During so long a residence I witnessed, of course, many changes in the place.Some of the good friends who made me welcome on my first arrival, died, and I followed their remains to their last resting-place in the little rustic cemetery on the borders of the surrounding forest.I lived there long enough, from first to last, to see the young people grow up, attended their weddings, and the christenings of their children, and, before I left, saw them old married folks with numerous families.In 1850 Ega was only a village, dependent on Para 1400 miles distant, as the capital of the then undivided province.In 1852, with the creation of the new province of the Amazons, it became a city;returned its members to the provincial parliament at Barra; had it assizes, its resident judges, and rose to be the chief town of the comarca or county.A year after this, namely, in 1853, steamers were introduced on the Solimoens; and from 1855, one ran regularly every two months between the Rio Negro and Nauta in Peru, touching at all the villages, and accomplishing the distance in ascending, about 1200 miles, in eighteen days.The trade and population, however, did not increase with these changes.The people became more "civilised," that is, they began to dress according to the latest Parisian fashions, instead of going about in stockingless feet, wooden clogs, and shirt sleeves, acquired a taste for money-getting and office-holding;became divided into parties, and lost part of their former simplicity of manners.But the place remained, when I left it in 1859, pretty nearly what it was when I first arrived in 1850--a semi-Indian village, with much in the ways and notions of its people more like those of a small country town in Northern Europe than a South American settlement.The place is healthy, and almost free from insect pests-- perpetual verdure surrounds it;the soil is of marvellous fertility, even for Brazil; the endless rivers and labyrinths of channels teem with fish and turtle, a fleet of steamers might anchor at any season of the year in the lake, which has uninterrupted water communication straight to the Atlantic.What a future is in store for the sleepy little tropical village!
After speaking of Ega as a city, it will have a ludicrous effect to mention that the total number of its inhabitants is only about 1200.It contains just 107 houses, about half of which are miserably built mud-walled cottages, thatched with palm leaves.Afourth of the population are almost always absent, trading or collecting produce on the rivers.The neighbourhood within a radius of thirty miles, and including two other small villages, contains probably 2000 more people.The settlement is one of the oldest in the country, having beenfounded in 1688 by Father Samuel Fritz, a Bohemian Jesuit, who induced several of the docile tribes of Indians, then scattered over the neighbouring region, to settle on the site.From 100 to 200 acres of sloping ground around the place were afterwards cleared of timber; but such is the encroaching vigour of vegetation in this country that the site would quickly relapse into jungle if the inhabitants neglected to pull up the young shoots as they arose.There is a stringent municipal law which compels each resident to weed a given space around his dwelling.Every month, whilst I resided here, an inspector came round with his wand of authority, and fined every one who had not complied with the regulation.The Indians of the surrounding country have never been hostile to the European settlers.The rebels of Para and the Lower Amazons, in 1835-6, did not succeed in rousing the natives of the Solimoens against the whites.A party of forty of them ascended the river for that purpose, but on arriving at Ega, instead of meeting with sympathisers as in other places, they were surrounded by a small body of armed residents, and shot down without mercy.The military commandant at the time, who was the prime mover in this orderly resistance to anarchy, was a courageous and loyal negro, named Jose Patricio, an officer known throughout the Upper Amazons for his unflinching honesty and love of order, whose acquaintance I had the pleasure of making at St.Paulo in 1858.
Ega was the headquarters of the great scientific commission, which met in the years from 1781 to 1791 to settle the boundaries between the Spanish and Portuguese territories in South America.
The chief commissioner for Spain, Don Francisco Requena, lived some time in the village with his family.I found only one person at Ega, my old friend Romao de Oliveira, who recollected, or had any knowledge of this important time, when a numerous staff of astronomers, surveyors, and draughtsmen, explored much of the surrounding country with large bodies of soldiers and natives.
More than half the inhabitants of Ega are Mamelucos; there are not more than forty or fifty pure whites; the number of negroes and mulattos is probably a little less, and the rest of the population consists of pure blood Indians.Every householder, including Indians and free negroes, is entitled to a vote in the elections, municipal, provincial, and imperial, and is liable to be called on juries, and to serve in the national guard.These privileges and duties of citizenship do not seem at present to be appreciated by the more ignorant coloured people.There is, however, a gradual improvement taking place in this respect.
