DOWN THE RIO NEGRO 503 
geography, and may lead to important mistakes. 
The earliest division of that portion of Amazon land 
which belongs to Brazil seems to have been this : 
the Capitania do Rio Negro included all the country 
north of the Amazon, to the very mouth of the latter ; 
that of Para the country south of the Amazon as far 
as the Rio Madeira ; and the remainder of the 
territory south of the Amazon, i.e, from the 
Madeira to the Peruvian frontier, formed the 
Capitania do Solimoes. Afterwards the three 
capitanias were reduced to two, that of the Rio 
Negro comprehending all the land on both sides of 
the river to the westward of Parentins (a little 
below Villa Nova), and that of Para the land to the 
eastward of the same point. After the separation 
of Brazil from Portugal, the two were combined to 
form the Provincia do Para. Thus it remained 
at the time of my arrival in Brazil ; but it has 
lately reverted to its former division into two 
parts, the eastern under the name of Provincia do 
Para, and the western under that of Provincia do 
Amazonas. 
I may add that what in Venezuela was formerly 
the Misiones del Alto Orinoco is now the Canton 
del Rio Negro, embracing all that portion of 
Spanish Guayana extending northward to the foot 
of the Cataracts of Atures, westward and southward 
to the frontiers of New Granada and Brazil, and 
eastward to Demerara. 
Mark now some results of this instability of land- 
marks. Von Martins puts the habitat *'Rio Negro" 
to the plants found by him on the Solimoes and 
other rivers belonging to the Capitania do Rio 
Negro (as it existed at the time of his voyage), 
