VOYAGE TO THE RIO NEGRO 173 
was the universally known name of the little town 
at the entrance of the great Parana-mirf dos Ramos, 
which extends for more than 200 rniles to a little 
above the mouth of the Madeira, its official name 
being " Villa Nova da Rainha," as given on the 
excellent maps of the Society for the Diffusion of 
Useful Knowledge in 1852. But in all modern 
maps I have seen, including the large map of 
Brazil issued by the " International Bureau of the 
American Republics," no such name appears, but 
instead we find the old Indian name Parintins in 
capitals, with (Villa Bella da Imperatrice) in brackets 
as the former name — so that the town has had four 
distinct names in about half a century. In the 
memorial edition of Bates's book, published in 1892, 
it is termed "Villa Bella" only, so that the place 
where he resided twice and made some of his most 
interesting collections may be looked for in vain 1 
Similar cases occur everywhere in Brazil, so that 
it becomes almost impossible to follow the route 
of any of the older travellers on a modern map.] 
Where Villa Nova now stands was formerly the 
''Mission of Tupinambarana, "established by a certain 
Jose Pedro Cordovil in 1803, who gathered together 
several Mauhe and Mundrucu Indians, and induced 
them to settle there. The name he gave the 
mission was to indicate that the people were not 
true, but sptmotis Tupinambas or Tupi's. It was 
not raised to the rank of " Villa" until 1818. This 
explains why on many maps a broad strip of country 
along the right bank of the Amazon appears as Ilha 
de Tupinambaranas " — not that there was origin- 
ally any nation bearing that name, nor is it known 
at all to the actual inhabitants, except as the name 
