24 



PARA 



than elsewhere in Brazil, and the Indian element may- 

 be said to prevail in the mongrel population, the negro 

 proportion being much smaller than in South Brazil. 



The city is built on the best available site for a port 

 of entry to the Amazons region, and must in time become 

 a vast emporium ; for the northern shore of the main 

 river, where alone a rival capital could be founded, is 

 much more difficult of access to vessels, and is besides 

 extremely unhealthy. Although lying so near the equator 

 (i° 28' S. lat.) the climate is not excessively hot. The 

 temperature during three years only once reached 95° of 

 Fahrenheit. The greatest heat of the day, about 2 p.m., 

 ranges generally between 89° and 94° ; but on the other 

 hand, the air is never cooler than 73°, so that a uniformly 

 high temperature exists, and the mean of the year is 81°. 

 North American residents say that the heat is not so 

 oppressive as it is in summer in New York and Phila- 

 delphia. The humidity is, of course, excessive, but the 

 rains are not so heavy and continuous in the wet season 

 as in many other tropical climates. The country had for 

 a long time a reputation for extreme salubrity. Since 

 the small-pox in 18 19, which attacked chiefly the Indians, 

 no serious epidemic had visited the province. We were 

 agreeably surprised to find no danger from exposure to 

 the night air or residence in the low swampy lands. A 

 few English residents, who had been established here for 

 twenty or thirty years, looked almost as fresh in colour 

 as if they had never left their native country. The 

 native women, too, seemed to preserve their good looks 

 and plump condition until late in life. I nowhere ob- 

 served that early decay of appearance in Brazilian ladies, 

 which is said to be so general in the women of North 

 America. Up to 1848 the salubrity of Para was quite 

 remarkable for a city lying in the delta of a great river 

 in the middle of the tropics and half surrounded by 

 swamps. It did not much longer enjoy its immunity 

 from epidemics. In 1850 the yellow fever visited the 

 province for the first time, and carried off in a few weeks 

 more than four per^cent. of the population^. One disease 



^ Relatorio of the President, Jeronymo Francisco Coelho, 

 1850. From January i to July 31, 1850, 12,000 persons, in 

 the city of Para alone, fell ill out of a population of 16,000, 

 but only 506 died. 



