366 



RESUME. 



seemed a stranger to yellow fever, small-pox, or cholera. There seemed 

 to be a narrow belt of country on each side of the Amazon where 

 bilious fevers, called sezoens or maleitas, were particularly prevalent. 

 These fevers are of malignant type, and often terminate in fatal jaun- 

 dice, i was told that six or eight days' navigation on each tributary, 

 from the mouth upwards, would bring me to this country, and three 

 or four more would pass me through it ; and that I ran little risk of 

 taking the fever if I passed directly through. It appeared, also, to be 

 confined to a particular region of country with regard to longitude. I 

 heard nothing of it on the Huallaga, the Ucayali, or the Tapajos, while 

 it was spoken of wkh dread on the Trombetas, the Madeira, the Negro, 

 and the Purus. Filth and -carelessness in this climate produce ugly 

 cutaneous affections, with which the Indians are much afflicted, and I 

 heard of cases of elephantiasis and leprosy. 



I have been describing the country bordering on the Amazon. Up 

 the tributaries, midway between their mouth and source, on each side 

 are wide savannahs, where feed herds of cattle, furnishing a trade in 

 hides; and at the sources of the southern tributaries are ranges of 

 mountains, which yield immense treasures of diamonds and other pre- 

 cious stones. 



It is again (as in the case of the country at the foot of the Andes) 

 sad to think that, excluding the savage tribesfi who for any present 

 purposes of good may be ranked with the beasts that perish, this 

 country has not more than one inhabitant for every ten square miles of 

 land ; that it is almost a wilderness ; that being capable, as it is, of 

 yielding support, comfort, and luxury to many millions of civilized 

 people who have superfluous wants, it should be but the dwelling place 

 of the savage and the wild beast. 



Such is the country whose destiny and the development of whose 

 resources is in the hands of Brazil. It seems a pity that she should 

 undertake the work alone ; she is not strong enough ; she should do 

 what we are not too proud to do, stretch out her hands to the world at 

 large, and say, " Come and help us to subdue the wilderness ; here are 

 homes, and broad lands, and protection for all who choose to come." 

 She should break up her steamboat monopoly, and say to the sea-faring 

 and commercial people of the world, " We are not a maritime people ; 

 we have no skill or practice in steam navigation ; come and do our 

 carrying, while we work the lands ; bring your steamers laden with 

 your manufactures, and take from the banks of our rivers the rich pro- 

 ductions of our vast regions." With such a policy, and taking means 

 to preserve her nationality, for which she is now abundantly strong, I 



