RESUME. 



37 L 



have no hesitation in saying, that I believe in fifty years Rio Janeiro , 

 without losing a tittle of her wealth and greatness, will be but a village 

 to Para, and Para will be what New Orleans would long a^o have been 

 but for the activity of New York and her own fatal climate, the greatest 

 city of the New World ; Santarem will be St. Louis, and Barra, Cincin- 

 nati. 



The citizens of the United States are, of all foreign people, most 

 interested in the free navigation of the Amazon. We, as in comparison 

 with other foreigners, would reap the lion's share of the advantages to 

 be derived from it. Wc would fear no competition. Our geographical 

 position, the winds of Heaven, and the currents of the ocean, are our 

 potential auxiliaries. Thanks to Maury's investigations of the winds 

 and currents, we know that a chip flung into the sea at the mouth of 

 the Amazon will float close by Cape Hatteras. We know that ships 

 sailing from the mouth of the Amazon, for whatever port of the world 

 are forced to our very doors by the SE. and NE. trade winds ; that 

 New York is the half-way house between Para and Europe. 



We are now Brazil's best customer and most natural ally. President 

 Aranha knew this. At a dinuer-party given by him at Barra, his first 

 toast was, " To the nation of America most closely allied with Brazil — 

 the United States." And he frequently expressed to me his strong 

 desire to have a thousand of my active countrymen to help him to 

 subdue the wilderness, and show the natives how to work. I would that 

 all Brazilians were influenced by similar sentiments. Then would the 

 mighty river, now endeared to me by association, no longer roll its 

 sullen waters through miles of unbroken solitude : no longer would the 

 deep forests that line its banks afford but a shelter for the serpent, the 

 tiger, and the Indian; but, furrowed by a thousand keels, and bearing 

 upon its waters the mighty wealth that civilization and science would call 

 from the depths of those dark forests, the Amazon would "rejoice as a 

 strong man to rnn a race;" and in a few years we might, without great 

 hyperbole, or doing much violence to fancy, apply to this river Byron's 

 beautiful lines: 



"The casteled crag of Drachenfels 



Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine, 

 Whose breast of waters broadly swells 



Between the banks that bear the vine; 

 And hills all rich with blossomed trees, 



And fields that promise corn and wine, 

 With scattered cities crowning these, 



Whose far white walls along them shine." 



