Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/364

 protected them against forced servitude, were rapidly withdrawing themselves from the place. When the new province of the Amazons was established, in 1852, Barra was chosen as the capital, and was then invested with the appropriate name of the city of Manáos.

The situation of the town has many advantages; the climate is healthy; there are no insect pests; the soil is fertile and capable of growing all kinds of tropical produce (the coffee of the Rio Negro, especially, being of very superior quality), and it is near the fork of two great navigable rivers. The imagination becomes excited when one reflects on the possible future of this place, situated near the centre of the equatorial part of South America, in the midst of a region almost as large as Europe, every inch of whose soil is of the most exuberant fertility, and having water communication on one side with the Atlantic, and on the other with the Spanish republics of Venezuela, New Granada, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. Barra is now the principal station for the lines of steamers which were established in 1853, and 13assengers and goods are transhipped here for the Solimoens and Peru. A steamer runs once a fortnight between Pará and Barra, and a bi-monthly one plies between this place and Nauta in the Peruvian territory. The steam-boat company is supported by a large annual grant, about 50,000l. sterling, from the imperial government. Barra was formerly a pleasant place of residence, but it is now in a most wretched plight, suffering from a chronic scarcity of the most necessary articles of food. The attention of the settlers was formerly devoted almost entirely to the collection of the spontaneous pro-