122 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. 



30 miles at the foot and on the scarp of a sandstone plateau which skirts the 

 river at a distance of tive or six miles inland. This is the so-called miontanha 

 ("mountain"), although it rises scarcely more than from 430 to 500 feet above 

 the stream. Numerous tapcrrn and taprri»/ias {" rnins" and "little ruins"), as 

 well as the remains of causeways, show that even in pre-Columbian times the 

 region was densely peopled. 



Farther on, but on the north side, stands the pleasant little town of liante 

 Alcgre ("Merrymount "), which fully deserves its nanie. Unlike all other 

 Amazonian settlements, it stands, not on a riverside clitï or bluff, but on a real 

 hill overgrown with cacti, and from its terraced slopes an extensive prospect is 

 commanded of the long meanderings of the great river, the fringing lagoons and 

 their network of creeks and backwaters, all separated by the serpentine belt of 

 woodlands and savannas. 



Lower down follow Almririin at the mouth of the Paru, peopled by Aracaju 

 Indians ; Porfo de 3Ioz, commanding the labyrinthine waters about the Xingu 

 confluence, and visited by the steamers which ascend to Soiizel below the last 

 Xingu falls ; Giinipa, in the north-east on another network of navigable creeks, 

 for a time occupied by the Dutch. After their departure, Gurupa, which takes 

 its name from an extinct Tupi tribe, was made the port of entr}^ and custom-house 

 for the whole of the Amazons basin. 



Macapa, founded by the Portuguese in 1744 on the north side of the estuary 

 just two miles north of the equator, was originally intended to be the bulwark of 

 Amjzonia. The passage is even still guarded by a strong citadel, which, how- 

 ever, is useless for the defence of such a broad estuary, and Macapa, owing to the 

 dangerous approaches, has never developed into a trading place. M((za(jào, some 

 40 miles inland, takes its name from the Moroccan city of Mazagan, the present 

 el-Briia, which was held by the Portuguese for two centuries and a-half till the 

 3'ear 1770. 



On Marajo Island the chief jjlaces are Brèves, on the deep southern channel 

 of the AmazDUs ; Cluives on the north side, and Satire, near the old settlement of 

 Johannes, from which the island takes its alternative name of Joannes. 



Para, whose full official name is Santa Maria de Nazareth de Be/em do Grao 

 Para, from a much-frequented place of pilgrimage, stands on a slightly elevated 

 beach east of the great estuary or gulf of Para, called also gulf of the Tocantins. 

 This part of the broad sheet of water, known as the Guajaru channel, rainifiesinto 

 the interior of the city, where it is joined by the little riv^er C;ipim, while other 

 creeks radiate in all directions. Occupying a level space vmbroken by any hills 

 or rising grounds. Para presents towards the estuary nothing but a long frontage 

 of somewhat commonplace structures. But despite its general unpicturesque 

 aspect, there is no lack of pleasant quarters in the interior, where the houses, with 

 their ornamental balconies and façades of encaustic tiles, are shaded by large, 

 wide-spreading trees. Some of the avenues are lined with ceibas, some with 

 palms, and others with the bread-fruit tree, while the suburbs are interspersed 

 with orange groves graduilly merging in the spontaneous vegetation of the 



