POPULATION. 



277 



for prosperity. He spent a noble fortune, dug by his father from the 

 Mina del rey, at Cerro Pasco, in the political troubles of his country. 

 He was appointed governor of the large and important province of 

 Mainas, but, interfering with the elections, he was driven out. He then 

 joined a party for the purpose of washing the sands of the Santiago for 

 gold, but quarrels with his companions broke that up. With infinite 

 labor he then collected an immense cargo of Peruvian bark; but, 

 refusing eighty thousand dollars for it in Para, he carried it to Eng- 

 land, where it was pronounced worthless ; and he lost the fruits of his 

 enterprise and industry. 



He gave me infinite concern and some apprehension in the manage- 

 ment of the Indians ; but I shall never forget the untiring energy, the 

 buoyancy of spirits, and the faithful loyalty, that cheered my lonely 

 journey, and made the little Peruvian as dear to me as a brother. 



The official returns for the year 1848 gave the population of the 

 town of Barra at three thousand six hundred and fourteen free persons, 

 and two hundred and thirty-four slaves ; the number of marriages, one 

 hundred and fifteen ; births, two hundred and fifty ; and deaths, twenty- 

 five ; the number of inhabited houses, four hundred and seventy ; and 

 the number of foreigners, twenty-four. There are three or four large and 

 commodious two-story houses that rent for two hundred and fifty dollars 

 a year. The ordinary house of one story rents for fifty dollars. The 

 town taxes are ten per cent, on the rent of houses, a dollar a year for a 

 slave, and three dollars a year for a horse. There are no other taxes 

 except the custom-house dues. The soil in the immediate neighbor- 

 hood of Barra is poor, and I saw no cultivation except in the gardens 

 of the town. 



The rock in the neighborhood of Barra is peculiar ; it is a red sand- 

 stone, covered with a thin layer of white clay. At a mill-seat about 

 three miles from the town, a shallow stream, twenty yards broad, rushes 

 over an inclined plane of this rock, and falls over the ledge of it in a 

 pretty little cataract of about nine feet in height. The water is the 

 same in color with that of the Rio Negro, when taken up in a tumbler — 

 that is, a faint pink. It is impossible to resist the impression that there 

 is a connexion between the color of the rock and the color of the water. 

 Whether the water, tinged with vegetable matter, gives its color to the 

 rock, or the rock, cemented with mineral matter, has its effect upon the 

 water, I am unable to say. The rock on which the mill stands, which 

 is at the edge of the fall, is covered with very hard white clay, about 

 the eighth of an inch in thickness. 



The mill was built upon a platform of rock at the edge of the fall, 



