Pará

“ The population of Pará is 192,230 inhabitants. Many spacious and handsome edifices, such as the Government buildings and the professional Institutes, do great credit to the city; while the Peace Theatre is one of the finest in Brazil. Many private mansions are of some architectural beauty, and some of the new avenues and the municipal gardens are handsome. The slaughter-house, the iron market, etc., are quite up to date, and the city even boasts of a crematorium.
My object in coming to Belem (Pará) was merely to see my men safely on board on their return to the Minas Geraes and Goyaz Provinces ”

“ PARÁ (officially Belem; sometimes Belem do Pará) , a city and port of Brazil, capital of the state of Pará, and the see of a bishop, on a point of land formed by the entrance of the Guamá river into the Para (86 m. from the Atlantic) , in 1° 28' S., 48° 28' W. Pop. of the city and rural districts of the municipality (1890) , 50,064; (1900, estimate) , 100,000. There is a large Portuguese contingent in the population, and the foreign element, engaged in trade and transportation, is also important. The Indian admixture is strongly apparent in the Amazon valley and is noticeable in Pará. ”

“ Pará has the advantage of being much nearer to the United States and to Europe than Rio Janeiro, the capital of Brazil. Though the commerce of Rio is constantly increasing, in spite of its miserable sanitary condition, it is confidently believed by intelligent persons engaged in the South American trade, that Pará will equal it erelong in the aggregate of its shipments. All freight is now landed by means of lighters, a process which is an awkward drawback upon commerce, and what makes it still more aggravating is that it seems to be an entirely needless one. ”

“ What most strikes the observer is the number and size of the public buildings of Pará, which are far beyond the present wants of the place, but form a good foundation for its future requirements as the great depôt of the Amazon. ”

“ Pará is an exotic growth, a bit of Parisian civilization isolated in an enormous wilderness, which encroaches so constantly upon it that the European air of the center of town quickly disappears in grass-grown alleyways of swamp and jungle. The heavy rains cause this grass to grow with tropical luxuriance and rapidity, so that there are many wide streets laid out between unbroken rows of buildings that are nothing but deep green lawns with a cow-path or two straggling along them. ”

“ Their sail about the mouth of the Amazon was very interesting to them all, and that up the Pará River to the city of the same name, not less so. They found the city evidently a busy and thriving place; its harbor, formed by a curve of the River Pará, here twenty miles wide, had at anchor in it a number of large vessels of various nationalities. The "Dolphin" anchored among them, and after a little her passengers went ashore for a drive about the city. ”

“ A few words on the aboriginal population of the Pará estuary will not be out of place here. The banks of the Pará were originally inhabited by a number of distinct tribes, who, in their habits, resembled very much the natives of the sea-coast from Maranham to Bahia. It is related that one large tribe, the Tupinambas, migrated from Pernambuco to the Amazons. One fact seems to be well-established, namely, that all the coast tribes were far more advanced in civilisation, and milder in their manners, than the savages who inhabited the interior lands of Brazil. ”

“ Thus we find the province of Pará overrun with traders, the greater part of whom deserve no better name than pedlars, only they carry their goods in a canoe instead of upon their backs. As their distaste for agriculture, or perhaps rather their passionate love of trade, allows scarcely any of them to settle, or produce anything for others to trade in, their only resource is in the indigenous inhabitants of the country ”

“ The cities of Pará and Manãos have excellent tramways, many fine public buildings and private residences, gardens and public squares, all of which give evidence of artistic taste and great prosperity.
The number of inhabitants in the Brazilian Amazon basin (the states of Amazonas and Pará) is purely a matter of rough estimate. There may be 500,000 or 600,000, or more; for the immigration during recent years from the other parts of Brazil has been large, due to the rubber excitement. ”

“ Edwards, in his ‘Voyage up the Amazon,’ before alluded to, says, that Pará contains an area of 950,000 square miles, nearly half the area of the United States, and all its territories. Its soil is everywhere of exhaustless fertility, and but an exceedingly small portion of it is unfitted for cultivation. The noblest rivers of the world open communication with its remotest parts, and lie spread like a net-work over its surface.... ”

“ But, with the exception of a very few who have business relations in that direction, the people of the city of Pará, as a rule, know as little of the northern mouth of the Amazon as they do of the mouth, of the Nile. And no wonder; for the Araguarý region can not be considered an attractive one in any respect, while the relations of the Paraenses with the ontside world are all through the Pará, River, which is the main channel, and the only one used nowadays by vessels visiting the Amazon, whether stopping at Para or going farther up the valley. ”

“ Pará does not enjoy a very good reputation for its climate, but I do not think it is so bad as is generally supposed. It has a fair alternation of wet and dry seasons, and the air is so pure that it is said that persons suffering from consumption rapidly recover after a short stay there. Yellow fever and [6] small-pox sometimes linger a long time amongst the lower classes, being maintained a good deal, I believe, by the exhalations at low tides from the silted-up mud in front of the river wall. ”

“ But the principal charm of Pará, as of all other tropical places, is the Dolce far niente. Men, in these countries, are not ambitious. They are not annoyed, as the more masculine people of colder climates are, to see their neighbors going ahead of them. They are contented to live, and to enjoy, without labor, the fruits which the earth spontaneously offers; and, I imagine, in the majority of cases, if a Brazilian has enough food, of even the commonest quality, to support life, coffee or tea to drink, cigars to smoke, and a hammock to lie in, that he will be perfectly contented. ”

“ The inhabitants of Pará are excessively attached to this beverage, and many never pass a day of their lives without it. They are particularly favoured too, in being able to get it at all seasons, for though in most places the trees only bear for a few months once in the year, yet in the neighbourhood of Pará there is so much variety of soil and aspect, that within a day or two’s journey, there is always some ripe Assaí to supply the market. ”

“ The broad reach of the Pará in front of this coast is called the Bahia, or Bay of Marajó. The coast and the interior of the land are peopled by civilised Indians and Mamelucos, with a mixture of free negroes and mulattos. They are poor, for the waters are not abundant in fish, and they are dependent for a livelihood solely on their small plantations, and the scant supply of game found in the woods. The district was originally peopled by various tribes of Indians, of whom the principal were the Tupinambás and Nhengahíbas. ”

“ Pará is crossed by the equator, and its climate is wholly tropical, but there is a wide variation in temperature and rainfall. In general, it is hot and dry on the Guiana plateau, and hot and humid throughout the forested region. In the latter, there are two recognized seasons, wet and dry, which differ only in the amount of rainfall, a strictly dry season being unknown. The trade winds, which blow up the Amazon with much force, moderate the heat and make healthy most of the settlements on the great river itself ”

“ The distance from Pará is about a thousand miles, and the voyage up in the wet season often takes from two to three months, so that flour, cheese, wine, and other necessaries, are always very dear, and often not to be obtained. The more civilized inhabitants of Barra are all engaged in trade, and have literally no amusements whatever, unless drinking and gambling on a small scale can be so considered: most of them never open a book, or have any mental occupation. ”

“ In the whole city of Pará, I am told, there are not a dozen Brazilians engaged in trade of any kind. The women are simple, frank, and engaging in their manners, and very fond of evening parties and dancing. ”

“ This city with the long name is generally known as Pará, although Belem, meaning Bethlehem, is the proper name. It is perhaps the prettiest city in Brazil, except Rio de Janeiro, and has many parks and plazas filled [182] with the luxuriant vegetation and noble palms which grow so luxuriantly here. Statues ornament nearly all of their public squares and parks, and many of them are well done. The public buildings are numerous and tasty, as is most of the architecture of the country. ”

“ But still Pará has quite enough to redeem it from the imputations we may be supposed to have cast upon it. Every day showed us something fresh to admire, some new wonder we had been taught to expect as the invariable accompaniment of a luxuriant country within a degree of the equator. ”

“ At the same time the Pará people were much inferior to Southern Brazilians in energy and industry. Provisions and house rents being cheap and the wants of the people few—for they were content with food and lodging of a quality which would be spurned by paupers in England—they spent the greater part of their time in sensual indulgences and in amusements which the government and wealthier citizens provided for them gratis. ”

“ Those not brought in at the end of that [Pg 261] period lose ten per cent. of their value, and ten per cent. for each following month, until the value of the note is nil. The result has been that many persons trading up the river have lost heavily, and now demand hard money. Change is very scarce in Pará.
The province of Pará is governed by a president chosen at Rio, and every four years sends representatives to the Imperial Parliament. The Constitution of Brazil is very liberal; every householder, without distinction of race or color, has a vote, and may work his way up to high position. ”

“ The town may contain ten thousand inhabitants, who are in general very poor, probably from want of commerce: for although the great rivers Tocantins and Amazons have their source, the latter in Peru, and the former in the capitania of Goyaz, though they receive almost millions of inferior streams in their course through immense tracts of territory, yet they are not productive of any commerce of consequence. The exports from Pará consist of a considerable quantity of rice, cocoa, cotton, drugs, hides of various sorts, woods, and a few other articles. ”

“ The trade here is principally in Brazil-nuts, salsaparilha—which is the best on the Amazon,—farinha, and salt-fish,—some of which articles are obtained from the Mundrucús, an industrious tribe of Indians inhabiting the Tapajoz. There are here, as in Pará, many persons who live an idle life, entirely supported by the labours of a few slaves which they have inherited. ”

“ The whole valley is cut in two transversely, so that its lower half is of necessity a bar to the independent growth of the upper half. Pará, being made the centre of everything, drains the whole country without vitalizing the interior. ”

“ He is shy and uneasy before strangers, but if they visit his abode, he treats them well, for he has a rooted appreciation of the duty of hospitality; there is a pride about him, and being naturally formal and polite, he acts the host with great dignity. He withdraws from towns as soon as the stir of civilisation begins to make itself felt. When we first arrived at Pará many Indian families resided there, for the mode of living at that time was more like that of a large village than a city ”

“ The native women, too, seemed to preserve their good looks and plump condition until late in life. I nowhere observed that early decay of appearance in Brazilian ladies, which is said to be so general in the women of North America. Up to 1848 the salubrity of Pará was quite remarkable for a city lying in the delta of a great river in the middle of the tropics and half surrounded by swamps. It did not much longer enjoy its immunity from epidemics. In 1850 the yellow fever visited the province for the first time, and carried off in a few weeks more than four per cent. of the population. ”

“ Who drinks Assai goes never away.” August 12th.—This morning we rose early and walked into town. Great pains have been taken with the environs of Pará, and the Rua de Nazareth is one of the broad streets leading into the country, and planted with large trees (chiefly mangueiras) for two or three miles out of town. On our way we saw a lofty palm-tree completely overpowered and stifled in the embrace of an enormous parasite. ”

“ A negro is almost conspicuous in Pará, and it is a question whether there are not more caboclos, that is, Indian mixtures, than mulattoes. Not merely did the exploiting of the Amazonian region begin late in the life of the monarchy, but the northern part of Brazil freed its slaves before the national decree of emancipation was promulgated. The city itself rivals the southernmost states as a European Brazil. White men, from English merchants to barefoot Portuguese laborers, their olive skins seeming strangely pale in the blazing sunshine, make up almost a majority of the population. ”

“ Fifty miles below Almeirim we steered across the river for Gurupá, running under sail from island to island, The river here is about ten miles wide. Large islands divide it into the Macapá and Gurupá channels; the latter conducting to Pará, the former running out to sea by the shores of Guyana. ”