366 The Andks and the Amazons. 



Porto de Mos, uow numbering but 800 souls, but destined 

 to be an important centre in the rubber trade, while the 

 country up the Xingu is admirably adapted for coffee. 

 Passing the singular hills of Almeyrim and the rightly- 

 named village of Monte Alegre, famous for its cattle, we 

 reach Santarem, at the mouth of the Tapajos. This ambi- 

 tious but, to an American, sleepy -looking city, is the half- 

 way station between Para and Manaos, and is now aspir- 

 ing to become the capital of a new province, to be called 

 Baixo-Amazonas, extending from Obidos to Gurupa."^ It 

 is not thriving, however, barely maintaining its old num- 

 ber of 2500 souls. Of these about 2000 are Indians, Ne- 

 groes, and mixed, including 200 slaves. The situation is 

 beautiful, lying on a green slope, facing the clear Tapajos, 

 with undulating camjjos and flat-topped hills in the rear. 

 Three or four long rows of low, whitewashed, tiled houses, 

 with less than half a dozen two-storied buildings and one 

 Jesuit church, make up the city. There is a collegio for 

 boys and girls, the former department having fifty students 

 varying in age from eight to sixteen, and a course of four 

 years for the study of grammar, arithmetic, geography, his- 

 tory, French, Latin, algebra, and geometry. The primary 

 department is supported by the government, and education 

 is free in one sense, and compulsory in another. The cli- 

 mate of Santarem is delightful, the trade-winds tempering 

 the heat (which is seldom above 83°), and driving away all 

 insect pests. The chief diseases are syphilis and fevers. 

 Dr. Stroope, an immigrant from Arkansas, is the sole ph}'- 

 sician. The soil in the immediate neighborhood is sandy 

 and poor ; but inland, especiallj^ where the American col- 

 onists have located, it is exceedingly fertile ; rice, for ex- 



* Founded in 1G54, Santarem became an incoi'porated city in 1848. The 

 term "city," as originally applied by Spaniards and Portuguese, was solely a 

 mark of royal favor, not a measure of population, as with us. 



