1 we left Manaos for Belen-Para, as until recently it was
called. The trip was interesting. We steamed down through tempest and
sunshine; and the towering forest was dwarfed by the giant river it
fringed. Sunrise and sunset turned the sky to an unearthly flame of
many colors above the vast water. It all seemed the embodiment of
loneliness and wild majesty. Yet everywhere man was conquering the
loneliness and wresting the majesty to his own uses. We passed many
thriving, growing towns; at one we stopped to take on cargo.
Everywhere there was growth and development. The change since the days
when Bates and Wallace came to this then poor and utterly primitive
region is marvellous. One of its accompaniments has been a large
European, chiefly south European, immigration. The blood is everywhere
mixed; there is no color line, as in most English-speaking countries,
and the negro and Indian strains are very strong; but the dominant
blood, the blood already dominant in quantity, and that is steadily
increasing its dominance, is the olive-white.

Only rarely did the river show its full width. Generally we were in
channels or among islands. The surface of the water was dotted with
little islands of floating vegetation. Miller said that much of this
came from the lagoons such as those where he had been hunting, beside
the Solimoens--lagoons filled with the huge and splendid Victoria
lily, and with masses of water hyacinths. Miller, who was very fond of
animals and always took much care of them, had a small collection
which he was bringing back for the Bronx Zoo. An agouti was so bad-
tempered that he had to be kept solitary; but three monkeys, big,
middle-sized, and little, and a young peccary formed a happy family.
The largest monkey cried, shedding real tears, when taken in the arms
and pitied. The middle-sized monkey was stupid and kindly, and all the
rest of the company imposed on it; the little monkey invariably rode
on its back, and the peccary used it as a head pillow when it felt
sleepy.

Belen, the capital of the state of Para, was an admirable illustration
of the genuine and almost startling progress which Brazil has been
making of recent years. It is a beautiful city, nearly under the
equator. But it is not merely beautiful. The docks, the dredging
operations, the warehouses, the stores and shops, all tell of energy
and success in commercial life. It is as clean, healthy, and well
policed a city as any of the size in t