the Amazon was declared to be free and open to all flags; and, to
make practice harmonize with theory, Brazil entered into negotiations
with the neighboring powers for the exploration of every river-road
in the basin of the Amazon.

To-day lines of well-found steamboats, which correspond direct with
Liverpool, are plying on the river from its mouth up to Manaos;
others ascend to Iquitos; others by way of the Tapajoz, the Madeira,
the Rio Negro, or the Purus, make their way into the center of Peru
and Bolivia.

One can easily imagine the progress which commerce will one day make
in this immense and wealthy area, which is without a rival in the
world.

But to this medal of the future there is a reverse. No progress can
be accomplished without detriment to the indigenous races.

In face, on the Upper Amazon many Indian tribes have already
disappeared, among others the Curicicurus and the Sorimaos. On the
Putumayo, if a few Yuris are still met with, the Yahuas have
abandoned the district to take refuge among some of the distant
tributaries, and the Maoos have quitted its banks to wander in their
diminished numbers among the forests of Japura.

The Tunantins is almost depopulated, and there are only a few
families of wandering Indians at the mouth of the Jurua. The Teffé is
almost deserted, and near the sources of the Japur there remained but
the fragments of the great nation of the Umaüa. The Coari is
forsaken. There are but few Muras Indians on the banks of the Purus.