work, cocoa, caoutchouc, coffee,
sarsaparilla, sugar-canes, indigo, muscado nuts, salt fish, turtle
butter, and other commodities, are brought here from all parts, down the
innumerable streams into the Rio Negro from the west and north, into
the Madeira from the west and south, and then into the Amazon, and by it
away eastward to the coast of the Atlantic.

Manaos was formerly called Moura, or Barra de Rio Negro. From 1757 to
1804 it was only part of the captaincy which bears the name of the
great river at whose mouth it is placed; but since 1826 it has been the
capital of the large province of Amazones, borrowing its latest name
from an Indian tribe which formerly existed in these parts of equatorial
America.

Careless travelers have frequently confounded it with the famous Manoa,
a city of romance, built, it was reported, near the legendary lake of
Parima--which would seem to be merely the Upper Branco, a tributary of
the Rio Negro. Here was the Empire of El Dorado, whose monarch, if we
are to believe the fables of the district, was every morning covered
with powder of gold, there being so much of the precious metal abounding
in this privileged locality that it was swept up with the very dust
of the streets. This assertion, however, when put to the test, was
disproved, and with extreme regret, for the auriferous deposits which
had deceived the greedy scrutiny of the gold-seekers turned out to be
only worthless flakes of mica!

In short, Manaos has none of the fabulous splendors of the mythical
capital of El Dorado. It is an ordinary town of about five thousand
inhabitants, and of these at least three thousand are in government
employ. This fact is to be attributed to the number of its public
buildings, which consist of the legislative chamber, the government
house, the treasury, the post-office, and the custom-house, and, in
addition, a college founded in 1848, and a hospital erected in 1851.
When with these is also mentioned a cemetery on the south side of a
hill, on which, in 1669, a fortress, which has since been demolished,
was thrown up against the pirates of the Amazon, some idea can be gained
as to the importance of the official establishments of the city. Of
religious buildings it would be difficult to find more than two, the
small Church of the Conception and the Chapel of Notre Dame des Remedes,
built on a knoll which overlooks the town. These are very few for a town
of Spanish origin, though to them sho