338 THE LOWEE AMAZONS. Chap. YII. 



protected them against forced servitude, were rapidly 

 withdrawing themselves from the place. When th^ new 

 province of the Amazons was established, in 1852, Barra 

 was chosen as the capital, and was then invested with 

 the appropriate name of the city of Manaos. 



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 pro- 

 duce (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 res^ion almost as larofe as 

 Europe, every inch of whose soil is of the most exube- 

 rant 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 

 13assengers and goods are transhipped here for the 

 Solimoens and Peru. A steamer runs once a fortnight 

 between Para and Barra, and a bi-monthly one plies 

 between this place and Nauta in the Peruvian temtory. 

 The steam-boat company is supported by a large annual 

 grant, about 50,000^. sterling, from the imperial govern- 

 ment. 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 pro- 



