252 The A-ndes and the Amazon. 



ter. Santarem sends to Para for sugar ; but the cavaliers 

 of Alabama are proving that the sugar-cane grows better 

 than in Louisiana, attaining the height of twenty feet, and 

 that it will yield for ten or twelve years without transplant- 

 ing or cultivation. It is not, however, so sweet or juicy as 

 the Southern cane. Some of the colonists are making tapi- 

 oca and casha5a or Brazilian rum ; others have gone into 

 the pork business ; while one, Dr. Jones, expects to realize 

 a fortune burning lime. Here we met the rebel ex-General 

 Dobbins, who had been prospecting on the Tapajos Kiver, 

 but had not yet located himself. 



Below Santarem the Amazon vastly increases in width ; 

 at one point the southern shore was invisible from the 

 steamer. The waves often run very high. At 10 a.m., 

 eight hours from Santarem, we entered the romantic port 

 of Monte Alegre. The road from the river to the village, 

 just visible inland, runs through a pretty dell. Back of 

 the village, beyond a low, swampy flat, rise the table-topped 

 blue hills of Almeyrim. It was an exhilarating sight and 

 a great relief to gaze upon a mountain range from three 

 hundred to one thousand feet high, the greatest elevations 

 along the Amazon east of the Andes. Agassiz considers 

 these singular mountains the remnants of a plain which 

 once filled the whole valley of the Amazon; but Bates 

 believes them to be the southern terminus of the high land 

 of Guiana. Their geological constitution — a pebbly sand- 

 stone — favors the Professor's theory. The range extends 

 ninety miles along the north bank of the river, the western 

 limit at Monte Alegre bearing the local name of Serra 

 Erer^. Mount Agassiz, at Obidos, is a spur of the same 

 table-land. The Amazon is here about five miles wide, the 

 southern shore being low, uninhabited, and covered with 

 coarse s:rass. Five schooners were anchored in the har- 

 bor of Monte Alegre, a sign of considerable trade for 



