VALLEY OF THE AMAZONS. 49 



world, we may, therefore, look upon South America as pre- 

 eminently the land of forests, contrasting strongly with Asia 

 or Africa, where deserts are the most characteristic features. 



If the Nile — so remarkable for its historical recollections, 

 which carry us far back into the by-gone ages — and the 

 Thames, unparalleled by the greatness of a commerce which 

 far eclipses that of ancient Carthage or Tyre — may justly be 

 called the rivers of the jpast and the present^ the Amazons 

 has equal claims to be called the stream of the future ; for a 

 more splendid field nowhere lies open to the enterprise of man. 



All the gifts of Nature are scattered in profusion over the 

 vast territory drained by the river. The mountains, where it 

 rises, teem with mineral treasures, and the very ideal of fer 

 tility is realised in those well-watered plains, where the equa- 

 torial sun developes life in boundless luxuriance. The most 

 useful and costly productions of the tropical world, — sugar, 

 cotton, coffee, indigo, tobacco, maize, rice ; quinquina in the 

 higher regions of the Maranon, where wheat and the vine find 

 a congenial climate ; cacao and vanille, sarsaparilla and caout- 

 chouc, various palms of the most manifold uses ; trees and 

 shrubs, some rivalling our oaks in the solidity of their timber, 

 others fit by the beauty of their grain to adorn palaces ; dyes, 

 resins, gums, spices, drugs, — all, in one word, that is capable 

 of satisfying the wants of the frugal or the fancies of the rich, 

 might there be raised in profusion over a space surpassing 

 England at least forty times in extent. The whole actual 

 population of the globe could easily live in content and plenty 

 in the almost uninhabited valleys of the Maranon and its 

 tributary streams. 



With these magnificent prospects the present forms a melan- 

 choly contrast. Here and there some small town or wretched 

 village rises on the banks of the mighty stream ; and a few 

 Indians roam over the forests, through which it rolls along, or 

 enjoy the produce of its prolific waters. The vast province of 

 Para, the garden of Brazil, the paradise of unborn millions, has 

 scarcely four inhabitants on a geographical square mile ; while 

 even the northern province of Archangel, the land of the 

 stunted fir and the mossy tundra, has a population four times 

 as large. But since the last few years, steamboats regularly 

 ascend the giant stream and some of its tributaries almost to 



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