Cuap. VII. BARRA. 173, 
on the banks of the Amazons. At the time of my visit it was on the 
decline, in consequence of the growing distrust, or increased cunning, 
of the Indians, who once formed a numerous and the sole labouring 
class, but having got to know that the laws protected them against 
forced servitude, were rapidly withdrawing themselves’ from the place. 
When the new province of the Amazons was established, in 1852, 
Barra was chosen as the capital, and was then invested with the appro- 
priate name of the city of Mandos. 
The situation of the town has many advantages: the climate is 
healthy ; there are no insect pests; the soil is fertile and capable of 
growing all kinds of tropical produce (the coffee of the Rio Negro, 
especially, being of very superior quality), and it is near the fork of two 
great navigable rivers. The imagination becomes excited when one 
reflects on the possible future of this place, situated near the centre of the 
equatorial part of South America, in the midst of a region almost as 
large as Europe, every inch of whose soil is of the most exuberant 
fertility, and having water communication on one side with the Atlantic, 
and on the other with the Spanish republics of Venezuela, New Granada, 
Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. Barra is now the principal station for the 
lines of steamers which were established in 1853, and passengers and 
goods are transhipped here for the Solimoens and Peru. A steamer 
runs once a fortnight between Parad and Barra, and a bi-monthly one 
plies between this place and Nauta, in the Peruvian territory. The 
steamboat company is supported by a large annual grant, about 
450,000 sterling, from the imperial government. Barra was formerly 
a pleasant place of residence, but it is now in a most wretched plight, 
suffering from a chronic scarcity of the most necessary articles of food. 
The attention of the settlers was formerly devoted almost entirely to 
the collection of the spontaneous produce of the forests and rivers; 
agriculture was consequently neglected, and now the neighbourhood 
does not produce even mandioca-meal sufficient for its own consump- 
tion. Many of the most necessary articles of food, besides all luxuries, 
come from Portugal, England, and North America. A few bullocks 
are brought now and then from Obydos, 500 miles off, the nearest place 
where cattle are reared in any numbers, and these furnish at long in- 
tervals a supply of fresh beef, but this is generally monopolised by the 
families of government officials. Fowls, eggs, fresh fish, turtles, vege- 
tables, and fruit, were excessively scarce and dear in 1859, when I 
again visited the place: for instance, six or seven shillings were asked 
for a poor lean fowl, and eggs were twopence half-penny apiece. In 
fact, the neighbourhood produces scarcely anything; the provincial 
government is supplied with the greater part of its funds from the 
treasury of Para ; its revenue, which amounts to about 50 contos of reis 
(45,600), derived from export taxes on the produce of the entire 
province, not sufficing for more than about one-fifth of its expenditure. 
The population of the province of the Amazons, according to a census 
taken in 1858, is 55,000 souls ; the municipal district of Barra, which 
comprises a large area around the capital, containing only 4,500 inhabit- 
ants. For the government, however, of this small number of people, 
an immense staff of officials is gathered together in the capital, and, 
