The rivers of Brazil, highways of necessity, and a wonderful penetrating system in themselves, are quite well served; the Amazon river with its tributaries comprises a fluvial network of over forty thousand miles, and the producing areas are served partly by steamers and also by small launches and native embarcações which fearlessly traverse narrow water lanes almost closed by verdure, darkened from the sun by walls of tropic green, and negotiate the runs and cascades of the more distant reaches. The excellent steamers of the Amazon Steam Navigation Company are now part of the interests of the Farquhar syndicate, but formerly belonged to a British firm which acquired the rights of the early Brazilian operators. To force the sale of the Amazon company, a few years ago, a number of new steamers were brought from the United States and put into use; when rubber boomed there was freight for most of them. But today, with the object of their introduction attained and at the same time a shrinkage of commerce upon the Amazon, many are idle. In lines outside the Port of Pará these vessels are lying, empty, motionless, just so much good money thrown away for lack of foresight. Besides the ships of the “Amazon Steam” serving the route between Pará, and intervening ports (Santarem, Itacoatiara, Obidos, etc.) to Manáos, ships run up another thousand miles to Iquitos, and also up the Madeira to the hither side of the Falls, where the railroad ends. The English Booth line and the Lloyd Brasileiro also run up from Pará to Manáos, and there is a service on the Tapajoz and Tocantins by small steamers. The Amazon has all the riverine service that is called for, and chiefly feels the need of more ocean-going steamships. The São Francisco river is served by a line belonging to the State of Bahia, the Navigação Bahiana, which runs up and down the navigable stretch between the headwaters and the Paulo Affonso Falls, touching one railhead at Pirapora in Minas Geraes and another at Joazeiro in Bahia. The Paraná river is served by the ships of a Paulista company, running up and down from Itapura to the Tibiriça ferry, and up various affluents, while every coastal town traverses its nearby rivers with small steamboats privately owned. One of the most actively traversed water regions of Brazil is the Lagôa dos Patos in southern Rio Grande, where communication between the towns at each end of the lagoon is carried on entirely by boat. The Brazilian has been in the forefront of enterprises helping in the water communication between port and port in Brazil, and, as the thriving condition of the Lloyd Brasileiro demonstrates, is able to go abroad and compete with foreign companies. [Illustration: Water-front of São Salvador (Bahia). Floating docks at Manáos, Amazonas. ]