To the Amazon and Home 345 



Doctor Cajazeira, and Lieutenant Lyra. Together with 

 my admiration for their hardihood, courage, and resolu- 

 tion, I had grown to feel a strong and affectionate friend- 

 ship for them. I had become very fond of them ; and I 

 was glad to feel that I had been their companion in the 

 performance of a feat which possessed a certain lasting 

 importance. 



On May 1 we left Manaos for Belen — Para, as until 

 recently it was called. The trip was interesting. We 

 steamed down through tempest and sunshine; and the 

 towering forest was dwarfed by the giant river it fringed. 

 Sunrise and sunset turned the sky to an unearthly flame 

 of many colors above the vast water. It all seemed the 

 embodiment of loneliness and wild majesty. Yet every- 

 where man was conquering the loneliness and wresting 

 the majesty to his own uses. We passed many thriving, 

 growing towns; at one we stopped to take on cargo. 

 Ever)rwhere there was growth and development. The 

 change since the days when Bates and Wallace came to 

 this then poor and utterly primitive region is marvellous. 

 One of its accompaniments has been a large European, 

 chiefly south European, immigration. The blood is 

 everywhere mixed ; there is no color line, as in most Eng- 

 lish-speaking countries, and the negro and Indian strains 

 are very strong; but the dominant blood, the blood al- 

 ready dominant in quantity, and that is steadily increasing 

 its dominance, is the olive-white. 



Only rarely did the river show its full width. Gen- 

 erally we were in channels or among islands. The sur- 

 face of the water was dotted with little islands of floating 

 vegetation. Miller said that much of this came from the 



