates such a bewildering uproar that it is impossible to carry on a conversation in doors except by shouting."

In ten hours more we had pa.s.sed the Putumayo and entered the Tunantins, a sluggish, dark-colored tributary emptying into the Amazon about two hundred miles below the Javari.[136] On the bank of white earth, which strongly contrasts with the tinted stream, is a dilapidated hamlet of twenty-five hovels, built of bamboo plastered with mud and whitewashed.

We saw but one two-storied house; and all have ground-floors and double-thatched roofs. The inhabitants are semi-civilized Shumana and Pa.s.se Indians and half-breeds; but in the gloomy forest which hugs the town live the wild Caishanas. The atmosphere is close and steaming, but not hot, the mercury at noon standing at 83. The place is alive with insects and birds. The nights on the Amazon were invariably cool; on the Lower Amazon, cold, so that we required a heavy blanket.

[Footnote 136: Herndon says (p. 241), "the Tunantins is about fifty yards broad, and seems deep with a considerable current."]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Kitchen on the Amazon.]

Taking on board wood, beeves, turtles, salt fish, and water-melons, we left at half past 2 P.M. The Brazilian steamers run all night, and with no slackening of speed. At one o'clock we were awakened by a cry from the watch, "Stop her!" And immediately after there was a crash; but it was only the breaking of crockery caused by the sudden stoppage. The night was fearfully dark, and for aught we knew the steamer was running headlong into the forest. Fortunately there was no collision, and in a few minutes we were again on our way, arriving at Fonte Boa at 4 A.M.

This little village stands in a palm grove, on a high bank of ochre-colored sandy clay, beside a slue of sluggish black water, eight miles from the Amazon.[137] The inhabitants, about three hundred, are ignorant, lazy mamelucos. They dress like the majority of the semi-civilized people on the Amazon: the men content with shirt and pantaloons, the women wearing cotton or gauze chemises and calico petticoats. Fonte Boa is a museum for the naturalist, but the headquarters of musquitoes, small but persistent. Taking in a large quant.i.ty of turtle-oil, the "Icamiaba" turned down the cano, but almost immediately ran aground, and we were two hours getting off. These yearly shifting shoals in the Amazon can not be laid down in charts, and the most experienced pilots often run foul of them. In twelve hours we entered the Teffe, a tributary from the Bolivian mountains. Just before reaching the Great River it expands into a beautiful lake, with a white, sandy beach. On a gra.s.sy slope, stretching out into the lake, with a harbor on each side of it, lies the city of Ega. A hundred palm-thatched cottages of mud and tiled frame houses, each with an inclosed orchard of orange, lemon, banana, and guava trees, surround a rude church, marked by a huge wooden crucifix on the green before it, instead of a steeple.

Cacao, a.s.sa, and pupunha palms rise above the town, adding greatly to its beauty; while back of all, on the summit of the green slope, begins the picturesque forest, pathless, save here and there a faint hunter's track leading to the untrodden interior. The sheep and cattle grazing on the lawn, a rare sight in Alto Amazonas, gives a peaceful and inviting aspect to the scene. The inhabitants, numbering about twelve hundred, are made up of pure Indians, half-castes, negroes, mulattoes, and whites. Ega (also called Teffe) is the largest and most thriving town between Manaos and Iquitos, a distance of twelve hundred miles. It is also one of the oldest settlements on the river, having been founded during the English revolution, or nearly two centuries ago. Tupi is the common idiom. The productions of the country are cacao, sarsaparilla, Brazil nuts, bast for caulking vessels, copaiba balsam, India-rubber, salt fish, turtle-oil, manati, gra.s.s hammocks, and tiles. Bates calculates the value of the annual exports at nearly forty thousand dollars. The "Icamiaba" calls here twice a month; besides which there are small schooners which occupy about five months in the round trip between Ega and Para. "The place is healthy (writes the charming Naturalist on the Amazon), and almost free from insect pests; perpetual verdure surrounds it; the soil is of marvelous fertility, even for Brazil; the endless rivers and labyrinths of channels teem with fish and turtle; a fleet of steamers might anchor at any season of the year in the lake, which has uninterrupted water communication straight to the Atlantic. What a future is in store for the sleepy little tropical village!" Here Bates pursued b.u.t.terflies for four years and a half, and Aga.s.siz fished for six months.

[Footnote 137: Smyth says the town gets its name from the clearness of the water; but Herndon found it muddy, and, to our eyes, it was dark as the Negro.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Natives on the Middle Amazon.]

Ega is the half-way point across the continent, but its exact alt.i.tude above the sea is unknown. Herndon's boiling apparatus gave two thousand feet, and, what is worse, the lieutenant believed it. Our barometer made it one hundred feet; but as our instrument, though perfect in itself, behaved _very_ strangely on the Middle Amazon, we do not rely on the calculation. The true height is not far from one hundred and twenty-five feet, or one fifth the elevation of the middle point in the North American continent.[138] Taking on board salt fish, turtle-oil, and tiles, we left Ega two hours after midnight, reaching Coary at noon.

The Amazon began to look more like a lake than a river, having a width of four or five miles. Floating gulls and rolling porpoises remind one of the sea. Coary is a huddle of fifteen houses, six of them plastered without, whitewashed, and tiled. It is situated on a lake of the same name--the expanded outlet of a small river whose waters are dark brown, and whose banks are low and covered with bushes. Here we took in turtles and turtle-oil, Brazil nuts and cocoa-nuts, rubber, salt fish, and wood; and, six hours after leaving, more fish and rubber were received at Cudaja. Cudaja is a lonely spot on the edge of an extensive system of back-waters and lakes, running through a dense unexplored forest inhabited by Mura savages.

[Footnote 138: For a discussion of the barometric perturbations on the Amazon, see _American Journal of Science_ for Sept., 1868.]

At three in the afternoon of Christmas, seventy-four hours' running time from Tabatinga, we entered the Rio Negro. Strong is the contrast between its black-dyed waters and the yellow Amazon. The line separating the two rivers is sharply drawn, the waters meeting, not mingling. Circular patches of the dark waters of the Negro are seen floating like oil amid the turbid waters of the Amazon. The sluggish tributary seems to be dammed up by the impetuous monarch. The banks of the latter are low, ragged, perpendicular beds of clay, covered with a bright green foliage; the Negro is fringed with sandy beaches, with hills in the background clothed with a sombre, monotonous forest containing few palms or leguminous trees. Musquitoes, piums, and montucas never trouble the traveler on the inky stream. When seen in a tumbler, the water of the Negro is clear, but of a light-red color; due, undoubtedly, to vegetable matter. The visible mouth of the river at this season of the year (December) is three miles wide, but from main-land to main-land it can not be less than twenty.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Siesta.]

In forty minutes after leaving the Amazon we arrived at Manaos. This important city lies on the left bank of the Negro, ten miles from its mouth and twenty feet above high-water level. The site is very uneven, and consists of ferruginous sandstone. There was originally a fort here, erected by the Portuguese to protect their slave-hunting expeditions among the Indians on the river--hence the ancient name of Barra. On the old map of Father Fritz (1707) the spot is named _Taromas_. Since 1852 it has been called Manaos, after the most warlike tribe. Some of the houses are two-storied, but the majority are low adobe structures, white and yellow washed, floored and roofed with tiles, and having green doors and shutters. Every room is furnished with hooks for hanging hammocks.

We did not see a bed between Quito and New York except on the steamers.

The population, numbering two thousand,[139] is a mongrel set--Brazilians, Portuguese, Italians, Jews, Negroes, and Indians, with divers crosses between them. Laziness is the prominent characteristic. A gentleman offered an Indian pa.s.sing his door twenty-five cents if he would bring him a pitcher of water from the river, only a few rods distant. He declined. "But I will give you fifty cents." Whereupon the half-clothed, penniless aboriginal replied: "I will give you a dollar to bring me some."[140] While every inch of the soil is of exuberant fertility, there is always a scarcity of food. It is the dearest spot on the Amazon. Most of the essentials and all of the luxuries come from Liverpool, Lisbon, and New York. Agriculture is at a discount on the Amazon. Brazilians will not work; European immigrants are traders; nothing can be done with Indians; and negroes are few in number, the slave-trade being abolished, emanc.i.p.ation begun, and the Paraguayan war not ended. A laboring cla.s.s will ever be a desideratum in this tropical country. With a healthy climate,[141] and a situation at the juncture of two great navigable rivers, Manaos is destined to become the St.

Louis of South America. In commercial advantages it is hardly to be surpa.s.sed by any other city in the world, having water communication with two thirds of the continent, and also with the Atlantic. It is now the princ.i.p.al station for the Brazilian line of steamers. Here all goods for a higher or lower point are reshipped. The chief articles of export are coffee (of superior quality), sarsaparilla, Brazil nuts, pia.s.saba, and fish. The Negro at this point is really five or six miles wide, but the opposite sh.o.r.e is masked by low islands, so that it appears to be but a mile and a half.

[Footnote 139: Official returns for 1848 give 3614; Bates (1850) reckons 3000.]

[Footnote 140: Darwin met a similar specimen in Banda Oriental: "I asked two men why they did not work. One gravely said the days were too long; the other that he was too poor."]

[Footnote 141: It is, however, one of the warmest spots on the river.

The average temperature, according to Azevedo and Pinto, is only 79.7; but the highest point readied on the Amazon in 1862 (87.3) was at Manaos, and the extraordinary height of 95 has been noted there.]

The country around Manaos is quite romantic for the Amazonian Valley.

The land is undulating and furrowed by ravines, and the vegetation covering it is marvelously rich and diversified. In the forest, two miles from the city, there is a natural curiosity celebrated by all travelers from Spix and Martius down. A rivulet coming out of the wilderness falls over a ledge of red sandstone ten feet high and fifty feet broad, forming a beautiful cascade. The water is cool, and of a deep orange color. The foundation of a fine stone cathedral was laid in Manaos fourteen years ago, but this generation is not likely to witness the dedication. Life in this Amazonian city is dull enough: commerce is not brisk, and society is stiff; b.a.l.l.s are about the only amus.e.m.e.nts. On Sunday (the holiday) every body who can afford it comes out in Paris fashions. There are carts, hut no coaches. We called upon the President at his "Palace"--an odd term for a two-storied, whitewashed edifice. His excellency received us with less formality and more cordiality than we expected to find in the solemn officials of the empire. The first glance at the reception-room, with the four chairs for visitors set in two lines at right angles to the chair of state, promised cold etiquette; but he addressed us with considerable familiarity and evident good-will.

We found, however, that his authority was quite limited, for a written order which he gave us for a subordinate did not receive the slightest consideration. At the house of a Jew named Levy we met a party of Southerners, Captains Mallory, Jones, Sandedge, and Winn, commanded by Dr. Dowsing, who, since "the late onpleasantness," as Nasby calls it, have determined to settle in this country. The government grants them twenty square leagues of land on any tributary, on condition that they will colonize it. They were about to start for the Rio Branco on an exploring tour.

CHAPTER XVII.

Down the Amazon.--Serpa.--Villa Nova.--Obidos.--Santarem.--A Colony of Southerners.--Monte Alegre.--Porto do Moz.--Leaving the Amazon.--Breves.--Para River.--The City of Para.--Legislation and Currency.--Religion and Education.--Nonpareil Climate.

At 10 P.M. we left Manaos in the "Tapajos," an iron steamer of seven hundred tons. We missed the snow-white cleanliness and rigid regularity of the "Icamiaba," and Captain Jose Antunes Rodrigues de Oliveira Catramby was quite a contrast to Lieutenant Nuno. There were only five first-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers besides ourselves (and four of these were "dead-heads"), though there were accommodations for sixty-four. Between Manaos and Para, a distance of one thousand miles, there were fourteen additions. Pa.s.sing the mouth of the Madeira, the largest tributary to the Amazon, we anch.o.r.ed thirty miles below at Serpa, after nine hours'

sailing. Serpa is a village of ninety houses, built on a high bank of variegated clay, whence its Indian name, _Ita-coatiara_, or painted rock. It was the most animated place we had seen on the river. The town is irregularly laid out and overrun with weeds, but there is a busy tile factory, and the port was full of canoes, montarias, and cubertas. The African element in the population began to show itself prominently here, and increased in importance as we neared Para. The Negroes are very ebony, and are employed as stevedores. The Indians are well-featured, and wear a long gown of bark-cloth reaching to the knees.

Taking on board rubber and salt fish, the "Tapajos" steamed down stream, pa.s.sing the perpendicular pink-clay cliffs of Cararaucu, arriving in ten hours at Villa Nova,[142] one hundred and fifty miles below Serpa.

Villa Nova is a straggling village of mud huts standing on a conglomerate bank. The trade is chiefly in rubber, copaiba, and fish.

The location is healthy, and in many respects is one of the most desirable places on the river. Here the Amazon begins to narrow, being scarcely three miles wide; but the channel, which has a rocky bed, is very deep. One hundred miles from Villa Nova is Obidos, airily situated on a bluff of pink and yellow clay one hundred feet above the river. The clay rests on a white calcareous earth, and this on red sandstone. It is a picturesque, substantially-built town, with a population, mostly white, engaged in raising cacao and cattle. Cacao is the most valuable product on the Amazon below Villa Nova. The soil is fertile, and the surrounding forest is alive with monkeys, birds, and insects, and abounds with precious woods and fruits. Obidos is blessed with a church, a school, and a weekly newspaper, and is defended by thirty-two guns.

This is the Thermopylae of the Amazon, the great river contracting to a strait not a mile in width, through which it rushes with tremendous velocity. The depth is forty fathoms, and the current 2.4 feet per second. As Bates remarks, however, the river valley is not contracted to this breadth, the southern sh.o.r.e not being continental land, but a low alluvial tract subject to inundation. Back of Obidos is an eminence which has been named _Mount Aga.s.siz_ in honor of the Naturalist. There is no mountain between it and Cotopaxi save the spurs from the Eastern Cordillera. Five miles above the town is the mouth of the Trombetas, where Orellana had his celebrated fight with the fabulous Amazons.

[Footnote 142: Otherwise called, on Brazilian maps, Villa Bella da Imperatriz.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Santarem.]

Adding to her cargo wood, hides, horses, and Paraguayan prisoners (short, athletic men), the "Tapajos" sailed for Santarem. The river scenery below Obidos loses its wild and solitary character, and is relieved with scattered habitations, factories, and cacao plantations.

We arrived at Santarem in seven hours from Obidos, a distance of fifty miles. This city, the largest on the Amazon save Para, stands on a pretty slope at the mouth of the Rio Tapajos, and five hundred miles from the sea.[143] It mainly consists of three long-rows of whitewashed, tiled houses, girt with green gardens. The citizens, made up of Brazilians, Portuguese, mulattoes, and blacks, number about two thousand five hundred. The surrounding country, which is an undulating campo, with patches of wood, is spa.r.s.ely inhabited by Tapajocos. Cattle estates and cacao plantations are the great investments, but the soil is poor.

Considerable sarsaparilla of superior quality, rubber, copaiba, Brazil nuts, and farina come down the Tapajos. The climate is delightful, the trade-winds tempering the heat and driving away all insect pests.

Leprosy is somewhat common among the poorer cla.s.s. At Santarem is one of the largest colonies which migrated from the disaffected Gulf States for Brazil. One hundred and sixty Southerners pitched their tents here. Many of them, however, were soon disgusted with the country, and, if we are to believe reports, the country was disgusted with them. On the 1st of January, 1868, only seventy-five remained. The colony does not fairly represent the United States, being made up in great part of the "roughs"

of Mobile. A few are contented and are doing well. Amazonia will be indebted to them for some valuable ideas. Bates says: "b.u.t.ter-making is unknown in this country; the milk, I was told, was too poor." But these Anglo-Saxon immigrants have no difficulty in making b.u.t.ter. Santarem sends to Para for sugar; but the cavaliers of Alabama are proving that the sugar-cane grows better than in Louisiana, attaining the height of twenty feet, and that it will yield for ten or twelve years without transplanting or cultivation. It is not, however, so sweet or juicy as the Southern cane. Some of the colonists are making tapioca and cashaca or Brazilian rum; others have gone into the pork business; while one, Dr. Jones, expects to realize a fortune burning lime. Here we met the rebel ex-General Dobbins, who had been prospecting on the Tapajos River, but had not yet located himself.

[Footnote 143: Herndon makes Santarem 460 miles from the Negro, and 650 from the sea. Bates calls it 400 miles from the Atlantic, and nearly 50 from Obidos.]

Below Santarem the Amazon vastly increases in width; at one point the southern sh.o.r.e was invisible from the steamer. The waves often run very high. At 10 A.M., eight hours from Santarem, we entered the romantic port of Monte Alegre. The road from the river to the village, just visible inland, runs through a pretty dell. Back of the village, beyond a low, swampy flat, rise the table-topped blue hills of Almeyrim. It was an exhilarating sight and a great relief to gaze upon a mountain range from three hundred to one thousand feet high, the greatest elevations along the Amazon east of the Andes. Aga.s.siz considers these singular mountains the remnants of a plain which once filled the whole valley of the Amazon; but Bates believes them to be the southern terminus of the high land of Guiana. Their geological const.i.tution--a pebbly sandstone--favors the Professor's theory. The range extends ninety miles along the north bank of the river, the western limit at Monte Alegre bearing the local name of Serra Erere. Mount Aga.s.siz, at Obidos, is a spur of the same table-land. The Amazon is here about five miles wide, the southern sh.o.r.e being low, uninhabited, and covered with coa.r.s.e gra.s.s. Five schooners were anch.o.r.ed in the harbor of Monte Alegre, a sign of considerable trade for the Amazon. The place exports cattle, cacao, rubber, and fish.

In four hours we reached Prayinha, a dilapidated village of forty houses, situated on a low, sandy beach. The chief occupation is the manufacture of turtle-oil. In ten hours more we were taking in wood at Porto do Moz, situated just within the mouth of the Xingu, the last great tributary to the Amazon. Dismal was our farewell sail on the great river. With the highlands came foul weather. We were treated to frequent and furious showers, accompanied by a violent wind, and the atmosphere was filled with smoke caused by numerous fires in the forest. Where the Xingu comes in, the Amazon is ten miles wide, but it is soon divided by a series of islands, the first of which is Grand Island. Twenty miles below Porto do Moz is Gurupa, where we took in rubber. The village, nearly as inanimate as Pompeii, consists of one street, half deserted, built on an isolated site. Forty miles below Gurupa we left the Amazon proper, turning to the right down a narrow channel leading into the river Para. The forest became more luxuriant, the palms especially increasing in number and beauty. At one place there was a forest of palms, a singularity, for trees of the same order are seldom a.s.sociated.

The forest, densely packed and gloomy, stands on very low, flat banks of hard river mud. Scarcely a sign of animal life was visible; but, as we progressed, dusky faces peered out of the woods; little shanties belonging to the _seringeros_, or rubber-makers, here and there broke the solitude, and occasionally a large group of half-clad natives greeted us from the sh.o.r.e. A labyrinth of channels connects the Amazon with the Para; the steamers usually take the Taj.a.puru. This natural ca.n.a.l is of great depth, and from fifty to one hundred yards in width; so that, hemmed in by two green walls, eighty feet-high, we seemed to be sailing through a deep gorge; in some places it was so narrow it was nearly overarched by the foliage. One hundred and twenty-five miles from Gurupa is Breves, a busy little town on the southwest corner of the great island of Marajo. The inhabitants, mostly Portuguese, are engaged in the rubber trade; the Indians in the vicinity manufacture fancy earthen-ware and painted cuyas or calabashes.

Soon after leaving Breves we entered the Para River, which suddenly begins with the enormous width of eight miles. It is, however, shallow, and contains numerous shoals and islands. It is properly an estuary, immense volumes of fresh water flowing into it from the south. The tides are felt through its entire length of one hundred and sixty miles, but the water is only slightly brackish. It has a dingy orange-brown color.

A narrow blue line on our left, miles away, was all that was visible, at times, of the island of Marajo; and as we pa.s.sed the broad mouth of the Tocantins, we were struck with the magnificent sea-like expanse, for there was scarcely a point of mainland to be seen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Para.]

At 4 P.M., eighteen hours from Breves, we entered the peaceful bay of Goajara, and anch.o.r.ed in front of the city of Para. Beautiful was the view of the city from the harbor in the rays of the declining sun. The towering spires and cupolas, the palatial government buildings, the long row of tall warehouses facing a fleet of schooners, ships, and steamers, and pretty white villas in the suburbs, nestling in luxuriant gardens, were to us, who had just come down the Andes from mediaeval Quito, the _ultima thule_ of civilization. We seemed to have stepped at once from the Amazon to New York or London. We might, indeed, say _ne plus ultra_ in one respect--we had crossed the continent, and Para was the terminus of our wanderings, the end of romantic adventures, of privations and perils. We were kindly met on the pier by Mr. James Henderson, an elderly Scotchman, whom a long residence in Para, a bottomless fund of information, and a readiness to serve an Anglo-Saxon, have made an invaluable cicerone. We shot through the devious, narrow streets to the Hotel Diana, where we made our toilet, for our habiliments, too, had reached their _ultima thule_. As La Condamine said on his arrival at Quito: "_Je me trouvai hors d'etat de paroitre en public avec decence_."

The same year which saw Shakspeare carried to his grave beside the Avon witnessed the founding of Para, or, speaking more respectfully, of Santa Maria de Belem do Gram Para. The city stands on a low elbow of land formed by the junction of the rivers Guama and Para, seventy-five miles from the ocean. The great forest comes close up to the suburbs; and, in fact, vegetation is so rapid the city fathers have a hard struggle to keep the jungle out of the streets. The river in front is twenty miles wide, but the vast expanse is broken by numerous islets. Ships of any size will float within, one hundred and fifty yards of the sh.o.r.e. All pa.s.sengers and goods are landed by boats at the custom-house wharf. The city is regularly laid out, there are several public squares, and many of the streets, especially in the commercial part, are well paved.

Magnificent avenues, lined with silk-cotton trees, cocoa-palms, and almonds, lead out to beautiful _rocinhas_, or country residences, of one story, but having s.p.a.cious verandas. The President's house, built in the Italian style, whose marble staircase is a wonder to Brazil; the six large churches, including the cathedral, after patterns from Lisbon; the post-office, custom-house, and convent-looking warehouses on the mole--these are the most prominent buildings. The architecture is superior to that of Quito. The houses, generally two-storied, are tiled, plastered, and whitewashed or painted; the popular colors are red, yellow, and blue. A few have porcelain facing. The majority have elegant balconies and gla.s.s windows, but not all the old projecting lattice cas.e.m.e.nts have disappeared. Some of the buildings bear the marks of the cannonading in the Revolution of 1835. Instead of bedrooms and beds, the largest apartments and verandahs have hooks in the wall for hammocks. A carpeted, cushioned room is seldom seen, and is out of place in the tropics. Coaches and gas are supplanting ox-carts and candles.

There are two hotels, but scant accommodations for travelers. Beef is almost the only meat used; the fish are poor and dear; the oysters are horrible. Bananas, oranges, and coffee are the best native productions on the table.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fruit Peddlers.]

The population of Para is thirty-five thousand, or double what it was when Wallace and Bates entered it twenty years ago. It is the largest city on the largest river in the world, and the capital of a province ten times the size of New York State. The enterprising, wealthy cla.s.s consists of Portuguese and pure Brazilians, with a few English, Germans, French, and North Americans. The mult.i.tude is an amalgamation of Portuguese, Indian, and Negro. The diversity of races, and the mingled dialects of the Amazon and Europe, make an attractive street scene. Side by side we see the corpulent Brazilian planter, the swarthy Portuguese trader, the merry Negro porter, and the apathetic Indian boatman. Some of the more recent offspring are dressed _a la Adam_ before the fall; numbers wear only a shirt or skirt; the negro girls who go about the streets with trays of sweetmeats on their heads are loosely yet prettily dressed in pure white, with ma.s.sive gilded chains and earrings; but the middle and upper cla.s.ses generally follow Paris fashions. The mechanic arts are in the hands of free Negroes and Indians, mulattoes and mamelucos.[144] Commerce is carried on almost exclusively by Portuguese and other foreigners. Dry-goods come chiefly from England and France; groceries from Portugal; flour and hardware from the United States. The princ.i.p.al exports are rubber, cacao, coffee,[145] sugar, cotton, Brazil nuts, sarsaparilla, vanilla, farina, copaiba, tobacco, rum, hides, fish, parrots, and monkeys.[146] Para exceeds in the number of its indigenous commodities any other port in the world, but the trade at present is insignificant when we consider the vast extent and resources of the country. The city can never have a rival at the mouth of the Amazon, and is destined to become a great emporium. But Brazilian legislation stands in the way. Heavy import duties are charged--from 35 to 45 per cent.; and on the 1st of January, 1868, it was ordered that 15 per cent. must be paid in English gold. The consequence has been that gold has risen from 28 to 30 above par, creating an additional tax. Exportation is equally discouraging. There is a duty of nine per cent. to be paid at the custom-house, and seven per cent. more at the consulado. But this is not the sum total. Those who live outside of the province of Para, say above Obidos, must first pay an import of thirteen per cent. to get their produce into Para. For example: up the river crude rubber can be bought for twenty-five cents a pound; the trader pays twenty-five cents an arroba (thirty-two pounds) for transportation to Para from Santarem, exclusive of canoe hire and shipping; thirteen per cent. duty in entering Para, ten per cent. to the commission merchant, and sixteen per cent. more as export tax; making a total loss on labor of about fifty per cent. Brazil abounds with the most valuable woods in the world, but is prevented from competing with other nations by this system of self-strangulation. In 1867 the import duty on timber was twelve per cent. Though situated on the edge of a boundless forest, Para consumes large quant.i.ties of North American pine. There is not a grist-mill on the Amazon, and only two or three saw-mills. A dozen boards of red cedar (a very common timber) costs 60$000 per thousand (about thirty dollars) at Santarem. There is no duty on goods going to Peru. The current money, besides foreign gold, consists of copper coins and imperial treasury notes. The basis of calculation is the imaginary _rey_, equivalent to half a mill. The coins in use are the vintem (twenty reys), answering to our cent, the half vintem, and double vintem. The currency has so fluctuated in value that many of the pieces have been restamped. Fifty vintems make a _milrey_, expressed thus: 1$000. This is the smallest paper issue. Unfortunately, the notes may suddenly fall below par. As a great many counterfeits made in Portugal are in circulation, the government recalls the issue which has been counterfeited, notifying holders, by the provincial papers, that all such bills must be exchanged for a new issue within six months. Those not brought in at the end of that period lose ten per cent. of their value, and ten per cent. for each following month, until the value of the note is _nil_. The result has been that many persons trading up the river have lost heavily, and now demand hard money. Change is very scarce in Para.

[Footnote 144: We are inclined to doubt the a.s.sertion of Mansfield that Paraguay is the only country in eastern South America with an industrious peasantry.]

[Footnote 145: Brazil yields more than one half the quant.i.ty of coffee consumed by the world. That of Ceara is the best.]

[Footnote 146: In January, 1868, the current prices were as follows: