362 The Andes and the Amazons. 



Fine rubber costs about $14 an arroba (32 pounds) up tbe 

 river, and the loss is about forty-live per cent, in getting it 

 to Liverpool or New York, half of which is for freight, 

 and the other half for custom charges. 



But Para is destined to enjoy an enviable rank among 

 the commercial centres of the world. She can never have 

 a rival at the mouth of the Amazons, for she occupies the 

 only available spot, the northern channel between Macapa 

 and Chaves being scarcely lit for navigation. Standing 

 at the gate-way of a magnificent valley, covered with the 

 richest and largest forests on the earth, and at the emhou- 

 chicre of a river which affords an unparalleled extent of 

 water-communication, touching every country on the con- 

 tinent except Chile and Patagonia, Para must become the 

 Liverpool of the Tropics. Her most prominent citizens 

 are men of progress, and the dead weights on trade and 

 labor will soon be removed. 



At present the commerce of a country of such vast ex- 

 tent and resources is ridiculously insignificant. As most 

 of the articles of consumption are imported, and many of 

 those produced are exported, the foreign trade is greatly in 

 excess of the internal. In 1S72 the value of exports to 

 England was $2,766,761 ; to the United States, $2,371,138; 

 to France, $466,788 ; to Portugal, $247,222 ; to Germany, 

 $38,438 ; to Southern Brazil, $171,469. The imports from 

 Great Britain into the whole of Brazil amount to 45 per 

 cent. ; from France, 17 per cent. ; from Buenos Ayres, 7 per 

 cent. ; from the United States, 5 per cent. ; from Portugal, 

 3.5 per cent. ; while of all the exports from the empire the 

 United States takes 45 per cent, and Great Britain 9 per 

 cent. Our country is the largest consumer of Amazoni- 

 an products ; a great part of what is shipped to England is 

 destined for the Continent. The greater part of the rub- 

 ber goes to England and the United States (about 2500 



