Cuap. I. PROVINCE OF PARA. 19 
the perpetual verdure, the coolness of the dry season when the sun’s 
heat is tempered by the strong sea-breezes and the moderation of the 
periodical rains, make the climaté one of the most enjoyable on the 
face of the earth. 
The province is governed, like all others in the empire, by a President, 
as chief civil authority. At the time of our arrival he held also, 
exceptionally, the chief military command. This functionary, together 
with the head of police administration and the judges, is nominated by 
the central Government at Rio Janeiro. The municipal and internal 
affairs are managed by a provincial assembly elected by the people. 
Every villa or borough throughout the province also possesses its 
municipal council, and in thinly-populated districts the inhabitants 
choose every four years a justice of the peace, who adjudicates in small 
disputes between neighbours. A system of popular education exists, 
and every village has its school of first letters, the master being paid by 
the government, the salary amounting to about £70, or the same sum 
as the priests receive. Besides common schools a well-endowed 
classical seminary is maintained at Para, to which the sons of most of 
the planters and traders in the interior are sent to complete their 
education. ‘The province returns its quota of members every four years 
to the lower and upper houses of the imperial parliament. Every 
householder has a vote. ‘Trial by jury has been established, the jury- 
men being selected from householders, no matter what their race or 
colour ; and I have seen the white merchant, the negro husbandman, 
the mameluco, the mulatto and the Indian, all sitting side by side on 
the same bench. Altogether the constitution of government in Brazil 
seems to combine happily the principles of local self-government and 
centralisation, and only requires a proper degree of virtue and intelli- 
gence in the people to lead the nation to great prosperity. 
The province of Para, or, as we may now say, the two provinces of 
Para and the Amazons, contain an area of 800,000 square miles; the 
population of which is only about 230,000, or in the ratio of one 
person to four square miles. The country is covered with forests, 
and the soil fertile in the extreme even for a tropical country. It 
is intersected throughout by broad and deep navigable rivers. It 
is the pride of the Paraenses to call the Amazons the Mediterranean 
of South America. It perhaps deserves the name, for not only have 
the main river and its principal tributaries an immense expanse of water 
bathing the shores of extensive and varied regions, but there is also 
throughout a system of back-channels, connected with the main rivers by 
narrow outlets and linking together a series of lakes, some of which are 
fifteen, twenty, and thirty miles in length. The whole Amazons valley 
is thus covered by a network of navigable waters, forming a vast inland 
freshwater sea with endless ramifications rather than a river. 
The city of Para was founded in 1615, and was a place of considerable 
importance towards the latter half of the eighteenth century, under the 
government of the brother of Pombal, the famous Portuguese statesman. 
The province was the last in Brazil to declare its independence of the 
mother country and acknowledge the authority of the first emperor, 
Don Pedro. ‘This was owing to the great numbers and influence of the 
