prosperity.

The province of Para, or, as we may now say, the two provinces of
Para and the Amazons, contain an area of 800,000 square miles,
the population of which is only about 230,000, or in the ratio of
one person to four square miles! The country is covered with
forests, and the soil is fertile in the extreme, even for a
tropical country. It is intersected throughout by broad and deep
navigable rivers. It is the pride of the Paraenses to call the
Amazons the Mediterranean of South America. The colossal stream
perhaps deserves the name, for not only have the main river and
its principal tributaries an immense expanse of water bathing the
shores of extensive and varied regions, but there is also
throughout a system of back channels, connected with the main
rivers by narrow outlets and linking together a series of lakes,
some of which are fifteen, twenty, and thirty miles in length.
The whole Amazons valley is thus covered by a network of
navigable waters, forming a vast inland freshwater sea with
endless ramifications-- rather than a river.

The city of Para was founded in 1615, and was a place of
considerable importance towards the latter half of the eighteenth
century, under the government of the brother of Pombal, the
famous Portuguese statesman. The province was the last in Brazil
to declare its independence of the mother-country and acknowledge
the authority of the first emperor, Don Pedro. This was owing to
the great numbers and influence of the Portuguese, and the rage
of the native party was so great in consequence, that immediately
after independence was proclaimed in 1823, a counter revolution
broke out, during which many hundred lives were lost and much