228 



THE LOWER AMAZONS 



excessively scarce and dear in 1859, when I again visited 

 the place ; for instance, six or seven shillings were asked 

 for a poor lean fowl, and eggs were twopence halfpenny 

 a piece. In fact, the neighbourhood produces scarcely 

 anything ; the provincial government is supplied with 

 the greater part of its funds from the treasury of Para ; 

 its revenue, which amounts to about 50 contos of reis 

 (5600/.), derived from export taxes on the produce of 

 the entire province, not sufficing for more than about 

 one-fifth of its expenditure. The population of the pro- 

 vince of the Amazons, according to a census taken in 

 1858, is 55,000 souls ; the municipal district of Barra, 

 which comprises a large area around the capital, con- 

 taining only 4500 inhabitants. For the government, 

 however, of this small number of people, an immense 

 staff of officials is gathered together in the capital, and, 

 notwithstanding the endless number of trivial formalities 

 which Brazilians employ in every small detail of ad- 

 ministration, these have nothing to do the greater part 

 of their time. None of the people who flocked to Barra 

 on the establishment of the new government, seemed to 

 care about the cultivation of the soil and the raising of 

 food, although these would have been most profitable 

 speculations. The class of Portuguese who emigrate to 

 Brazil seem to prefer petty trading to the honourable 

 pursuit of agriculture. If the English are a nation of 

 shopkeepers, what are we to say of the Portuguese ? I 

 counted in Barra, one store for every five dwelling-houses. 

 These stores, or tavernas, have often not more than fifty 

 pounds' worth of goods for their whole stock, and the 

 Portuguese owners, big lusty fellows, stand all day behind 

 their dirty counters for the sake of selling a few coppers' 

 worth of liquors, or small wares. These men all give the 

 same excuse for not applying themselves to agriculture, 

 namely, that no hands can be obtained to work on the 

 soil. Nothing can be done with Indians ; indeed, they 

 are fast leaving the neighbourhood altogether, and the 

 importation of negro slaves, in the present praiseworthy 

 temper of the Brazilian mind, is out of the question. The 

 problem, how to obtain a labouring class for a new and 

 tropical country, without slavery, has to be solved before 

 this glorious region can become what its delightful climate 

 and exuberant fertility fit it for — the abode of a numerous, 

 civilized, and happy people. 



