[144] We are inclined to doubt the assertion of Mansfield that Paraguay is the only country in eastern South America with an industrious peasantry.

[145] Brazil yields more than one half the quantity of coffee consumed by the world. That of Ceará is the best.

[146] In January, 1868, the current prices were as follows:

Refined Sugar, per arroba $3 00
Rice"1 40
Cacao" 3 20
Coffee" 3 50
Farina" 75
Tapioca "3 00
Pure rubber"11 50
Plassaba cord"6 50
Tobacco"1 50
Sarsparilla" 11 50
The Brazilian arroba is seven pounds heavier than the Spanish.

[147] "The traveler, in going from the equator toward the tropics, is less struck by the decrease of the mean annual temperature than by the unequal distribution of heat in different parts of the year."—Humboldt. The great German fixes the mean temperature of the equator at 81.5°; Brewster, at 82.8°; Kirwan, 83.9°; Atkinson, 84.5°.

[148] Herndon gives, for the altitude of Cerro Pasco, 13,802 feet; Rivero, 14,279. The lieutenant thus describes his first view from the rough hills surrounding this birthplace of the greatest of rivers: "I can compare it to nothing so fitly as looking from the broken and ragged edges of a volcano into the crater beneath."

[149] From Lauricocha to its mouth, the Amazon, following the main curves, is 2740 miles long, as estimated by Bates; in a straight line, 2050; from Pará to the head of the Ucayali, 3000. From north to south the tributaries stretch 1720 miles.

[150] Igarapé is sometimes limited to a creek filled with back-water; paranamirim is the proper term for a narrow arm of the main river; and furos are the diminutive mouths of the tributaries.

[151] The Cassiquiari belongs indifferently to both river systems, the level being so complete at one point between them as to obliterate the line of water-shed.—Herschel.

[152] In the map of Friar Fritz, published in 1707, the Madeira is one of the most insignificant of the tributaries, and the Ucayali and Putumayo are the largest.