zard-hunter and his hired charge--having well remunerated him
for his threefold service, each branch of which he had performed to
their entire satisfaction.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

SOUTH AMERICAN BEARS.

Our travellers passed southward to Madrid, where they only remained long
enough to witness that exciting but not very gentle spectacle, a
bull-fight.

Thence proceeding to Lisbon, they took passage direct for Para, or "Gran
Para," as it is called--a thriving Brazilian settlement at the mouth of
the Amazon river, and destined at no very distant day to become a great
city.

The design of our hunters was to ascend the Amazon, and reach, by one of
its numerous head waters, the eastern slope of the Andes mountains--
which they knew to be the habitat of the "spectacled bear."

On arriving at Para, they were not only surprised, but delighted, to
find that the Amazon river was actually navigated by steamboats; and
that, instead of having to spend six months in ascending to the upper
part of this mighty river--as in the olden time--they could now
accomplish the journey in less than a score of days! These steamers are
the property of the Brazilian Government, that owns the greater part of
the Amazon valley, and that has shown considerable enterprise in
developing its resources--much more than any of the Spano-American
States, which possess the regions lying upon the upper tributaries of
the Amazon. It is but fair to state, however, that the Peruvians have
also made an attempt to introduce steam upon the Amazon river; and that
they have been unsuccessful, from causes over which they could scarce be
expected to have control. The chief of these causes appears to have
been the dishonesty of certain American contractors, who provided them
with the steamers--three of them--which, on being taken to the head of
steam navigation on the Amazon, were found to be utterly worthless, and
had to be laid up! This bit of jobbery is to be regretted the more,
since its bad effects do not alone concern the people of Peru, but the
whole civilised world: for there is not a country on the globe that
would not receive benefit by a development of the resources of this
mighty river.

Our young Russians had been under the belief, as most people are, that
the banks of the Amazon were entirely without civilised settlements--
that the great river had scarcely been explored--that only a few
travellers had descended this mighty stream; and that