The Naturalist on the River Amazons [243]
consequence of the demand for labour and for native products of all kinds having augmented in greater ratio than the supply, through large arrivals of nonproductive residents, and considerable importations of money on account of the steamboat company and foreign merchants. Para, in 1848, was one of the cheapest places of residence on the American continent; it was now one of the dearest. Imported articles of food, clothing, and furniture were mostly cheaper, although charged with duties varying from 18 to 80 percent, besides high freights and large profits, than those produced in the neighbourhood. Salt codfish was twopence per pound cheaper than the vile salt pirarucu of the country. Oranges, which could formerly be had almost gratis, were now sold in the streets at the rate of three for a penny; large bananas were a penny each; tomatoes were from two to three pence each, and all other fruits in this fruit-producing country had advanced in like proportion. Mandioca-meal, the bread of the country, had become so scarce and dear and bad that the poorer classes of natives suffered famine, and all who could afford it were obliged to eat wheaten bread at fourpence to fivepence per pound, made from American flour, 1200 barrels of which were consumed monthly; this was now, therefore, a very serious item of daily expense to all but the most wealthy. House rent was most exorbitant; a miserable little place of two rooms, without fixtures or conveniences of any kind, having simply blank walls' cost at the rate of ?8 sterling a year. Lastly, the hire of servants was beyond the means of all persons in moderate circumstances--a lazy cook or porter could not be had for less than three or four shillings a day, besides his board and what he could steal. It cost me half-a-crown for the hire of a small boat and one man to disembark from the steamer, a distance of 100 yards.
In rambling over my old ground in the forests of the neighbourhood, I found great changes had taken place--to me, changes for the worse. The mantle of shrubs, bushes, and creeping plants which formerly, when the suburbs were undisturbed by axe or spade, had been left free to arrange itself in rich, full, and smooth sheets and masses over the forest borders, had been nearly all cut away, and troops of labourers were still employed cutting ugly muddy roads for carts and cattle, through the once clean and lonely woods. Houses and mills had been erected on the borders of these new roads. The noble forest-trees had been cut down, and their naked, half-burnt stems remained in the midst of ashes, muddy puddles, and heaps of broken branches. I was obliged to hire a negro boy to show me the way to my favourite path near Una, which I have described in the second chapter of this narrative; the new clearings having quite obliterated the old forest roads. Only a few acres of the glorious forest near Una now remained in their natural state. On the other side of the city, near the old road to the rice mills, several scores of woodsmen were employed under Government, in cutting a broad carriage-road through the forest to Maranham, the capital of the neighbouring province, distant 250 miles from Para, and this had entirely destroyed the solitude of the grand old forest path. In the course of a few years, however, a new growth of creepers will cover the naked treetrunks on the borders of this new road, and luxuriant shrubs form a green fringe to the path: it will then become as beautiful a woodland road as the old one was. A naturalist will have, henceforward, to go farther from the city to find the glorious forest scenery which lay so near in 1848, and work much more laboriously than was formerly needed to make the large collections which Mr. Wallace and I succeeded in doing in the neighbourhood of Para.
June 2, 1859--At length, on the 2nd of June, I left Para, probably forever; embarking in a North American trading-vessel, the Frederick Demming, for New York, the United States route being the quickest as well as the pleasantest way of reaching England. My extensive private collections
In rambling over my old ground in the forests of the neighbourhood, I found great changes had taken place--to me, changes for the worse. The mantle of shrubs, bushes, and creeping plants which formerly, when the suburbs were undisturbed by axe or spade, had been left free to arrange itself in rich, full, and smooth sheets and masses over the forest borders, had been nearly all cut away, and troops of labourers were still employed cutting ugly muddy roads for carts and cattle, through the once clean and lonely woods. Houses and mills had been erected on the borders of these new roads. The noble forest-trees had been cut down, and their naked, half-burnt stems remained in the midst of ashes, muddy puddles, and heaps of broken branches. I was obliged to hire a negro boy to show me the way to my favourite path near Una, which I have described in the second chapter of this narrative; the new clearings having quite obliterated the old forest roads. Only a few acres of the glorious forest near Una now remained in their natural state. On the other side of the city, near the old road to the rice mills, several scores of woodsmen were employed under Government, in cutting a broad carriage-road through the forest to Maranham, the capital of the neighbouring province, distant 250 miles from Para, and this had entirely destroyed the solitude of the grand old forest path. In the course of a few years, however, a new growth of creepers will cover the naked treetrunks on the borders of this new road, and luxuriant shrubs form a green fringe to the path: it will then become as beautiful a woodland road as the old one was. A naturalist will have, henceforward, to go farther from the city to find the glorious forest scenery which lay so near in 1848, and work much more laboriously than was formerly needed to make the large collections which Mr. Wallace and I succeeded in doing in the neighbourhood of Para.
June 2, 1859--At length, on the 2nd of June, I left Para, probably forever; embarking in a North American trading-vessel, the Frederick Demming, for New York, the United States route being the quickest as well as the pleasantest way of reaching England. My extensive private collections