Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/201

 travellers; my servant ran away, and I was robbed of nearly all my copper money. I was obliged then to descend to Pará, but returned, after finishing the examination of the middle part of the Lower Amazons and the Tapajos, in 1855, with my Santarem assistant and better provided for making collections on the upper river. This second visit was in pursuit of the plan before mentioned, of exploring in detail the whole valley of the Amazons, which I formed in Pará in the year 1851.

During so long a residence I witnessed, of course, many changes in the place. Some of the good friends who made me welcome on my first arrival, died, and I followed their remains to their last resting-place in the little rustic cemetery on the borders of the surrounding forest. I lived there long enough, from first to last, to see the young people grow up, attended their weddings and the christenings of their children, and, before I left, saw them old married folks with numerous families. In 1850 Ega was only a village, dependent on Pará 1400 miles distant, as the capital of the then undivided province. In 1852, with the creation of the new province of the Amazons, it became a city; returned its members to the provincial parliament at Barra; had its assizes, its resident judges, and rose to be the chief town of a comarca or county. A year after this, namely, in 1853, steamers were introduced on the Solimoens, and from 1855, one ran regularly every two months between the Rio Negro and Nauta in Peru, touching at all the villages, and accomplishing the distance in ascending, about 1200 miles, in eighteen