But Belém, or Pará as it is more generally called by foreigners (one may take his choice, since the full corporate name is _Santa Maria de Nazareth de Belém do Grão Pará_), is by far the largest and most interesting of them all, for not only has the wealth that has poured into it in recent years transformed it into a big city of about two hundred thousand inhabitants, boasting, like Manãos, all the modern public utilities and conveniences, but it is old and rich in relics associated with its romantic history, much care has been taken in the adding of the new to beautify it, its climate is much more delightful than the others (the mean annual temperature is only 82° F.), and it is also charmingly clean and picturesque. “Who comes to Pará,” runs a local proverb, “is glad to stay; who drinks _assai_ goes never away”—though _assai_ need have no real terrors for that reason. It is nothing more seductive than a most refreshing beverage made from the fruit of the _assai_ palm. Almost at the very threshold of the city, on the approach from the sea, one encounters some of the wonders in which the region abounds—first the “_pororoca_,” which is the name originally given by the Indians to the huge waves that are created by the conflict of the descending waters of the river with the inrushing current of the Atlantic and follow each other in series of three or four, with thunderous intonations. For nearly an hour in the progress through the great estuary the conflict can be observed. Then the river seems to prevail; its surface grows more placid, the color changes from the dark hue of the ocean to light green, and, on beyond, to the tawny yellow of the Amazon. Yet they say the ebb and flow of the tide is perceptible as far up as Obydos, 700 miles away, and, when it ebbs, that the tawny yellow can be seen many miles out at sea. Then, scattered about, here, there, and everywhere on the twenty-mile-wide bosom of the Pará, as though in the titanic struggle some larger body had been broken into bits, are hundreds of wooded islands, moist and radiant in the sunlight, their varied greens in delightful contrast with the silvery sheen on the waters and the bright turquoise of the sky.