38 PAKA. Chap. I. 



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 educa- 

 tion. 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 jurymen being selected 

 from householders, no matter what their race or colour ; 

 and I have seen the white merchant, the negi^o husband- 

 man, the m'ameluco, 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 cen- 

 tralisation, and only requires a proper degree of virtue 

 and intelligence 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 navi- 

 gable 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- 



