d
longitude of the spot--visited the villages on both banks, and on the
6th of September arrived in front of the fort of Para. This immense
journey had important results--not only was the course of the Amazon
made out in scientific fashion, but it seemed almost certain that it
communicated with the Orinoco.

Fifty-five years later Humboldt and Bonpland completed the valuable work
of La Condamine, and drew up the map of the Mananon as far as Napo.

Since this period the Amazon itself and all its principal tributaries
have been frequently visited.

In 1827 Lister-Maw, in 1834 and 1835 Smyth, in 1844 the French
lieutenant in command of the "Boulonnaise," the Brazilian Valdez in
1840, the French "Paul Marcoy" from 1848 to 1860, the whimsical painter
Biard in 1859, Professor Agassiz in 1865 and 1866, in 1967 the Brazilian
engineer Franz Keller-Linzenger, and lastly, in 1879 Doctor Crevaux,
have explored the course of the river, ascended many of its tributaries,
and ascertained the navigability of its principal affluents.

But what has won the greatest honor for the Brazilian government is
that on the 31st of July, 1857, after numerous frontier disputes between
France and Brazil, about the Guiana boundary, the course of the Amazon
was declared to be free and open to all flags; and, to make practice
harmonize with theory, Brazil entered into negotiations with the
neighboring powers for the exploration of every river-road in the basin
of the Amazon.

To-day lines of well-found steamboats, which correspond direct with
Liverpool, are plying on the river from its mouth up to Manaos; others
ascend to Iquitos; others by way of the Tapajoz, the Madeira, the Rio
Negro, or the Purus, make their way into the center of Peru and Bolivia.

One can easily imagine the progress which commerce will one day make in
this immense and wealthy area, which is without a rival in the world.

But to this medal of the future there is a reverse. No progress can be
accomplished without detriment to the indigenous races.

In face, on the Upper Amazon many Indian tribes have already
disappeared, among others the Curicicurus and the Sorimaos. On the
Putumayo, if a few Yuris are still met with, the Yahuas have abandoned
the district to take refuge among some of the distant tributaries, and
the Maoos have quitted its banks to wander in their diminished numbers
among the forests of Japura.

The Tunantins is almost depopulated, and there are only a few