December, 1910.] 



483 



Saps and Exudations, 



Later we took a carriage and drove 

 to the residence where I was to be 

 quartered ; a fine modern house in the 

 residential part of the city, where I 

 received royal entertainment, and the 

 home cooking for which my soul had 

 been yearning. 



We might have taken the "bond" 

 instead of a carriage, but the electricity 

 was weak, and the cars were only 

 crawling as they made their rounds. 

 In answer to the reader's unspoken 

 question, I do not know why the 

 electric street car in Manaos is called 

 a bond, nor does anyone with whom 

 I am acquainted. The road was built 

 by Americans— in fact, financed by 

 them — and later sold to the Govern- 

 ment, and for a while the service was 

 good. Then one noon the engineer and 

 his helpers had their siesta interrupted 

 by the blowing out of a cylinder head on 

 the great engine. Unfortunately no one 

 was hurt, the aforementioned public 

 servants escaping. At the time of my 

 arrival new equipment was going in, 

 competent engineers had been engaged, 

 and better service was in sight. 



A First View of Manaos. 

 After dinner that evening a Renault 

 with a bright yellow body and the 

 muffler wide open drew up in front of the 

 door. It was garrisoned by an expert 

 driver, and a friendly young French 

 Brazilian American interpreter, which 

 car and appendages I learned had been 

 placed at my disposal during my visit. 

 One of the first uses to which I put it 

 was to tour the town, 



The city itself is a counterpart of what 

 a young, rich, north American city would 

 be that had grown up overnight. Not 

 architecturally, of course, for the tropi- 

 cal world evolves a style of its own, and 

 gorgeous colourings come without bid- 

 ding and are most fitting. The public 

 buildings were beautiful ; particularly 

 the $2,000,000 theatre situated on an emi- 

 nence in the middle of the city, dominat- 

 ing all the rest. Palaces, parks, libraries, 

 hospitals were very fine. Sandwitch in 

 between them were w r aste spaces, old 

 fashioned tiled residences, and much that 

 showed the sudden growth of the city, 

 but all this was being rapidly changed. 

 When one considers that this city is a 

 thousand miles from the seacoast, in the 

 heart of a vast tropical jungle, with 

 wild Indians within a hundred miles of 

 it, its presence seems incredible. In a 

 way, it is as modern as New York or 

 Chicago. The latest Parisian fashions 

 are there, and almost anything that 

 civilised man desired is obtainable. 



Prices are high, to be sure, because both 

 luxuries and necessities are imported and 

 subject to a duty of 100 per cent. 



But when something besides rubber is 

 produced by the magnificently fertile 

 lands that surround it, Manaos will be 

 one of the great and beautiful cities of 

 the world and living as reasonable as 

 anywhere. 



Both the State and the Federated reve- 

 nues naturally come very largely from 

 rubber. These taxes are assessed on the 

 average price at which rubber is sold 

 for a certain period. On the rubber that 

 comes down the Amazon the State taxes 

 are : Manaos(Amazonas), 19 % ; Para, 22 % ; 

 Matto Grosso, 20 % ; Acre territory, 20 % ; 

 Bolivion Federal tax, 14 % ; Iquitos (Peru- 

 vian) Federal tax, 14%. The State tax in 

 Ceara is 22 %. There are minor taxes on 

 rubber also — for instance, local improve- 

 ment taxes of 1 to 2%. 



The city has naturally elements of the 

 picturesque. It is built on a group of 

 hills, and while this has involved much 

 cutting and filling, and many retaining 

 walls, it adds both to its sightliness and 

 healthfulness. Some in Manaos have the 

 ambition, which may not be as wild as it 

 seems at first, to negociate a short cut to 

 the United States by way of British 

 Guiana. All they would have to do 

 would be to go up the Rio Branco, cross 

 to the Essequibo, and come out at George- 

 town. 



Dominating vast fertile plains-, drained 

 by the Rio Negro, the Solimoes, and the 

 Madeira, with their mighty tributaries, 

 the wealth that is sure to flow 7 into this 

 centre is incalculable. To day the main 

 exporting business, rubber and Brazil 

 nuts, is handed by Portuguese, Brazi- 

 lians, German, English, and American 

 firms, less than twenty in number. 



The people of the city had an exceed- 

 ingly alert carriage— surprisingly so for 

 those who dwelt on the equator. La- 

 bourers, whether busy at the docks or in 

 the warehouses, were really working. 

 Perhaps they ought to, for they received 

 somewhere from 15 to 20* milreis a day. 



The River Front and the Docks. 



I do not think I spoke of the magni- 

 ficent spread of the river in front of the 

 city. It forms a great pool, four or five 

 miles, and deep enough at lower water to 

 accommodate ocean steamers. During 



* The gold milreis, the standard of the Bra- 

 zilian monetary system, is equal to 54 t» cents in 

 United States money. Business, however, is 

 conducted mainly on a paper money basis, with 

 the price of the milreis varying with the rate of 

 London exchange, which averages a little over 

 15 pence, or 30 to 31 cents, 



