There is Manãos, for instance, the capital of the State of Amazonas. Manãos is situated at the mouth of the Rio Negro, which empties into the Amazon a thousand miles from the coast. When Lieutenant Herndon was there in 1851, it was a wretched little town, containing but four hundred and seventy houses, most of them one story in height, and had a population of about four thousand—whites, Indians, mixed breeds, and negro slaves all combined. To-day it is a modern, rapidly growing city, with a population already numbering fifty thousand, perhaps more, including many foreigners. There is an imposing stone State House, a white marble Palace of Justice, and a splendid monument commemorating the opening of the Amazon to international trade. It has broad, shaded, well-paved streets, lined with handsome buildings; it has electric lights, trolley lines, a telephone system, water and harbor works, an ice plant, banks, hotels, newspapers, up-to-date shops, warehouses and public markets, a good library and excellent educational institutions, and is rated among the greater ports of South America because of its extensive shipments of rubber and other products of the country round about. A visit to the beautiful public gardens, where an orchestra plays in the evenings, and to the Amazonas Theater is well worth while. It is said to have cost $2,000,000 in gold, that theater—which is not at all surprising to any one who has seen it, for it is truly superb, a structure of stone with marble supporting columns, that stands on a great causeway of masonry occupying a commanding site on the Avenida Eduardo Ribeiro, the principal thoroughfare and fashionable promenade, and has a lofty, brightly colored dome that can be seen from the harbor, and a magnificent foyer adorned with paintings by a famous Italian artist. Obydos, too, perched on the bluffs beside an old fortress near the mouth of the Trombetas, and Santarem, at the mouth of the Tapajos, about midway between Manãos and the coast, are other progressive cities that offer opportunities for agreeable breaks in the long journey. As it was in the Tapajos that gold was first found in the region, Santarem is one of the oldest if now one of the most up-to-date of the towns. It is possessed, besides, of a peculiar interest for North Americans because after our civil war it became the home of quite a number of our “unreconstructed” Confederates.