Fowls, eggs, fresh fish,
turtles, vegetables, and fruit were excessively scarce and dear
in 1859, when I again visited the place; for instance, six or
seven shillings were asked for a poor lean fowl, and eggs were
twopence-halfpenny a piece. In fact, the neighbourhood produces
scarcely anything; the provincial government is supplied with the
greater part of its funds from the treasury of Para; its revenue,
which amounts to about fifty contos of reis (?5600), derived from
export taxes on the produce of the entire province, not sufficing
for more than about one-fifth of its expenditure.
The population of the province of the Amazons, according to a
census taken in 1858, is 55,000 souls; the municipal district of
Barra, which comprises a large area around the capital,
containing only 4500 inhabitants. For the government, however, of
this small number of people, an immense staff of officials is
gathered together in the capital, and, notwithstanding the
endless number of trivial formalities which Brazilians employ in
every small detail of administration, these have nothing to do
the greater part of their time.
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