The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-06-18

ping, and in neither Para nor Manaos is
| there store with bargain counter.
Many kinds of goods are sold by ped
| dlers who carry packs on their backs,
and go through the streets slapping their
! yard sticks together. When a woman
hears the slapping she beckons to them
| to come in This custom is changing
slightly now, but until lately almost all
| dry goods were sold in this way
And still some of the Brazilian stores
| here are very large. There are establish
ments at Para which carry quite as big
| stocks of goods as any store in a city
| of similar size in the United States. The
goods are brought here from Europe, with
| the exception of a few coming from our
country.
CITY OF THE RIO NEGRO.
I find this town of Manaos interesting.
| 1t is a thousand miles inland in the
very heart of the great Amazon forest.
| There are woods about it so dense that
monkeys could travel thousand miles
| through them, jumping from branch to
| branch and never once touching the
| ground. They are so dense that you
| could not possibly go from one place to
another except by the streams. 1t would
| take you a day with an ak to make five
| miles. The country about here is very
| wild 1t is in fact one of the least known
parts of the world, and Manaos is the
metropolis, being the chief city of a re-
| gion hundreds of thousands of square
4 miles In extent.
Manaos is on the Rio Negro, about ten
miles from where 1t flows into the Anna
| gon. In coming up the Amazon as we ap-
preached the Rio Negro 1 could see where
| the latter river Joined 1t without lifting
nv ewes from the waters. The Rio Negro
| Is as black as your hat. The Amazon
| is as yellow as pea soup. For ABOUT Two
| miles below the mouth Of the Rio Negro
| the waters of the Rio Negro and the
Amazon flow side by side without mixing.
Our steamer for time cut the joining OF
the waters so that on one side OF the
| ship the stream was as yellow as lions
name. while on the other 1t had the
panther black of the Rio Negro. A little
| below this the two coiors disappeared,
the waters of the Rio Negro having been
| swallowed up in the mighty flood OF the
Amazon.
! METROPOLIS OF UPPER AMAZON.
AS we steamed on We passed out Of the
| Amazon and into the wide mouth or the
| Rio Negro We were now sailing through
a let black stream. Our steamer churn-
| ed the water into foam and 1t looked like
boiling black molasses. A sailor dropped
a bucket over the side and caught up
| q gallon for me to examine In the bucket
! 1t looked brown, but when / took 1t up In
| a glass 1t seemed almost clear.
The Rio Negro is an immense stream.
| If is very wide at the mounth, and at
| first sight 1t seems almost as large as the
| Amazon itself. 1t drains a vast region
| and Is so connected with the Orinoco by
| the Cassiquiare river that you can enter
the Orinoco at Its mouth and sail down
through the Rio Negro and the Amazon
| AS it nears the Amazon the Rio Negro
| increases in size. A large part of it's
lower course is formed Of a succession Of
! lakes, some of which are from twenty to
thirty miles wide. Its flow is not very
rapid, and it's ordinary depth is from 100
to $50 feet 1t has numerous sand bars,
which binders navigation at very low
| water, but. during the rainy season 1t
rises from thirty to forty feet and floods
large part of its basin. At its mouth
there are high bluffs lining the banks.
These are spotted with cacao plantations,
| back of which is q dense forest. There
are numerous palm trees, and among,
them, now and then, matched hut
| upon piles.
| A little further up on the north bank
1 upon a hill is the city of Manaos The
town slopes from the river, covering the
hills at the back It looks like a large
town from the steamer. At first you see
only a maze of white-colored one and two
story buildings rooted with red brick
tiles ss--s--
AS you come nearer the houses the
| WnarVeS grow unOeF- your eyes uIlll
you realize that they are large business
establishments. You see numerous fine
buildings, and out of the mass notice
structure somewhat like the pension
4 building at Washington, which is topped
with great dome, covered with porce-
lain tiles. That is the theater at Manaos.
1t will seat 1000 people and it is finer
than many of the so-called good theaters
of the United States The theater Is par
TALLY supported by the government and
i troupes are brought here from Para and
other Brazilian ports. 1t is not a one
night stand, for it takes 1900 miles to get
to and from it, SO that the troupes usual
/ ly stay a week or So With us came an
American circus, which is to get big
guarantee from the government for
showing month in Manaos.
AN OCEAN PORT.
1 Manaos is an ocean port thousand
miles from the Atlantic. Suppose the big
Atlantic liners could sail right across tha