a vessel was carried over and launched upon the Paraguay. The Preto, a branch of the Tapajos, approaches so near the Paraguay that all the heavy trade of Cuiba, a flourishing mining town on a navigable branch of the Paraguay, is carried on with Para through the Tapajos and Amazon. From the upper waters of the Tocantins to the capital city, Rio Janeiro, the distance is less than 500 miles. It needs but a few hundred miles of very feasible canal in South America, to add several thousand miles to the river navigation connected with the Amazon.

The population of all the regions described is very small, the immensely larger portion being, in fact, still an unbroken, and in great part, except by savages, an unvisited wilderness. The total population of Peru numbers about two millions, of whom but a very small proportion are whites, the rest being Indians and mestizoes. In a region close by Lima, only onetwelfth are pure whites. The Indians are, in fact, the great laboring and producing population. The most remarkable traits Herndon notices in them are a docile but stupid disposition, and universal laziness. But Tschudi, the Prussian traveler, draws a somewhat different picture. He says they are high-spirited, intensely national in feeling, self-reliant, used to fire-arms and military manoeuvers, being admitted into the Peruvian army, and is of opinion that they will some day effect a successful revolt, and expel the Spaniards. Certain it is, Peru was mainly indebted to them for the success of its revolutionary contest, they being deluded into the patriot cause by the promise of a restoration of the government of the Incas, in a descendent of Atahualpa, deposed by Pizarro. Their inertness is sufficiently accounted for from the total absence of any encouragement to action; but that they are not unambitious, is evident from the fact mentioned by Herndon himself, that great numbers of them go down the Amazon, and are found along its whole course in Brazil, where they are the principal boatmen, fishermen, and laborers, the inducement being wages to the value of twelve and a half cents a day, in goods.

The population of Bolivia is of a similar cast, but rather more thrifty, numbering about 1,500,000.

In Brazil, the population along the Amazon and its branches is much scantier still than in Peru and Bolivia. The whole great region watered by them is an unoccupied waste, with the exception of here and there a solitary town, or a very sparsely settled district.

Lima, the capital of Peru, is estimated to contain 70,000 inhabitants, probably an exaggeration, as it had but 53,000 in 1842, and cannot be said to be a growing place. In 1810 it numbered 87,000, but the mines of Peru were better worked then than at present. The Huallaga is the most populous portion of the Amazon region. There are some forty towns along its route, comprising about 60,000 inhabitants, nearly all Indians. The chief of these towns are Huanuco, with 4,000 or 5,000; Tarapota, having, with its two ports, 5,130; Moyabamba, with a very active trading population, contrary to the general character of the Peruvians of these parts, of 7,000; Chasuta; and Laguna, near the mouth of the river, with 1,044 inhabitants. Sarayacu, 275 miles up the Ucayali, with 1,000 converted Indians, is the leading town of that river, aud there is no other above it on the main river, though several on its upper branches, which also pass very near to Cuzco, the ancient capital of the Incas, and to Huancevelica, in the region of the quicksilver mines. There are some twenty towns along the Amazon banks, within Peru, of which Nauta, a fishing

village of about 1,000, opposite the mouth of the Ucayali, and the depot whence all the region above, receiving foreign articles by way of the Amazon, is supplied, is the principal. Loreto, on the frontier, has 250 inhabitants and three mercantile houses, all Portuguese, doing a business of about $10,000 a year.

On the Amazon, within Brazil, there are some twenty-five towns indicated on the map, the chief of which are Egas, at the mouth of the Teffe, with 800 inhabitants, eight or ten commercial houses, and a few vessels, situated midway between Loreto and Barra; Barra, at the mouth of the Rio Negro, midway between Egas and Para, with 3,614 free and 234 servile inhabitants in 1848; Santarem, at the mouth of the Tapajos, with a population of 4,977 free persons (87 foreigners) and 1,591 slaves; Santa Anna, with 500; and Para, at the river mouth, with 9,284 free persons and 4,726 slaves, total, 14,010. The town population on the Amazon, enumerated by Herndon, amounts to about 70,000, large districts around being included in the estimates of most of the towns. The valley of the Tocantins contains 80,000 inhabitants, and the province 125,000, of whom 25,000 are slaves. The few towns on the Brazilian tributaries are all inconsiderable.

The products of Peru and Bolivia vary according to the altitude, embracing all the riches of the temperate and torrid zones. In the higher parts, Indian corn affords three crops a year, and there are fine crops of wheat, barley, cabbages, onions, potatoes, peaches, &c. The vicuna, alpacca, and other sheep, of finest wool, are here in unlimited abundance, though the business of wool growing, as well as that of the herdsmen, is but poorly attended to. In the warmer and in the torrid region, descending from the mountains, the range of product is infinite, and has nearly the same character throughout Peru, Bolivia, and the Brazilian valley. Plenty seems here to have almost exhausted her various cornucopia. Cotton grows on trees of eight or ten feet hight, yielding yearly for three consecutive years, and furnishing a material of most excellent quality and of diverse kinds. Rice, tobacco, coffee, and sugar-cane are everywhere. The latter yields every ten months, and the same stalk will continue to bear for sixty or seventy years, so Lieut. Herndon assures us, improving in quality for a portion of that time; 1,500 lbs. of expressed juice give 253 lbs. of sugar. The coffee is superior to that of Guayaquil or Central America, which are, however, used principally at Lima, the coffee of the country being there so expensive, from the difficulty of transport. While at Tarma, about 150 miles only from Lima, it is worth $8 per 100 lbs., at Lima it sells for $20, and as high even as $25 or $27. The silk-tree grows in Peru, producing an article like cotton to the eye, and silk to the touch. Bananas are the most common fruit, and of their varieties the amount is enormous. These, with the yucca or cassava-root, are used as substitutes for bread, and tend thus to encourage indolence. The tamarind, cocoa, oranges, lemons, citrons, pomegranates, figs, pine-apples, melons, &c., everywhere abound. Indigo and plentiful other dyes are found, one of which, a shrub, not yet brought into Commerce, produces a brilliant scarlet, quite equal to cochineal. Of gums, drugs, and medicinal herbs there is no limit; sarsaparilla abounds on nearly all the rivers, the greatest amount being at present gathered upon the Ucayali; India-rubber seems nearly as plentiful; Peruvian bark, rocou, vanilla, ipecacuanha, copal, and many others, ere in the list. Among the products that appear peculiar to Brazil, are

the Brazilian nuts and nutmegs, black-pepper, ginger, arrow-root, tapioca, farina, (used as a substitute for bread,) anato, sapucacia, tonka beans. Also the cow-tree, which yields a substance very much resembling the milk of a cow, and affording a most refreshing beverage. Vast herds of cattle browse on the endless savannahs, the woods swarm with game, and the rivers with fish and turtle, the oil of the latter being a leading article of trade on the lower Amazon. In regard to woods, there are, in the province of Amazonas alone, twenty-three well-known varieties of palms, twenty-two kinds of timber fit for ship-building, thirty-three for houses and boats, twelve for cabinet work, having the finest grain and susceptible of the highest polish.

The mineral kingdom corresponds with the wealth of the vegetable. "On the top and east slope of the Andes lie hidden unimaginable quantities of silver, iron, coal, copper, and quicksilver, awaiting but the application of science and the hand of industry for their development." Gold undoubtedly exists at the head of nearly all the streams rising in Bolivia and Peru. Gold washings have been opened at the province of Cambaya, in Peru, within a few years, and the Peruvian government has invited emigration thither, under guaranty of all necessary immunities and privileges. An intelligent resident of Peru deems the whole of the great region embraced within the branches of the Madeira, (which is a great part of all Bolivia,) and up even to the Ucayali, to be a continuous field of gold and silver, and containing probably diamonds and other precious stones. Most of the Brazilian rivers rise in a diamond country, the bulk of which is comparatively untouched, and gold is as plentiful there, besides large mines of nitre and iron, although no silver has been yet found.

Of the exuberance of the animal creation below the Andes, Herndon enumerates the wild cow, fish-ox, black tiger, electric eel, boa-constrictor, anaconda, coral snake, alligator, endless varieties of monkeys, birds of most brilliant plumage, and insects of strange forms and the gayest colors.

The climate is throughout salubrious and what would hardly be expected from the nature of the productions, generally temperate. Diseases seem to be few; some fevers prevail, but we see nothing mentioned of that pest of our own western regions, the ague.

Castlenau declares that this is the finest country in the world, and our observing lieutenant is also of opinion, that "no country in the world is so favorably situated, and that if trade there is once awakened, the power and wealth and grandeur of ancient Babylon and modern London must yield to that of the depots of this trade, that shall be established at the mouths of the Oronoco, the Amazon, and the La Plata."

The trade of these regions is, like their population, contracted beneath all proportion with their abilities. The few foreign goods carried into the interior of Peru, of which the lighter kinds come by way of Lima and the coast, and the heavier from Para on the Atlantic, are very high on arriving there. At San Mateo, only ninety miles from Lima, foreign goods, cottons, silks, linens, &c., are one hundred per cent higher than in Lima, and further back the price trebles and quadruples. Money is there almost unknown. The encouragement is so small, that the people are inattentive to cultivation, and have but a few ordinary manufactures. On the Huallaga, Herndon says his party would have starved had it consisted of one hundred men. Salt fish, taken mostly at the Ucayali, is an article of trade all up and down the Huallaga and Amazon.

The exports from Para, in 1846, amounted to $560,302; in 1847 to $710,879; in 1848 to $589,286. The imports, in 1846, were $622,052; in 1847, $646,946; in 1848, $564,881. Of the exports in 1846, $182,742 were to the United States, $117,813 to England, $107,813 to France, and $123,156 to Portugal. Of the imports in the same year, $235,105 were from the U. States, $160,050 from Great Britain, $52,924 from France, and $87,608 from Portugal.

In 1851 the Commerce of Para was as follows:

Herndon suggests the expediency of American steamers being placed upon these rivers, at once, to conduct the trade now carried on in flat, slow, inefficient vessels, and to carry up American goods. There can be no question as to their full success. The people all along the river are ambitious of an enlarged trade, and desire greatly to see improvements which they are unable to effect, introduced by others. Except for some jealousy of foreigners among the Brazilian Indians, they are all eager to see the entire river made free to all nations, and a tide of emigration set thither. They look for no decided advance until that freedom of navigation is established. The governments also of Peru and Bolivia are fully awake upon this subject. Every attention was shown to the United States expeditionists. In Bolivia-which country has offered twenty thousand square miles of the richest land to encourage the introduction from any source, of steam upon her waters-Lieutenant Gibbon was hailed as a benefactor. The present minister of Peru, it is said, is a man fully up with the spirit of the age, one who has seen the world abroad, and knows what is requisite to that country. It is to be presumed, though not able for any great effort, the government of Peru is something more stable and efficient than it was some years ago, when, as Tschudi mentions, there were six presidents, all attempting simultaneous exercise of authority, levying taxes and shooting each other's adherents. New Granada and Venezuela would gladly second the designs of Peru and Bolivia, as themselves intimately concerned in the free navigation of the Amazon.

Brazil, alone, of the five powers, lying upon the Amazon and its great rivers, is disinclined to their proposed freedom, and her jurisdiction extends over about three-fourths of the whole length of the Amazon, and over, it might be said, almost the whole of its tributary waters. Yet there is a very large jurisdiction still remaining with the other powers, the rights of which are to be maintained, and these rights do not permit Brazil to shut up the ports of any of these rivers within her own territory. The attempt comes at too late a day, though it might have been admitted at the time when Spain undertook the monopoly of the Atlantic ocean. No such claim is allowed even in regard to the shorter rivers of Europe;

and our own country was long ago nearly involved in a war from a similar effort with regard to the Mississippi. But Brazil has condemned her own present policy by the war which she made against the tyrant Rosas, to secure the freedom of the La Plata, and happily effected.

At the time the United States government resolved upon the exploration of the Amazon, that of Brazil undertook to thwart its obvious design, and hurriedly effected a treaty with Peru, in 1851, professing to have in view the navigation of the Amazon and its confluents by steam, and the mutual improvement of their river territories. The duties on products passing up and down were assimilated, and each power agreed to assist with $20,000 yearly, for five years, the first company formed for steam navigation, belonging exclusively to the respective States, other coterminous States being at liberty to join on the same conditions. Consummate art was displayed in the imposition of this purely Brazilian scheme upon Peru.

Under this treaty, Brazil, in 1852, conveyed to Ireno Evangelistu de Souza, one of her own citizens, the exclusive privilege of navigating the Amazon for thirty years, guarantying to him the $20,000 yearly of Peru, and granting him, from its own funds, the sum of $80,000 yearly, in addition to its stipulated amount of $20,000. He is to keep six steamers on the Amazon, and to establish sixty colonies, of Indians, or of others designated by the crown. These steamers are to afford Peru 250 miles of navigation, and Brazil above 1,500.

Tirado, the minister of Peru, has objected to this arrangement, as regards Peru, and the Council of State sustain his demurral. Peru has opened her part of the river, under the treaty, to which the United States, under the provision for equality with the "most favored nations," in our treaty with that country, effected in July, 1851, three months before that of Peru with Brazil, are admitted, as well as the latter. Nauta and Loreto, the two Peruvian ports of the Amazon, are declared free, there being no import or export duties on foreign trade. The Council of State have appropriated $200,000 to establish steam navigation on the Huallaga, Ucayali, &c., and to effect their settlement. Two small steamers, to be built in the United States, for $75,000, were to be delivered at Loreto on the 1st of January, 1854. To encourage emigrants, Peru gives free grants of land, exempts them from any taxes or contributions for twenty years, assuming the payment of even their parochial dues, and allows them to make their own local laws. She also defrays the expense of passage within her territory of the emigrants to the place of settlement, and furnishes implements of husbandry, and seeds, gratuitously. Roads are to be opened, and other facilities afforded.

In her attempt to administer to Bolivia the same pill prepared for Peru, Brazil made a failure. That government rejected her scheme, plainly perceiving its animus. In January, 1853, Bolivia declared all her ports communicating with the Atlantic, by either the Amazon or La Plata, free to the Commerce of the world, and the president of that republic declares it is to the Norte Americanos they look for the emigration, wealth, and energy necessary to complete the great objects they have in view regarding their own internal improvement.

The treaty of the United States with Peru alluded to, gives us, beside equal privileges with the most favored of other nations, (by which whatever Brazil gets from her, she obtains for us the same or an equivalent,) the same privileges of coast and inland trade, and the right to establish