The City of ManIos. 243 



In forty minutes after leaving the Amazon we arrived 

 at Manaos. This important city lies on the left bank of 

 the Xegro, ten miles from its mouth and twenty feet above 

 high- water level. The site is very uneven, and consists of 

 ferruginous sandstone. There was originally a fort here, 

 erected by the Portuguese to protect their slave-hunting 

 expeditions among the Indians on the river — hence the an- 

 cient name of Barra. On the old map of Father Fritz 

 (1707) the spot is named Taromas. Since 1852 it has 

 been called Manaos, after the most warlike tribe. Some 

 of the houses are two-storied, but the majority are low 

 adobe structures, white and yellow washed, floored and 

 roofed with tiles, and having green doors and shutters. 

 Every room is furnished with hooks for hanging ham- 

 mocks. We did not see a bed between Quito and New^ 

 York except on the steamers. The population, numbering 

 two thousand,* is a mongrel set — Brazilians, Portuguese, 

 Italians, Jews, Kegroes, and Indians, w^ith divers crosses 

 between them. Laziness is the prominent characteristic. 

 A gentleman offered an Indian passing his door twenty- 

 five cents if he would bring him a pitcher of water from 

 the river, only a few rods distant. He declined. " But I 

 will give you fifty cents." Whereupon the half-clothed, 

 penniless aboriginal replied : " I will -give you a dollar to 

 bring me some.^f Wliile every inch of the soil is of ex- 

 uberant fertility, there is always a scarcity of food. It is 

 the dearest spot on the Amazon. Most of the essentials 

 and all of the luxuries come from Liverpool, Lisbon, and 

 Xew York. Agriculture is at a discount on the Amazon. 

 Brazilians will not work ; European immigrants are trad- 

 ers ; nothing can be done with Indians ; and negroes are 



* Official returns for 1848 give 3614 ; Bates (1850) reckons 3000. 



t Darwin met a similar specimen in Banda Oriental : "I asked two men 

 why they did not work. One gravely said the days were too long ; the oth- 

 er that he was too poor." 



