Rio Negro River boats

Does anyone have good photos of the Rio Negro river boats and does anyone have any history about their design. Would appreciate any information about these craft.
Thank you.
PM

[Marcos Wolff]

Hi, I've been trying to get some pics from my contacts in Brazil but with no luck... However, www.flickr.com is a cool site that may help you as a source of pictures... I've just done a quick search and found the following pic http://www.flickr.com/photos/viagensimagens/147129710/ . I'm sure there're more around there, you may want to contact the authors of those pics and get more info... Let me know if there's any other thing that I can help with.

[d360]

According to Wiki:

Thanks in part to the mercantile development associated with steam boat navigation, coupled with the internationaly driven demand for natural rubber (1880-1920), Manáos (now Manaus), Para (Brasil), and Iquitos, Peru became thriving, cosmopolitan centers of commerce and spectular--albeit illusory--modern "urban growth". This was particularly the case for Iquitos during its late 19th and early 20th century Rubber Bonanza zenith when this dynamic boom-town was known abroad as the St. Louis[4] of the Amazon.

The first direct foreign trade with Manáos was commenced about 1874. Local trade along the river was carried on by the English successors to the Amazonas Company—the Amazon Steam Navigation Company—as well as numerous small steamboats, belonging to companies and firms engaged in the rubber trade, navigating the Negro, Madeira, Purfis and many other tributaries, such as the Marañón to ports as distant as Nauta, Peru.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_River
http://wais.stanford.edu/Brazil/braz...rsjr41803.html

Here's a nice virtual tour of the
Amazon Riverboats lined up in the port of Manaus