markable on account of the inky blackness of the waters of the Rio Negro-Black River-which remain separated for a distance of several miles from the tan-colored flood of the Amazon, giving the great river immediately below the city the appearance of having a double current, each of a different color. So dark are the waters of the Rio Negro that they have extorted the admiration of voyagers from the earliest days of exploration. Orellana's chronicler, Padre Carvajal, describing the river, says, "The water was as black as inkera negra como tinta-and for this reason we gave it the name Rio Negro"-a name it has since retained. The color of this river, it may be added, like that of many other Rio Negros in South America, is due to the decaying vegetation of its headwaters and that of the forest swamps which border its numerous and sluggish affluents. Manaos is an enterprising city of between forty and fifty thousand inhabitants, and, like Iquitos, is an important rubber emporium. It is quite an attractive place, and contains several imposing public and private buildings. But the most remarkable and most conspicuous edifice is the theater on the Avenida Ribeiro. It is a large and ornate structure, with a beautifully-painted and decorated interior, and will compare favorably with the most notable playhouses in the United States. One cannot help wondering why such a magnificent building was erected in this place -in a territory so sparsely populated, and where apparently there is but little demand for it. To the casual visitor it seems like a monument of reckless extravagance. As I was wandering through the warehouse where rubber was prepared for shipment, I was surprised to learn that the lumber used for the boxes in which it is packed is all imported. Much of it comes from the United States. Only a few days before my arrival, a single vessel from New York brought a million feet of pine lumber from Maine, all of which was intended for boxing rubber. But lumber is imported not only for the purpose named, but also for general carpentry work and all kinds of building construction. Indeed, it is safe to assert that the greater part of the lumber used in the larger Amazonian towns is imported either from the United States or from Europe. This is certainly like carrying coals to Newcastle. Why people living along the Amazon, in the heart of the largest and richest forest in the world, where there are countless species of the best kinds of wood, should import the lumber they use, is not apparent to one who is unfamiliar with the conditions that obtain there. In the Amazonian forests there are at least two or three hundred kinds of woods, but, paradoxical as it may appear, the greatest commercial difficulty comes from the large number of species. For, although the kinds of timber are so numerous, it is rarely that it is possible to find a large number of trees of the same species, in the same place. They are so scattered and at so great distances from one another, that their cutting and hauling would, as a rule, be extremely expensive. Smith, in his Brazil, the Amazons and the Coast, explains the difficulty as follows: "Lumbermen deal in large quantities; they want so many hundred thousand or million feet of a certain kind of wood. Now suppose I should agree to furnish a million feet of pao d' arco; 1 I would be baffled in the outset because the trees are few and far between; I must cut a road for every one; and then in a square mile of timber land I would get no more than fifty or a hundred logs. By rare good luck I may find an exceptional spot where the species that I am searching for exists in quantity, but such tracts are limited and often far from the river banks, where they are valueless at present." 2 For this reason, and because of the suicidal export tax and the prohibitive freight rates, very little lumber is shipped from the Amazon valley to foreign countries. So 1 Meaning bow-wood, because, being tough and elastic, the Indians use it for making their bows. 2 P. 201, New York, 1879. far, the only exportation worth mentioning has been to Portugal, and the total amount shipped thither in 1906 did not have a market value exceeding seventy-five thousand dollars. There is no doubt a promising future in this great forest region for some enterprising lumber company with plenty of capital. Even now there is a fortune awaiting the first one to put on the markets of the world the scores of rare cabinet woods which abound in every part of Amazonia. For the interior furnishing of houses, no more beautiful woods can be found than the cedar of Brazilcedrella odorata-the acapu and pao amarello, a yellow wood used for flooring. The voyage from Manaos to Pará differed in no respect from that in the upper reaches of the river. The scenery was the same and the fauna and flora, with few exceptions, were similar to those which we had already seen. About fifty miles below Manaos is the embouchure of the great river Madeira, so called by the first Franciscan explorers, on account of the immense amount of timber-madeira that was observed floating down stream at the time of their passage. The Madeira just now is attracting special attention in the commercial world on account of the long-projected railway, which is at last being built around the falls of San Antonio, six hundred and fifty miles from the Amazon. When this road shall be completed, communication between the Amazon and all parts of Bolivia will be easy and rapid. Hitherto, owing to the numerous rapids above San Antonio, freight, destined for points on the Beni, Mamoré and Madre de Dios, had to be transported partly by land and partly by water in canoes-for a distance of nearly two hundred miles. Even under such unfavorable conditions, the amount of freight shipped into and out of Bolivia by this route has been considerable, but the outlet for trade which the railroad will furnish will open up a new era for the northern and, in some respects, the most productive part of Bolivia. Already the amount of rubber received |