^ EARTH 6CJENCES LIBRARY EX LIBRIS RQY-NASH 1- inri - ' ' //^^L THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY BRAZIL— WHERE ALL, NATURE SMILES, AND THE SOFT AIRS SLEEP IN THE PALM TREES THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY BY CLAYTON SEDGWICK COOPER WITH MAP AND MANY ILI.tlSTRATIOMS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN GIFT OP i>Coi\ Nash ^.rrr..- EARTH Bcas SCIEMCE3 PSINTSD BY THE BURR PRINTING HOUSE U. S. A. PREFACE The purpose of this book is to present a somewhat comprehensive idea of the life and work of the present- day Brazilians. As no people can be known without a knowledge of the land in which they dwell, and also of the historical sources from which they have drawn their traditions and customs, attention has been given to the character of the largest of the South American Repub- lics, and to the debt that Brazil owes to Europe, espe- cially to Portugal, for its growth and development. It is the common impression of those who visit Brazil, that here a natural stage is set for a great world drama. Already the curtain has fallen upon the two first acts, the Colonial and the Imperial periods. In the year 1889, the curtain began to raise on the third great modern Re- publican scene. It disclosed members of almost every nationality extant among the players. The background of national temperament is not radically different, but the foreground is filled with the denizens of a new Brazil — races of men blending into a new amalgam, under the fires of new activities. It is a fascinating picture of men becoming conscious of themselves, and aware for the first time of the almost unlimited physical and industrial riches of a gigantic country. The Brazilians of to-day are awake and moving for- w^ard. As "VValt Whitman once said of Americans : "They go! They go! I know that they go, but I know not where they go, But I know that they go toward the best — toward some- thing great." V M130736 vi PREFACE It goes almost without saying that a book record- ing impressions, with some attempt at interpretation, written by a North American of any people in South America, lacks what Mr. Clemons would call the ' ' uncon- scious absorption" that a lifetime of residence in a coun- try affords. Nevertheless in a period when territorial barriers are being so rapidly dissolved and when national and social conditions are being so deeply stirred by the greatest human conflict of all the ages, isolation and localism are no longer possible for any thoughtful or patriotic citizen. To-day truly, the whole world is a stage and all men are players, and any attempt to make any part of this world citizenship more clear or meaningful finds a new audience of interested beholders. It is my hope that this book may add something to the knowledge and understanding of a people who share with us a large and very important portion of the Western Continent, but of whose existence we, as a nation, have been in the past strangely unfamiliar. My indebtedness to Brazilians, to foreigners resident in Brazil, and to a wide circle of men and women who have helped me in many ways in connection with this book, is gratefully acknowledged. Clayton Sedgwick Cooper. Westcolang, Pa. July 1st, 1917. %, CONTENTS PAGE Preface v CHAPTER I Mental Hospitality 1 A trait needed to understand Latin America — Historical con- trasts with United States — Traces of visit of Elihu Eoot — The two Americas as complements of each other — Reasons for lack of contact — Competition with the English and Ger- man trader — Too little attention to a strong diplomatic serv- ice — Present agencies to eliminate ignorance of Latia Amer- ica. CHAPTER II Brazilian Traits 16 Danger in sweeping generalisations — What Brazilians say of themselves — Hospitality and conservatism — Traces of the roy- alist — Slavery and Constitutionalism — State pride, Portu- guese language and individualistic culture — Officialdom — * ' Boom ' ' crops — Absence of colour lines — The new type in the making — Domestic conditions. CHAPTER III Portugal and Brazil 28 Portuguese inheritances — Early settlers contrasted with Pil- grim fathers and Spanish American adventurers — The de- scendants of heroic discoverers and knights of chivalry — Por- tuguese poetry — Attitude of Brazilians toward the mother- country— -Sacredness of old family ideals — The contribution of the Jesuits — The effect of the strong immigration from Portugal in the beginning of the sixteenth century — The Por- tuguese contesting with the Indians and Europe for Brazil — The Capitanias of King Joao III — The settlements of French Huguenots, the first Protestant colony in the New World — Brazil's evolutionary struggle for Independence — Opening of Brazilian ports — Influence of the French Revolution — Prince Regent Dom John VI bringing the Royal Court of Portugal to Brazil — Imperialism and democracy do not mix — The bloodless revolution and the young Brazilian ruler. Prince Dom Pedro I. CHAPTER IV The Brazilian Empire 46 ' ' Independencia ou Morte, ' ' watchword of the Brazilian Rev- olution — The birth of democracy in Brazil — Brazil's Boston Tea Party in a coffee city — A Government * ' Monarchical, hereditary, constitutional and representative" — Contrast vii viii CONTENTS PAGE with Mexican constitutionalism — The Emperor versus the Eepublicans — A fateful night — The farewell of the "Wash- ington of Brazil" — Dom Pedro II and his forty-eight years of benevolent emperorhood — Industry and commerce awak- ening — Dr. Ruy Barbosa's reasons for the last bloodless political upheaval bringing in the Republic — Dom Pedro's "place in history." CHAPTER V The Orientalism of Brazil 59 The conquering of the Iberian Peninsula in the eighth century by the Moors— Signs of Orientalism in treatment of women, family clans, hospitality, love of colour and display, form and. etiquette — Attitude to deportment different than in North America — "Manners maketh men" — Eastern mental traits — Attitude to labour — Oriental regard of poetry politics and lit- erary excellence — Eastern freedom seen in treatment of so- cial engagements — Beauty and pleasure before business — ^A needful counterpart to our civilisation of ' ' efficiency. ' ' CHAPTER VI Republican Government 74 No two Republics alike in traditions and beginnings — United States compared with Brazil as a Republic — Too much satire concerning South American Revolutions — Government in tran- sition — Three notable decades of representative Government — Some "splendid names" of Brazilians — The weak side of politics in Brazil — The powers of the Federal Government — Positivism and the Republic — Absence of political parties — Separation of Church and State — Need of ballot reform — Dominance of old families in politics — States Rights — The Constitution, modelled on that of the United States, beginning to march. CHAPTER VII A Leviathan Country 91 Brazil's size and natural resources demand a peculiar destiny — A land of vast areas of unoccupied territory, without des- erts, with unexampled water-courses and all the climates save that of the frigid zone — The Amazon Valley as a future cat- tle country — Variety of productivity — The cry of Brazil, ' ' Give us men to match our country ! ' ' — The North American opportunity for investment — Capital more eloquent than Mon- roe Doctrines. CHAPTER VIII Education 100 No nation-wide laws for compulsory education — The learned professions of law, medicine and pharmacy carry prestige — No university and no graduate schools — Students go abroad to finish education — Special need of primary education to combat illiteracy which is 70% of the total population — Ef- fect of Portuguese traditions and slavery on the school-life — Monastic schools — Modern education inaugurated in 1808 — Revolutionised in 1878 — Abolishing degrees as undemocratic — Government control of schools — Broad and liberal profes- sional training — Sao Paulo leading educational cohorts — En- CONTENTS ix PAGB gineering, military, and arts and crafts institutions popular — Schools of foreign missions — Characteristics of students — Practical and technical training needed to meet growing in- dustrialism — Students returning from abroad bring new vi- sions — Generalisation strong — Application of knowledge needs strengthening. CHAPTER IX Brazilian Home Life 118 The nation revealed in the home — Brazilian home making com- pared with English and Teuton — Moorish influences seen in partial seclusion of women — Homes vary with the diverse sections — An ethnological congeries — Influence of foreign marriages — The Brazilian woman, wife and mother — Middle- class homes in the making — No modern fads — Training of children — Amusements and outings — Bachelors so rare as to be almost suspicious characters — Anniversaries — Coffee and not spirits the reigning beverage — Attitude of men toward the home, Latin, not Anglo-Saxon — Men's clubs — High pre- mium placed on relatives and f rienda CHAPTER X The Triumph of the Engineer 132 Dr. Frederick Pearson, and his contribution to Brazilian en- gineering — The transformation of mule cars and gas plants to electric traction and incandescents — The romance and real- ity of electric energy applied to Sao Paulo and Rio de Ja- neiro since 1900 — The people said, "nao pode" (you can't do it) — The Federal Government granting rights in 1905 to The Rio de Janeiro Tramway, Light and Power Company Limited — The first electric car in Sao Paulo — The first great light and power service in South America — Seventeen years of accomplishment — Brazilian co-operation and progressive- ness — American leadership — Kind of men needed for such en- terprises in Brazil — A great gas plant — Labour problems — Telephone systems. CHAPTER XI Seeing Rio de Janeiro by Tramway 147 If you would know a people study their tram-car behaviour — Brazilian politeness in public — Street-transportation, ancient and modern in the Federal Capital — Sightseeing by tramways — As democratic as a Parisian omnibus — Femininity at the windows of Brazilian houses — Tropical splendours — Where the "bond" cars take the traveller — "If there be a paradise on earth, it is here, it is here ! ' ' CHAPTER XII Electric Energy Transforming Brazil 161 Thomas Edison 's prayer — Electricity the servant of usefulness and beauty — No electric lights in Bio de Janeiro in 1905 ; now the best electrically lighted city in the world — How it waa accomplished — Lages, the dynamo of hydraulic power — The beauty of the Brazilian lake-country — Mountain rain-fall — In the land of power houses and transmission lines — A great viii CONTENTS PAGE with Mexican constitutionalism — The Emperor versus the Eepublicans — A fateful night — The farewell of the "Wash- ington of Brazil" — Dom Pedro II and his forty-eight years of benevolent emperorhood — Industry and commerce awak- ening — Dr. Euy Barbosa's reasons for the last bloodless political upheaval bringing in the Eepublic — Dom Pedro 'a "place in history." CHAPTEE V The Orientalism of Brazil 59 The conquering of the Iberian Peninsula in the eighth century by the Moor»— -Signs of Orientalism in treatment of women, family clans, hospitality, love of colour and display, form and. etiquette — Attitude to deportment different than in North America — "Manners maketh men" — Eastern mental traits — Attitude to labour — Oriental regard of poetry politics and lit- erary excellence — Eastern freedom seen in treatment of so- cial engagements — Beauty and pleasure before business — A needful counterpart to our civilisation of "efficiency." CHAPTEE VI Eepubucan Government 74 No two EepubUcs alike in traditions and beginnings — United States compared with Brazil as a Eepublic — Too much satire concerning South American Eevolutions — Government in tran- sition — Three notable decades of representative Government — Some "splendid names" of Brazilians — The weak side of politics in Brazil — The powers of the Federal Government — Positivism and the Eepublic — Absence of political parties — Separation of Church and State — Need of ballot reform — Dominance of old families in polities — States Eights — The Constitution, modelled on that of the United States, beginning to march. CHAPTEE VII A Leviathan Country 91 Brazil's size and natural resources demand a peculiar destiny — A land of vast areas of unoccupied territory, without des- erts, with unexampled water-courses and all the climates save that of the frigid zone — The Amazon Valley as a future cat- tle country — Variety of productivity — The cry of Brazil, ' * Give us men to match our country ! ' ' — The North American opportunity for investment — Capital more eloquent than Mon- roe Doctrines. CHAPTEE VIII Education 100 No nation-wide laws for compulsory education — The learned professions of law, medicine and pharmacy carry prestige — ■ No university and no graduate schools — Students go abroad to finish education — Special need of primary education to combat illiteracy which is 70% of the total population — Ef- fect of Portuguese traditions and slavery on the school-life — Monastic schools — Modern education inaugurated in 1808 — Eevolutionised in 1878 — Abolishing degrees as undemocratic — Government control of schools — Broad and liberal profes- sional training — Sao Paulo leading educational cohorts — En- CONTENTS ix PAGE gineering, military, and arts and crafts institutions popular — Schools of foreign missions — Characteristics of students — Practical and technical training needed to meet growing in- dustrialism — Students returning from abroad bring new vi- sions — Generalisation strong — Application of knowledge needs strengthening. CHAPTER IX Brazilian Home Life o 118 The nation revealed in the home — Brazilian home making com- pared with English and Teuton — Moorish influences seen in partial seclusion of women — Homes vary with the diverse sections — An ethnological congeries — Influence of foreign marriages — The Brazilian woman, wife and mother — Middle- class homes in the making — No modern fads — Training of children — Amusements and outings — Bachelors so rare as to be almost suspicious characters — Anniversaries — Coffee and not spirits the reigning beverage — Attitude of men toward the home, Latin, not Anglo-Saxon — Men's clubs — High pre- mium placed on relatives and friends. CHAPTER X The Triumph of the Engineer 132 Dr. Frederick Pearson, and his contribution to Brazilian en- gineering — The transformation of mule cars and gas plants to electric traction and incandescents — The romance and real- ity of electric energy applied to Sao Paulo and Rio de Ja- neiro since 1900 — The people said, "nao pode" (you can't do it) — The Federal Government granting rights in 1905 to The Rio de Janeiro Tramway, Light and Power Company Limited — The first electric car in Sao Paulo — The first great light and power service in South America — Seventeen years of accomplishment — Brazilian co-operation and progressive- ness — American leadership — Kind of men needed for such en- terprises in Brazil — A great gas plant — Labour problems — Telephone systems. CHAPTER XI Seeing Rio de Janeiro by Tramvfay 147 If you would know a people study their tram-car behaviour — Brazilian politeness in public — Street-transportation, ancient and modern in the Federal Capital — Sightseeing by tramways — As democratic as a Parisian omnibus — Femininity at the windows of Brazilian houses — Tropical splendours — Where the "bond" cars take the traveller — ^"If there be a paradise on earth, it is here, it is here ! ' ' CHAPTER XII Electric Energy Transforming Brazil 161 Thomas Edison 's prayer — Electricity the servant of usefulness and beauty — No electric lights in Rio de Janeiro in 1905 ; now the best electrically lighted city in the world — How it was accomplished — Lages, the dynamo of hydraulic power — The beauty of the Brazilian lake-country — Mountain rain-fall — In the land of power houses and transmission lines — A great X CONTENTS PAGE dam and a great tunnel — "Fazenda" and Brazilian country life in the matta — Fifty miles of pipe-lines — Fighting the Brazilian mosquito — Team-play in a big business family. CHAPTER XIII The Racial Melting Pot 178 Colonisation vicissitudes and victories — The Europeanisation of Brazil — Early Portuguese colonists and their racial mix- tures with Brazilian Indians, African Negroes and Euro- pean immigrants — Influence of the Catholic Church doctrines —Feudal aristocracy — The evolution from medieval condi- tions — Absentee landlordism — Colonisation becoming serious in the last half century — The strong and flourishing German colonies in South Brazil — Things seen in German-Brazilian towns and cities — The one and a half million Italians in Bra- zil — Colonisation by other nationalities — Mixed marriages with colonists — Government, State and railway colonisation, laws, propaganda and the results — Visiting colonies on horse- back along the lines of the Brazil Railways — Agriculture — Moving crops — Conditions similar to those in the United States, fifty years ago. CHAPTER XIV In the Land of the Paulistas 195 Arriving in Brazil at Santos, the coffee port — The Santos and Sao Paulo Railway — Sao Paulo the "Voice of the South" — Population, property and progress — The military and police — A bit of history — The Automobile Club where successful business men and gamesters are synonymous — The stimula- tion of coffee in the Paulista State — Visiting coffee farms — Brazilian coffee, how it came to Brazil, and how it is grown and exported — Cattle breeding as a side issue on the fazenda — Sao Paulo the land of vast water power — A description of the way this energy has been harnessed to light the cities elec- trically and run the power plants — Industrious, scientific, lib- erty-loving Paulistas, the "Yankees of Brazil." CHAPTER XV The Awakening of Southern Brazil 213 The Indians of the Brazilian forests — Water-roads giving way to railroads and woods to waving cornfields — The riches of Parana, Santa Catharina and Rio Grande do Sul — An inter- view with the President of the State of Parana — Fighting the men of the ' ' bush ' ' — A visit at a big lumber camp — Business openings — Suspicions of towns where every one speaks Ger- man — Ranching lands — Brazilian Gauchos, or cowboys — The world's great future cattle country — Frigorificos — Manufac- tures — Agriculture, the coming "Middle West" — Brazilian farmers and plainsmen — The notable Cattle Congress — A ranch-man's home — Greater cattle possibilities in Rio Grande do Sul and Matto Grosso than in Argentina. CHAPTER XVI Trade and Transportation 232 The United States Steel Corporation as an American steam- ship pioneer for trade with Brazil — North American favor- CONTENTS xi PAGE able geographical advantages for Brazilian commerce — Reci- procity of products — Patriotism as well as good business to build merchant ships for South American trade — What Europe has been doing — Her steamship lines with Brazil — * ' Give us ships ! ' ' the cry from Panama to Patagonia, from Patagonia to Para — ' ' Vain regrets ' ' — Brazilian coastwise shipping — Passenger and freight service by European lines to all parts of the Old World — Eiver transportation — Brazilian railroads, history and problems — The "intoxicating influence of space" — Co-ordination needed — Inter-state and transcontinental plans — Railroads double mileage since 1900 — Easy money from Europe — After the War, What? — The Government railroads — Roads organised and managed by foreigners — Travelling over three thousand miles of the Brazil Railway in Southern Brazil — Diverse enterprises carried on by railroads — The de- sire for foreign capital — Future trade limited only by trans- portation facilities. CHAPTER XVII Outdoor Sports and Lotteries 254 Aeroplaning over the Brazilian mountains — ^Water-planes in the Bay of Rio de Janeiro — Boat-clubs and rowing — Associa- tion football and horse racing — Influence of English and Americans in outdoor sports — Motoring, the Brazilian femi- nine idea of open air exercise — The gambling temper of Latin America — Lotteries an amusement and also a big business — Endless varieties of games of chance — The prestige and prac- tice of the daily Government Lottery — The "Bieho" even more popular though "illegal" — Gambling clubs — Effect upon the people — special hardship to the labouring man. CHAPTER XVIII Eio DE Janeiro, City o5' Enchantment 267 The discoverer of Brazil — The City and the Bay exert an in- fluence resembling that of personality — The Bay of Guana- bara — First impressions — A miracle of natural beauty to which man has added — Avenida Rio Branco and the great Minister for whom it was named — An Avenue revealing Brazilian charac- teristics — The Monroe Palace, modelled from the St. Louis Exposition, where the Chamber of Deputies meets — Arts and architecture — The "movies" — Rua Ouvidor is sui generis — Shops and shoppers — Old Rio with her memories and mist- stained buildings — Street-vendours — The tropical garments of a city of seductive charm. CHAPTER XIX Bahu, Old and Bizarre 282 A City with a "Past," a century older than Plymouth — Sao Salvador, the Bay of all Saints, for which Europe fought — Thome de Souza, the first Governor General — Diogo Alvares, the Brazilian John Brown — An Indian Princess — The first Capital of the Brazils, home of aristocracy, seat of the Arch- bishop, City of Churches — Cocoa and coffee, sugar and to- bacco — German trade — Climate and population — The Pictur- esque mulatress — A children 's paradise — Politics, modern city, and Bahia's future. ILLUSTRATIONS Brazil — where all nature smiles, and the soft airs sleep in the palm trees Frontispiece Monroe Palace, Rio de Janeiro — •which in the brilliant lights of evening resembles a beautiful bon bon box, enlarged to fairy proportions 8 Bahia, the first capital of Brazil 9 In Old Brazil, in slavery days 40 (A) It might be almost anywhere in the Orient. (B) The home of a new settler in South Brazil 41 Bibliotheca National, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil .... 110 Normal School in the Capital of Sao Paulo Ill Brazilian Fishers: "But sweeter, Brother, the kiss of the spray and the dance of the wild foam's glee" . . . 122 Homes of Brazilian laborers about a big "fazenda" . . . 123 (A) The main car station in the old mule-tramway days. (B) Present car station and main oflBce of the "Rio de Janeiro Tramway, Light and Power Co., Ltd." .... 134 (A) The Old Rio of Imperial days. (B) The New Rio of the Republic 135 A full-grown coffee plant 148 Botafogo, Rio de Janeiro — one of the artistic ares of the Bay of Guanabara 149 Avenida Rio Branco, Rio de Janeiro, where all Rio comes daily . 158 The Old aqueduct in Rio de Janeiro, upon which the tram-cars now run 159 The big dam at Lages, over which the Federal Capital receives its hydraulic energy 170 Lages Fazenda, home of the superintendent of the hydraulic works of the "Rio de Janeiro Tramway, Light and Power Co., Ltd." 171 XV xvi ILLUSTRATIONS PACINQ PAGE Drying coffee, Sao Paulo 208 (A) Hydro-electric Plant — Lages. Penstock and value house above; club house of operators below. (B) The State of Sao Paulo is a land of water power which the "Sao Paulo Tramway, Light and Power Co., Ltd.," has harnessed for utilization 209 (A) The home of cattle in South Brazil, the coming cattle coun- try of the world. (B) Agriculture, slow but sure . . 224 (A) The "Southern Brazil Lumber and Colonization Company" loading pine logs at Tres Barras, Parana. (B) "The Paran- aqua railway fairly flings one into the bosom of these virgin woods" 225 Rio de Janeiro, the City of Enchantment, lying in sunlight on the feet of her hills 26S "When other 'visions splendid' of land and sea are forgotten, I shall recall that panorama from Corcovado, as one who dreams" 260 A sequestered spot in rural Brazil, where "the busy world's 'un- ceasing noises' are too far away to be heard or to distract" 29A Rua do Rosario, Sao Paulo, in 1898 295 A Pemambuco street, where can be seen "workmen carrying on their assembled heads everything from a small cargo of sugar to a piano" 310 Mosteiro de S. Bento in Bahia, "The City of Churches" . . 311 The "smoking hut" of the rubber gatherer of the Amazon country 330 (A) Brazil is the "tree" country of South America. (B) The dripping loveliness of the tropics 331 Inauguration of electric ears in Sao Paulo, May 7, 1900. A time of municipal rejoicing 372 A tramway station of the "Rio de Janeiro Tramway, Light and Power Company, Ltd.," at Largo do Machado Park in the Federal Capital 373 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY MENTAL HOSPITALITY To create a more sympathetic appreciation of the history, the civi- lisation and the problems of our sister American Republics is our na- tion's most pressing diplomatic task. Db. George H. Blakeslee, of Clark University. The phrase, '* mental hospitality," has been attributed to Confucius, the Chinese philosopher; it represents a characteristic of those who come nearest to a successful existence among the Latin Americans. It is an essential requirement for understanding the Brazilians. The phrase signifies a willing desire to know. It in- volves sympathetic imagination. It represents the op- posite of preconceived prejudice. It opens the door to clear and honest understanding. It makes for what President Butler of Columbia University has called ''the international mind." Some years ago in one of the smaller towns of our Southern States a horse wandered away from its owner and no one seemed able to locate the animal. After con- siderable vain searching on the part of the townsmen, a somewhat simple and naive countryman came forward and volunteered to find the horse, providing the owner would tell him where the beast was last seen, and any- thing he knew regarding the horse's habits. The coun- 1 2 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY trymaa went to the spot where the horse was seen last, stood in the very horse's tracks, and as the incident was told to me, closed his eyes and began to repeat to him- self : ''Now, I'm a horse! I'm a horse! Being a horse and able to do anything I like, where shall I go!" Then said the horse-finder, "I thought of that piece of oats about half a mile from the town, and the hollow just be- low it out of sight which nobody would think about but a horse. If I were a horse," soliloquised the farmer, ''I would go to that patch of oats and eat as much as I could and then go and lie down in that hollow. I went over there, and there was the horse 1 ' ' The man easily found the horse because he put himself in the horse's place. It was a case of mental hospitality applied horse-ward. It is this hospitality of the mind and spirit that is most needed to-day between the two Americas. I know that we are told that commerce is the life blood of the nation, but the heart of a nation is more vital even than its blood and we in the United States do not know the heart of the Latin people. Their inner intent, their motives, their customs growing naturally out of their traditions and history, their ideals and admirations shaped by climate and environments diverse from our own, are still a sealed book to most of us here in these United States. We are gradually getting closer to South Americans in trade, but trade relations with a people do not necessarily imply personal acquaintance, any more than courteous defer- ence implies mutual understanding. Germany traded widely with the whole world, but her diplomacy and her policies in connection with the war in Europe did not signify that she had ever grasped really, either the men- tal or spiritual point of view of her nearest neighbours. If she had taken pains to do this, the calamitous tragedy of all time might have been mitigated, if not prevented. Therefore I plead at the outset with those who are in- terested in our relations with Brazil, in many senses the MENTAL HOSPITALITY 3 greatest and the most important of all the Republics lying to the south of us, that we endeavour to get ac- quainted with her in the realm of her deepest springs of life; that we bring to the subject of our study a mental reciprocity, and that we set ourselves to that hardest of tasks, individual or national, — the attempt to fathom something of the soul of these people without which knowledge and understanding, trade and political con- tacts will register only our superficial and temporary success. There is first of all the need of clear historical perspec- tive. It is apparent that we are inclined to seek in all the Latin American countries for the same conditions existing in our Northern lands, and we forget that the streams of beginnings of our respective countries arose from most diverse sources. Brazil was more fortunate than some of her South American neighbours, both in the character and also in the aims of her first settlers and rulers for the early centuries of her existence. Generally speaking, however, the Latin American world is one, in the sharp divergent contrasts from the United States in racial and colonisation matters. "While our Northern ''Providential Republic" began from the very start with men and their families coming from the old world with deep personal and religious con- victions, somewhat schooled already in the science of self-government, Brazil was ruled rather than colonised, and that by men who knew and cared far more for navi- gation, adventure, and the spoils of autocratic office, than for constructive upbuilding of a new country. These early Portuguese, unlike the Virginians and New Eng- landers, did not as a rule bring wives and families, but intermarried with the Indians and later with the negroes, forming a mestizo and Creole stock, which has not become a fixed or uniform type, but is tending toward a new Brazilian strain. t 4 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY North American religion, inherited from the Pilgrim Fathers, has shown signs at time of inquisitorial ten- dencies, and like the Catholic faith of Europe three cen- turies ago, it has frequently revealed in its sponsors a stubborn narrowness and a loveless aspect far enough removed from the Great Founder's life and teachings, which both faiths have claimed to incorporate ; yet noth- ing in the darkest annals of witch and heresy hunting of American Protestantism can compare as a religious heri- tage with the blinding bigotrj^ and the grasping c^iimer- cialism which Latin America inherited from the Catholi- cism of the Middle Ages. The new world priest in Brazil and her sister colonies was not an unmixed blessing, to say the least, and the Jesuit, Carmelite, Franciscan and Dominican religious houses, which exerted for a time cer- tain civilising influences in the country, grew so rich, autocratic and despotic, that they were driven from the land on the wave of a great popular indignation. In their train has come a long straggling line of half -trained na- tive priests, who, according to the opinion of many Bra- zilians, have combined, in country districts especially, the relics of a medieval mysticism with the superstitions fostered by the negro nurse and an ignorant clergy. According to a keen student of things Brazilian, him- self a Catholic, ** There is all the difference between a Catholic priest from a European or American seminary, and a Brazilian parish priest, that you would find be- tween an Anglican bishop, or a great Protestant preacher at home, and a. 'wild' untaught missionary from Skow- hegan working among West Africans." To understand and appreciate Latin America one must realise that the people are engaged in an herculean strug- gle to free themselves from inherited conditions, most of which were bad. Brazil is striving just now to convert a population into practical business men whose members are by nature and training fine orators, cultured debaters, MENTAL HOSPITALITY 5 theorists and idealists, receiving an inheritance from their progenitors that aristocracy does not spell ''work,'* especially commercialism. The things that these intelli- gent people are doing with their big country, despite such handicaps of tradition, are worth any man's time to go and see. It is the testimony of those who have known the Brazilians best, that if a larger proportion of our coun- trymen could be brought into personal contact with the high-minded, cultured and thoughtful gentlemen of this country (and there is no more finished product of pol- ished gentlemanhood with which we are acquainted in any part of the world than the Brazilian as he exists to-day at the summit of his society) : could our scholars and our best men in public life, who are not first of all interested in selling something, visit these people as we visit Europeans, there would be new light cast upon American-Brazilian relationships. If more Brazilians, like Judge Amaro Calvacanti and Dr. Ruy Barbosa and Dr. Jose Carlos Rodrigues, could make us extended visits, and if we could send in return to Brazil more of the type of men resembling Elihu Root, whose tour through Latin America a few years ago did more to make real friends for us than tons of our flatter- ing literature have since accomplished, if the great per- sonalities of the two countries could really become ac- quainted, it would be a long stride in enthroning mutual, mental hospitality. It was interesting-to^ me-to hear some men of Bahia, 4h©- -el4-4)icturesque city and former Brazilian Gapitai; de- scribe Mr. Root's visit. In characteristic and comfor- table American fashion, our former Secretary of State landed from his steamer, dressed in a light sack suit and straw hat. The tropics would suggest such costume if it had not been our national summer dress. Bahian officialdom was at the wharf to meet him, funereally clothed but in their right minds with frock coats and 6 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY shining silk hats, while serried banks of Bahians dressed in black morning-coats and the regulation black Brazilian ties, lined the streets. A perceptible chill ran through the crowd assembled to do honour to the American states- man, as his informal dress was observed. It seemed a slight to the city's high functionaries. *'But," said my informant, *'Mr. Root had not been on shore an hour before his clothes, were quite forgotten ; as he addressed a great audience^ihe people began to say, " , y^c^ ^7'^/^ A\ he is simpatico! — he understands, he seems to be ytk^f^y^d one of us.' " ''It was not because he flattered us," said t^*^cf At the resident who heard him speak, ''but he seemed to '/as sdjf'*^^ know us, he knew of our national history, he knew our great men, he realised what we were trying to do in Brazil. I think that he liked us. I'm sure that we liked him. Many said that they didn't know Americans were like Mr. Root." It was the touch of personality that made the two worlds kin, personality with intelligent per- ception in it, also a dash of kindness to which the Bra- zilian, like other Latin Americans, is quite susceptible. It is a good thing to remember when we come down here out of our cold, -c lear crys taj* civilisation where men al- ways stand to attention in business, that 4ii-tfe4s4afid- be- neath the Southern Cross, it is quite as important to be agreeable as to be efficient. Results of course are valued as they are everywhere, but the manner in which they are achieved is also considered. Brazilians are not only interested in what a man does, but also in Jiow he does it. If the spirit and the method of attaining their goal receives marked attention, it may account for the fact that certain goals do not obtain such specialised and con- centrated attention as in the North. No one travels long to the advantage of himself or others, who fails to recognise that there are ' ' diversities of gifts" among nations as among individuals. No coun- try is left without its contributary cog in the great Wheel MENTAL HOSPITALITY 7 of Universal Utility and Perfection, and the larger num- ber of these cogs that any nation can weld into its own turning wheel of destiny, the more certain will that na- tion be of ultimate success. Moreover, the process of such ingrafting of other nation's virtues not only re- quires open-mindedness, but it is an excellent surety for a more perfect understanding between alien peoples. It has been impressed upon me repeatedly in travelling about South America, that the two Americas because of their antipodal traits and points of view are complements of each other, and that it is only when both sections of the Western Hemisphere realise the mutual gain neces- sarily accruing to each by the acceptance of this fact, that the larger and fuller life will come in this New World. There is a sense in which either North America or South America will be a failure alone. There is a sense in which both are one-sided and partial. The United States in her haste toward material well-being, stands a chance to lose her soul ; the goddesses of Beauty, Art and Happiness are rarely found in a Pantheon of Mammon gods. Brazil, along with her Spanish American neighbours, is a faithful daughter of her imperial and aristocratic Past ; nothing along the line of the literary, the chivalric and the artistic is alien to her nature or her practice; but her giant country calls for the practical pioneer. Her poets even would say, "By hammer and hand All arts do stand." Why should not the Americas combine and conquer? Dissimilar though they are in most respects, save in their loyalty to free institutions, their very diversities attract them to a marriage of their talents. They are surely too much unlike ever to bore each other, and one suspects that down deep in the texture of the two regions there is 8 THE BEAZILIANS AND TPIEIR COUNTRY a strain of the ideal and a heart quality that, when blended, will be mightier than Treaties to bind these peoples in one. Granted — and it seems patent enough — that there is tremendous advantage to both the big Republics on this Continent to sustain toward each other a sentiment of mental hospitality and mutual comprehension, born of a real effort to gain the point of view, the one of the other, why has such understanding delayed so long its coming? It would seem from a chance observer's view that some one, or something, should have intervened long before all these centuries had rolled their generations by, to bring Brazil and the United States into a closer co-partnership of spirit and activity than now exists. Of all the Latin American nations, I doubt if any holds the United States in higher esteem than do the Brazilians, while in turn one rarely hears anything but good and favourable comment in our country concerning the people who have placed the Monroe Palace on the most queenly site of their beautiful Capital, Rio de Janeiro. Both countries are building their civilisations around the liberty-loving principle; both are manifest enemies to militarism of the monar- chical stripe, and both are working out their salvation in a highly productive new world of agricultural and indus- trial possibility. Brazil exports in normal times the great bulk of her products to the United States, and she is beginning to turn more readily than in the past to North America for her supplies. There are many funda- mental reasons for a close and friendly union between Brazil and the United States. Apart from the difficulties of distance and the absence of rapid and satisfactory communication, there have been internal reasons in each country which have consumed attention and acted as an isolating barrier. Brazil's un- bounded productivity of soil and climate has made life easy in this land of the cocoanut palm, the banana, the "A W o H H r f^ H pel 2 > H 5 £^ S "^ s; d« S^ w S z« -^ w Q o w < < o o MENTAL HOSPITALITY 9 pineapple, and a hundred other kinds of food-product to be had almost for the picking. Moreover her national policy as a Eepublic is comparatively new and has re- quired attention; there have been boundary matters to settle, State relationships to unify, colonisation and scores of political matters to adjust, as was the case with us in our early Republican days. It must be borne in mind, as a Brazilian statesman said lately, "Brazil is going over the same ground that you in North America have gone over many years before her." The United States, on the other hand, has only recently lifted her eyes to survey the world outside her immediate borders. Home development and a vast country have made her a provincial nation to an extent scarcely dreamed, even by Americans themselves, until they, by travel or study, appreciate how conversant are many other nations with life and especially trade matters in foreign nations, about which we are often totally ig- norant. It is true that during the last twenty-five years we have been slowly awakening to a world-wide con- sciousness of commerce, but as compared with Germany for instance, the United States has been exporting of late years only 7 per cent, of her manufactured products to the Teuton's 25 per cent. America, with her enormous possessions in iron, stone, lumber, and other materials with which to build her factories and workshops; with her plentiful supply of labour and her progressive and efficient manufacturing plants, is only commencing to stir herself to the necessity of building up reciprocal trade, as other European nations have been doing for many generations, with the countries existing to the south of us. Those who are even now pioneering that trade are frequently amazed at the far-sighted care with which nations of the Old World have trained and studied to gain this field. Our new vanguard of young men, who are being sent Latin America -ward, are beginning to see 10 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY that in this great industrial game they are to compete with the most skillful and experienced trader of the world, the Englishman, and with one of the most cal- culating and adaptable of business men, the German manufacturer. It is small wonder that we should make mistakes due to lack of knowledge of doing business away from home, which requires talents that are not called forth in inter- state American trade. Doubtless we shall make many more errors. At the close of the European war we shall find ourselves surrounded in South America with a com- petition that will tax the Yankee ingenuity and genius for organisation to the limit, if we attempt to hold our place in the new ranks of foreign business and interna- tional relationship, thrust upon us by the tragic exigen- cies of the times and the unparalleled prosperity of our nation. That the Americans will prove themselves in- capable in the midst of these larger tasks and responsi- bilities, no one familiar with the national intelligence and alert adaptability (for we are an adaptable people) will for one moment believe. The fact remains, however, that both Americans and Brazilians are better acquainted with Europeans than they are with each other. Even when representatives of the two countries have met, it has not been always under the most favourable circumstances, and the result has not made for the growth of mutual confidence and good will. It is true in a sense, as Clough has remarked, that ^'everything lies in juxtaposition," but when it comes to applying this to persons of widely different ideals and nationalities, some care needs to be taken in ** juxta- posing." The main instrumentalities of the United States through which friendly intercourse and understanding with Brazil could be acquired have been our diplomatic and commercial agencies. That we, as a nation, have MENTAL HOSPITALITY 11 regarded the diplomatic appointments to Latin America as of minor importance to those in the large capitals of Europe particularly, where the United States have had a long line of brilliant statesmen, is beyond argument. That this is generally observed in the Southern part of our Hemisphere is also beyond question. Mr. Leopold Grahame, formerly editor of the Buenos Aires Herald, speaking before an important body of Americans, said: "May I be permitted to suggest that the services of the great diplo- mats of the United States are more needed in the capitals of some of the republics of Central and South America, than in London, Pans, Berlin, Rome, Madrid, or Petrograd? It is not complimentai-y to the countries which have sent to Washington such distinguished diplomats and international jurists as Nabueo, Quesada, Garcia Merou, Da Gama, Naon, and others, that the mere suggestion that men of the type of Joseph H, Choate, John Hay, James Russell Lowell, Whitelaw Reid, or David Jayne Hill, should be sent to represent their country in the South American Republics, would probably be regarded as ridiculous." That the Brazilians, naturally a ceremonious people, are susceptible and also appreciative of honourable fa- vour in respect to the characters of the envoys sent to them, can be taken for granted. Their high and discrimi- nating praise of certain diplomatic officers of excellent ability and adaptability whom the United States have sent to Rio de Janerio, so indicates. Not to detract from the present incumbents of our diplomatic agencies in Brazil, it is nevertheless true that we have gone on the principle in the past all too generally that these highly intelligent people were not discerning, and as one American resident in Brazil expressed it, ''Any one will do down there." One finds that some of the former consular and diplo- matic officers sent by us to Brazil have left a track of ill-starred memory that the more capable and upright officers of the United States Government in these modern 12 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY days find it difficult to eradicate. One American Govern- ment agent said that it had taken him a year to gain access to the office of a certain prominent Brazilian, so great had been the antipathy aroused in the mind of this man by the acts and general deportment of a former official. Too often these agents have been appointed because they were there, and evidently for no other ostensible reason. Some impressed the Brazilians mainly by reason of their bibulous habits, others by their lack of attention to dress and public behaviour, while still others have been too blissfully ignorant of Portuguese even to under- stand their deficiencies in the eyes of these people, who have inherited from many generations precise models of court and diplomatic etiquette. Such requirements toward better understanding may seem to some in the Northern world as a bit superficial and flippant. It is customary for many of us to go on the basis that if a man is said to be a ''good man," and has obtained ''re- sults," the way in which he does it is immaterial. The fallacy of this reasoning resides in the fact that certain other nationals, among them the Brazilians, go on the principle that equality of association can be vouchsafed and maintained only with those who partake acceptably in that dignity and majesty of deportment which are inseparable in their minds from real worth and civilised gentlemanhood. Again it is a question of mental hos- pitality to views and habits of the people we wish really to know and with whom we desire close international intercourse. Illustrative of the way American brusqueness of man- ner has impressed certain Latin Americans is the stoiy of a reception committee of a South American capital, the members of which were considerably tortured and exercised about preparing a very elaborate programme and entertainment for a Chamber of Commerce Commis- MENTAL HOSPITALITY 13 sion from the North, lest these business men from one of our leading cities should not be acquainted with the usages of polite society. It would seem that the majority of differences which have occurred in the past between North and South America have been due to an ignorance of actual condi- tions on both sides, as they exist in the other's country. The process of education now going on so vigorously in the United States, Latin American history and lan- guage courses in the schools; visits by travellers and Government and business delegations to the Southern Republics ; the sending of ever larger delegations of stu- dents to study in American universities ; the choosing of educated and socially trained men to take the places in Latin American cities once held by untrained and often crudely unscrupulous commercial agents; exchange of professors ; and the great amount of magazine and other literature used in clubs and conferences and illustrated lectures about the people who are our neighbours and still strangers to us — all this fine propaganda is certain to yield fruitage and cast new light upon relationships. There is quite as much need for similar education among our South American friends concerning North Americans. They need to learn that the lynchings and strikes which are often given disproportionate promi- nence in their press are not the usual order, and that the American as a rule is not accurately prefigured in the roistering and fighting seamen in South American ports, who in other days have brought horror and loathing to the Latin American populace. If there could be a series of small and inexpensive books, in Portuguese and Spanish for the Brazilians and dwellers in the other Republics telling clearly and frankly something of our American history and present da}^ ideals; with a similar series in English about South Americans to be sown broadcast over our Northern con- 14 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY tinent and used in our new training schools for young prospective business men going Southward on commerce bent, it would be an aid to a better mental picture and a more exact understanding on the part of both sections. By every contact, personal and otherwise, there must be inculcated a relationship based not simply upon politi- cal or financial expediency, if the associations are to per- sist and grow into warm friendship. As President Wil- son expressed this principle regarding South America not long since: "We must prove ourselves their friends and champions upon terms of equality and honour. You cannot be friends upon any other tenns than upon the terms of equality." Such high terms require a hospitality of both mind and heart, applied both ways, from the South as from the North. They require the learning that there are some habits and traits of success w^hich are atmospheric in their workings, the realisation that nation's souls and their idealism are as important to study as credits and packing methods. We are told that the beautiful mausoleum, which holds the dust of the beloved wife of the old Mogul Emperor at Agra, the Taj Mahal, cost ten millions of dollars, and that it weighs hundreds of tons ; but the lover of beauty and the things that last forgets his statistics when he looks upon this resplendent marble, white and light as foam, silhouetted against the sky of the quiet East Indian night. The knowledge of the material and the means by which this wondrous tomb has been lifted into beauty is important. The ability to appreciate the influence and meaning of its spiritual atmosphere is also quite as im- portant to its appreciation. Likewise, in the understanding and the successful as- sociation of the inhabitants of these two Americas, there MENTAL HOSPITALITY 15 is something intangibly subtle and powerfully potent, something that cannot be learned through commercial reports or tabulated in commission houses. It is the spirit of mutually satisfactory contact between man and man, because they understand each other in an under- standing of feeling and sentiment. It is in the region of the heart as well as the head that men truly meet, and this is the highest definition of mental hospitality. n BEAZILIAN TRAITS The rapid development of Brazil since the year 1889, when this largest of South American countries became a Republic, together with her present vital and far-reaching international relationships with Europe as well as with Latin American states, calls for something more than a '* guide book" study of these twenty-two million Bra- zilians. Here in the United States we are inclined to think well of the Brazilians, and we have a general im- pression that much is to be expected of this country which is greater in area than our own, excepting Alaska; we know that the people of our Southern sister Republic are polite and progressive, that they furnish us coffee and rubber, and that considerable American capital has been invested amongst them. Yet when it comes to a knowledge of the spirit, the intent and the historical perspective of a remarkable people, I think that I shall not be seriously challenged when I state that our igno- rance is quite impregnable. Generalisations about the traits of a people inhabiting a country other than one's own are attended with both difficulty and danger. The investigator is too apt to make sweeping assertions before he has examined a suffi- cient number of specimens ; even after such examination the Brazilian, like the Oriental, is quite inclined to upset one's calculations and make it necessary to begin all over in the analysis of national character. No doubt one's impressions of a country depend con- siderably upon the people he meets. When Pierre Loti 16 BRAZILIAN TRAITS 17 wrote his book on Japan, entitled, ' * Madame Chrysanthe- mum," the Japanese remarked that the book revealed the kind of women the writer met during his stay in the Sun- rise Kingdom. The present day traveller in South America will find frequent instances of transient visitors who have whirled rapidly through the larger port cities, and forthwith have essayed to characterise whole popu- lations in accordance with their experiences, fortunate or unfortunate, in these limited areas. An instance lur- idly illustrative of this habit is that of a certain traveller who is reported to have visited two Republics on the West Coast of South America during the comfortless Winter months. Evidently he had neglected the impor- tant detail of taking with him proper letters of introduc- tion. Anyhow the tragic result to himself as to the peo- ple visited was a booklet written on his return to the United States entitled, "To Hell and Back!" Writing on South America too often reveals the attitude of one who sees by chance something unusual in his eyes, and immediately jumps to the conclusion that this is a na- tional characteristic. As a matter of fact the thing may be no more indigenous to the section than a band of Wild West Indians and cowboys flocking out of a circus at Madison Square Garden would be indigenous to New York City. It should be observed furthermore that when describ- ing the traits and especially the faults of any nation, it is extremely hazardous to name these traits as belonging exclusively to any one set of people. Many of the char- acteristics of the Brazilians may be applied with almost equal exactness to the people of the United States or to inhabitants of certain European nations. Yet the South Americans are decidedly different from the Americans of the North, and this applies to traditions, tempera- ment, climatic influences, and the sources of their present day ideals. 18 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY The following answers given me by quite a wide circle of people, residents of the big Republic, when I asked, *'What is a Brazilian?" may be partially illuminating: "The Brazilian is a person born in Brazil, no matter what may have been the nationality of his parents." "A man of effusive friendliness." "If of the upper classes, a cosmopolitan who often prefers Paris to Rio de Janeiro." "A product of mixed marriages and races." "A good business man when engaged in business for himself; not so reliable as a worker for a corporation or the Government." "Generous to a fault if he likes youj prefers to do business on the basis of favour and friendship." "Religion nominally Catholic, sometimes a Positivist, more often rather indifferent to religion." "Lacking in industrial initiative on a large scale, generally willing to let foreigners undertake and carry on the big enterprises requiring capital, patience and high business efficiency." "Always a fine dresser, a good linguist, and not a bad fellow." "Without exception fond of the opposite sex." "A man loving mildness and having a horror of violence — always the soul of courtesy, but theoretical rather than practical." "An inordinate lover of gambling and politics." The penchant for pleasure is revealed in the numerous holidays, Saints' Days, festivals of all kinds and his annual carnivals, which interrupt business for a week at a time, and call the majority of the population of the cities and towns to the main plazas and avenues, on harm- less mischief bent. Should one have any doubt of the kind-heartedness of Brazilians, he need but to notice the charitable institu- tions, hospitals, asylums, as well as take note of the open- handedness of the people, high and low, at the call of the poor and the unfortunate. If one wishes to study the traits of generous and delicately thoughtful hosts, he may be a guest in a Brazilian home, or at a big *'Fa- zenda" in the country, where the foreigner will be the BRAZILIAN TRAITS 19 recipient of hospitality scarcely exceeded by any Oriental. A tendency to ** delay and postpone," together with what the Northerner would call a lack of appreciation of the value of time, is quickly noticeable. An American official said: *'We must of necessity work slowly here; officials are slow to reply; there is an interminable amount of red tape and ceremony, and the man who is in a hurry and unable to restrain his rushing habits, had best not come to Brazil." Perhaps no words become more familiar to the nervous, impatient, tearing Anglo- Ajnerican than the reply quite invariably received in answer to his insistent importunities: '^Paciencia, Amanhaa," and ''Espera um pouco Senor !" — ''Patience, to-morrow ; Wait a little, Senor ! ' ' Possibly this explains why many a quiet-disposed mild man, past the meridian of life, having had his fill of the "Step Lively!" regime of our brisker Northern climates, finds Brazil an agree- able residence. Certain it is that the American strenu- osity is subdued in these parts, if the business man from the "States" remains to become a successful factor in his firm's enterprise. Although the new Brazil is quite as progressive as any Latin American Republic, one finds here a dislike of change and a conservatism which has been inherited in part no doubt from Portuguese ancestry. One hears the ancient legend down here of how Adam, struck with homesickness, requested leave to revisit the world of his former estate. Permission was granted and an angel commissioned to conduct him. On wings of love the patriarch hastened to his native earth; but so changed and so strange all seemed to him, that he nowhere felt at home until he came to Portugal. "Ah, now," ex- claimed he, "set me down; everything here is just as I left it. ' ' Undoubtedly the dilatory habit, the intermittent energy, and the aversion for the effort to change, can be 20 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY traced to the tropical climate in which so much of the Republic is located. Added to this influence is also the Oriental strain of blood of the Moors which marked deeply both Spain and Portugal for centuries. There is a sense in which Brazil is quite new — she is South America's most recent Republic — but as a racial entity, she is very old. The country is conscious of her past. Three centuries have rolled away since the white man first set foot on Brazilian soil, and the people trace their ancestry into remote regions antedating consider- ably these centuries. The consciousness of an ancient social hierarchy has been largely lost in Argentina, where the craving for individual independence and modern wealth is everywhere evident. But the Brazilian is eager to inform you that he is a son of an old owning civilisation — Portugal — and that the Brazilians come from a sounder stock than do the Spanish Americans. The roots of national tendency are not easily torn away. The old and beloved Dom Pedro, in his effort to modernise Brazil and to introduce the higher culture — perhaps less a preconceived plant than the indulgence of his own scholarly and cultured tastes — created in ad- dition to the already existing landed aristocracy, one of letters. Under his leadership, literature became more than ever the mode, and with a people already inclined to speechmaking, with a language traditionally fitted to easy and fluent writing, the platform and belles lettres became the sure road to prominence. It was the Emperor's plan to free the slaves gradually, and this had already raised up a free-thinking, half-edu- cated, cross-bred lower class which later, together with the political imprudences of his daughter, the Princess Regent Isabel, introduced into the country an entirely new social element — impulsive, unschooled, socially snubbed because it neither held land nor had graduated BRAZILIAN TRAITS 21 from universities, tainted with the reproach of freed- slave ancestry, and struggling to find a voice. Upon this foundation was superimposed the new re- publican Constitution, copied almost word for word from the Constitution of the United States, and though it may be heresy to say it, copied with its doubtful virtues of States Rights, etc., w^hich had not then been clarified by American Amendments, and the super wisdom that fol- lowed a five years Civil War and later years of Govern- ment and social and industrial reform. result to-day is a society still in a ferment, anji-^ politicar>«mdition that handicaps growth^Jroifir many angles. The ujTp«a;class landholders' are in a measure impoverished, but nof^jii^^, and many of these prefer to remain absentee landlord^**gHa4to reside in Paris or elsewhere. Qne is amazed to find tti^^-mi^iber of Brazil- ians who in normal times spend their money^'m^rance, JiOndon, Rome and Naples, or in travelling about Although the Brazilian is sensitive, patriotically speak- ing, there seems to be little national feeling, or perhaps! one should say that every man seems first to be a citizen) of his own State and then by richochet, of his countrj^ This is not surprising when one considers the vast dif- ferences in climate, diet, and way of life in general in the widely separated sections, which are securely isolated from one another in the absence of country roads and ready means of intimate communication. Nevertheless the Portuguese language, and an individualistic culture derived from Portugal and not exactly Portuguese, to- gether with a strong national tradition, make the Bra- zilians almost contemptuous of all other Latin Ameri- cans, and rabidly jealous of their country's integrity. Add to this condition the isolation of the country itself — an isolation caused by the lack or inf requency of mails, absurdly expensive cable tolls depriving the people of fresh news and world contacts, and one has the key to 22 THE BEAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY many of the present evils of Brazil. One might go into details in the cataloguing of existing weaknesses; there is little doubt that the country is officials-ridden; the National Treasury is burdened with huge pension lists; the officials often possess arbitrary power because they are political henchmen who may interpret the written law to suit themselves, while many officials are said to ''graft" — the natural concomitant of short tenure of office. All these things existed in the United States not many years ago, and we are still too distant from Mount Sinai and political elysium consistently to cast stones at our Brazilian neighbours. This country, like the United States, is a colonial one, an aggregation of humans who have taken up a life of their own amidst enormous nat- ural resources, which any one might plunder and grow rich upon, without distinction of social class. Brazil is so huge, so diverse in productivity of all kinds, so limit- less in its undiscovered wealth, that the people have felt, whatever the failure or the bankruptcy of to-day, to- morrow would be golden. Thus far it has seemed true. There has always been money forthcoming from Europe or elsewhere to tide over crises. Even when foreign cap- ital has come in and tapped Brazilian enterprises for the benefit of alien owners, there has always been the cus- toms revenue, and the states of the Brazilian Union seem to adjust their export and import duties capri- ciously with little regard to a national uniform system. As a matter of fact, Brazil has floated along on the great prosperity of successive ''booms" — gold, dye- woods, cotton, diamonds, rubber, coffee, etc., with a big cattle-boom now in progress — and there is need for the country as a whole to learn to diversify the crops. Sev- eral states, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro notably, have learned or are learning the far-reaching advantage of investing their "boom "-crop savings in other interests BEAZILIAN TRAITS 23 within their own frontiers. During somewhat extensive travels through Brazil, I found scores of new and small enterprises springing up, not only in the agricultural and timber regions but also in the smaller towns where mills and factories for manufacturing glass, clothing, furni- ture and the weaving of fabrics from Brazilian wool and cotton point to a new industrial Brazil. Another factor making for the permanency of the United States of Brazil lies in the national cohesion in a common language, the Portuguese, which affects at once the institutional life of the whole country. Dohne has said, ''The language is the only characteristic of a nation which cannot be adulterated. ' ' This seems to be true of • ^ - «< Brazil. The Portuguese mother tongue was sown in / ' every corner of this great land, and it has preserved its integrity through all the changing vicissitudes of a check- ered national history. ''Capitanias," "Provincias," Monarchy, and Republic have all swept over this giant land during the last century, but the country has re- mained Brazilian in language, the only country in Latin America perhaps where a large variety of races have buried their lingual differences in a common tongue. No less remarkable is the ethnological history of Bra- zil, and the present racial mixtures arising between Por- tuguese, negroes, Brazilian Indians and a dozen or more European and North American races. The Portuguese settlers of the sixteenth century intermarried with the Indians. In 1583 negroes from Africa were introduced for labor. In the year 1585 as many as 14,000 blacks were imported, and the condition of their existence in this country was that of slavery. The importation of negroes was prohibited by the Aberdeen Treaty with Great Brit- ain in 1860, and the children of slaves were declared free in 1871 ; the slaves were enfranchised in 1888. Meanwhile in this country without a ''colour line," a splendid con- fusion of intermarriage has been proceeding, many na- 24 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY tionalities otlier tlian the Portuguese joining the general miscegenation. In this racial evolution a new experiment among na- tions has been in progress, quite different from anything known either in the United States or in any European nation in its colonisation of people with colour different from their own. The attempt is being honestly made here to eliminate the blacks and the browns by pouring }/ /• ^_ in white blood. It is claimed that one factor in this * * process is the natural selection of the female species to b^r^Y'^G^ choose a mate lighter in colour than herself. Certain '^ ? parts of Southern Brazil where comparatively few of the negroid or dark skinned types are found, are cited as examples of the progress already made toward this dar- ing and unprecedented accomplishment. Many of the most highly cultured Brazilians will tell you that this country will reveal one day to all the world the one and only method of racial inter-penetration, the only one that will prevent racial wars and bloodshed. Yet it must not be thought that Brazil is mixing races promiscuously in the sense that a prominent white Bra- zilian family gives willingly its daughters in marriage to negroes. One will be told that this amalgam is being made chiefly among the lower classes. Yet in many parts of the country the darker is tending almost invariably toward the white, as is natural when the white is the fashionable or favourite type. It seems to be a clear case of Lamarck and Darwin's selective process. If for purely social reasons a certain type becomes fashionable, all marrying drifts that way, and finally that type pre- vails in the race. Although probably the average Ameri- can would express his satisfaction over the fact that our civilisation places many obstacles in the way of the de- velopment of such a principle in the United States, not to recognise the seriousness of the motive of the Brazilians in this vital mixture of races is unfortunate. A Latin BEAZILIAN TRAITS 25 American statesman in whose forecast one may have confidence said that the United States was ''finished," so far as Latin America went, if it did not forget its colour prejudices. The result in Brazil of four centuries of racial fusion, or this "triple fusion" is a wide range and variety of population. In one section the traveller will find the Por- tuguese stock comparatively pure and unadulterated ; in another, it is so variously mixed with negro and Indian as to be wellnigh absorbed by the indigenous races. There are several distinct populations in the country, possess- ing their own characteristics, activities, traditions and folklore. It is necessary to name the section when speak- ing of the characteristics of the Brazilians. Until the beginning of the nineteenth century, Portugal permitted no foreign immigration into Brazil, populating the country entirely from her territories. To-day, how- ever, one finds strong French influences in Rio de Janeiro, German colonies in South Brazil, traces of the Dutch and early English settlements along the North coast, and Italian, Polish, Hollandaise and many other brands in the coffee and lumber sections. Generally speaking, the Portuguese form the fundamental and predominating white structure of the population. The new type which is now in the making, especially between the Amazon estuary and Rio de Janeiro, is probably the most numerous and distinctive type in the country. The colour of these inhabitants varies from the coal black negro through every shade of the mulatto and the innumerable cross-breeds, revealing one of the most remarkable race competitions in existence — Indo-Aryan, American-Indian, and African Negro without colour dis- tinctions, and far more devoid of race prejudice than is true where white men mix with the men of colour in other parts of the world t 26 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY Thus proceeds the evolutionary progress of the Bra- zilian of the future-3;;a_fierY_p5^si25^1^- spirit_pf the In-^ dian in a mixture with the idle and affectionate dispo- sition of the African negro, overlaid with the traits of the Portuguese, aristocratic and always courteous, and all rich in emotional quality. This emotional, poetic and mystic strain is character- istic of the Brazilian type. Intuition and imagination are strongly developed. It is an active and expansive temperament, with a mixture of melancholy, and a touch of sadness^and reserve. There is a love of strong and tragic roman eeT 'The daily papers reveal varied pictures of passionate acts on the part of the tropically-tem- pered and jealous people. The ''Movies" can hardly be too lurid or too melodramatic to please the popular taste, and the tragic drama and lyric opera are demanded. The love of home life is another Brazilian trait. The Brazilian is prolific in progeny. One sees children every- where, and they are usually well-behaved, revealing a veneration for older people and a restraint of buoyancy' which are far too uncommon in the United States. Bra- zilian homes are provided with "Birthday Books," in which are noted the anniversary periods of each member of the family, these events being marked with special festivities. Sunday is especially the home day ; it is the Continental Sunday also and excursions and family part- ies are the rule wherever one goes. The Brazilian makes a good husband, although his standards of morality out- side the home are, like his Sundays, more Continental than American, and might not pass muster in New Eng- land. The wife, who is accustomed to the semi-seclusion common to all Latin American women, is primarily a home-keeper and her life pivots about her children rather than public matters. The girls are taught to cook, to sew and to superintend the household matters; their higher education is inclined to exhaust itself in the polite BRAZILIAN TRAITS 27 accomplishments of music, painting and language. The Brazilian is not keen for the "new Woman," but prefers the girlish-and-motherly, entirely charming and pretty person whom he sees in his cigarette smoke. Ill PORTUGAL AND BRAZIL / *^ In these latter days when Brazil, the oldest civilisation y / in the Americas and among the youngest of Republics, is 't.ys»- ' coming to be regarded as a great and coming country, the old and historic land on the west coast of the Iberian Peninsula may claim with justice some of the praise. It is often pointed out that both nations and individuals are inclined, somewhat ungratefully in the day of their in- dependence, to forget the hands that have trained and upheld their early faltering steps. In some parts of Brazil to-day one finds the word ''Portuguese" in slight favour, and if by chance a foreigner uses it unconsciously to denote the inhabitants who still speak the tongue of their mother-country, he will be promptly and courte- ously corrected by the remark — "We are Brazilians !" / It might be held that Brazil has small reason to be 0ti j thankful to a country whose medieval seamen, grandees /If \ and priests robbed her that they might enrich themselves / and the royal coffers of Lisbon. Some might argue that Brazil has had to fight for her present-day destiny, and that it was only after she had laboriously severed the chains that bound her to the Old "World officialdom, the new light of republican progress dawned. This could be freely granted; and still quite as truly as Americans, who also had to struggle in blood with their English Mother for their self-governing and "inalienable rights," brought away an inheritance which memory can- not despise nor time destroy, likewise the modern Bra- zilian has in his veins the blood of a race that was once 28 PORTUGAL AND BRAZIL 29 among the most heroic and virile in all Europe. It was a race of hardy and adventurous navigators and discov- erers which joined with Spain in placing the outposts of European civilisation. It was a people beyond all others who turned the course of Empire both westward and eastward. Although the later history of the inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula is clouded with many a failure, their matchless courage and accomplishment in the six- teenth century will ever mark one of the most brilliant epochs of the world's history. It is in fact only as we know those days of heroic ad- venture, those traditions rivalling that of the Romulus and Remus story of Rome, those centuries of struggle with the Moors during the four hundred stirring years when the Arab strain was stamping the Spanish and Portuguese race; it is only after we have followed the erstwhile powerful Portuguese Empire establishing it- self in India, in Ceylon, in China, in Africa, and in the islands of many seas, as well as in the confines of the new Americas, that we can adequately measure what they brought to their New World possessions on that tropic April day in 1500 when Cabral's small squadron of thir- teen ships dropped anchor at the harbour of Porto Se- guro, just south of the first Brazilian Capital of Bahia. I hold no special brief for present-day Portugal. Neither do I find traces of particular greatness in Por- tuguese immigration to-day in Brazil, aside from fur- nishing good and provident shop-keepers and often hardy colonists. I have doubts whether or not the early set- tlers were greatly superior, in their ideals or their man- ner of achieving them, to the followers of Pizarro and Almargo on the West Coast of South America. Both nations left much to be desired by way of fundamental and constructive colonisation. Both peoples seemed more interested in securing treasure or posts of aristo- cratic power, than in the foresight and patient industry 30 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY that makes for permanent happiness of colonist or col- onised. The Jesuits evidently did more for the Indians of Brazil (until their own lust for rule and gold proved their undoing) than did the early Spanish missionary priests in Ecuador and Peru, where pious religious cere- monials at the killings of Inca chieftains were hardly intended to impress the natives with the benevolence of either their conquerors or their faith. Despite all this, however faulty may have been the man- ner of the Portuguese as to conquest or subjugation of the conquered, the Brazilians who think, do not fail to remind you by their conversation as by their monu- ments, that they have descended from a long line of brave and gallant knights and a unique coterie of intrepid discoverers. They will tell you of Bartolomeu Diaz who, in the reign of Dom John II when the pope issued his famous bull dividing the undiscovered parts of the world between Spaniards and Portuguese, in 1486, rounded the Cape of Good Hope and reached Algoa Bay. You will hear of Vasco de Gama who in 1497 had crossed the Indian Ocean and reached Calicut, of Pedro Alvares Cabral who in 1500 found Brazil while on his military expedition with 1500 soldiers and mariners to reach the Orient, and gain by persuasion or coercion the trade of the entire East for Portugal. There is also the hero of the Portuguese, Duarte Pacheco, who in 1503 defended Cochin and with 900 soldiers defeated an army of 50,000 natives, and Francisco de Almeida, who in 1505 was appointed the first viceroy of India. He who visits the West Coast of India to-day will hear -m or o. than I can tell now of Affonso de Albuquerque who occupied Goa in 1510 and laid the early foundations of strong national influence, which still abides in the Por- tuguese missions especially, scattered along the Mala- bar Coast. The discoveries and feats of arms which oc- curred in the rule of Dom Emmanuel of Portugal illus- PORTUGAL AND BRAZIL 31 trate sufficiently of what stock the Brazilians have sprung: Joao da Nova (1501) discovered the island of Ascension, and Anierigo Vespucci the Rio Plata and Paraguay; Diogo Lopes de Sequeira in 1509 occupied Malacca ; in 1515 Lopes Soares was building Portuguese fortifications in the Island of Ceylon; in 1517 Fernando Peres Andrada established himself at Canton and in 1521 he made his way to Peking, while in the year previous Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese sailor though in the Spanish service, passed through the straits that bear his name. During these bright periods of Portuguese history, the country's literature was not dumb, and then, as in later times, the small land whose language has been so little known, has concealed poets, prose writers and his- torians of these discovery days of which any nation may be proud. Portugal had a distinct literature as well a distinct history. There is brilliancy and dash about the poetry of this land where all men are singers, and the biographies and travels of the sixteenth century are un- rivalled in their time. The poetry of the Portuguese trou- badours, which attended the growth of national independ- ence and the victories over the Moors, was truly char- acteristic of the temper of the people, and its reflection is seen to-day in many a Brazilian poet's vigorous lines. It was in the sixteenth century also that the national epics of Camoens and his followers were produced, after the language of the nation had been polished in the clas- sical school of Sa de Miranda. If one would get an idea of the way in which modern Portuguese thought, espe- cially in poetry and research, has developed, he need only to spend some time in the Brazilian libraries or book shops, where the shelves bend beneath Portuguese lit- erature. I was interested in visiting small book stores in out of the way parts of Brazil, and to find there clas- sics of the language, where in many similar cases in the 32 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY United States one would find only the best selling, recent fiction. The Brazilians have not taken all their taste in literary things from France. They have found in their national tongue, and especially in the new Portu- guese school of ideas and letters, excellent models. The Brazilians of to-day are following their national development in their books, as did their forefathers, and we find popular native novels with such titles as, "The Cowboy," "The Diamond Hunter" and "The Rubber Ranger. ' ' Although the aristocratic Brazilian does not relish being compared with the Portuguese peasants, which seems to be the chief portion of the immigration from the old country at present, when there is a national celebra- tion like that of the anniversary of a great Portuguese statesman or poet, indications show that the Brazilians have still a pride in their mother-country and that some- thing very much like racial unity is slumbering beneath the surface. Those who have followed the fighting spirit, the energy and the perseverance with which the men of Brazil rose to the occasion in the great war with Para- guay, may see also indications of a true descent from the men who under Affonso Henriques overthrew the Moors, who under John I and John IV refused to be dominated by the Spaniards, and led by Albuquerque and Joao de Castro conquered the East ; or who by the famous voy- age of Vasco de Gama ushered in a new epoch in world history. Among the various influences which Portugal has ex- erted in the past and continues to exert upon her New World child, now grown to larger stature of possibility than Portugal herself, aristocratic and old family ideals are distinctively prominent. No other Latin American nation, with the possible exception of Peru, is so jealous of a real lineage with nobility of blood and chivalric ancestry. It may be added that these are the two coun- POKTUGaL and brazil 33 tries of South America where this idealism of the past has been less diluted with outside immigration, and where perhaps, both through the influence of climate and also because of direct ancestral descent from royal or im- perial sources, the ancient aristocracy of language and culture has been more carefully guarded against the in- roads of modernity. No one is inclined to underestimate the persistence of the racial type of pioneer in either of these countries. In the early days of conquest and settlement, Brazil was more favoured than Peru and western South Am- erica, not only in the class of Portuguese that assisted in the foundation and growth of the new colonies, but in the reception of European ideas from different nation- alities. "While western Spanish America was given over to the soldiers of fortune, freebooters and a class of buccaneers in whose programme plunder and bloodshed seemed. at time s the objects as well as the means of their search for gold, Brazil for more than three centuries was treated to the exhibition of rule by Portuguese grandees from the mother-country, Governor-Generals of some prominence, and in addition the civilisation of the Dutch for thirty years, as well as the sovereignty in certain sections of the French. It was Brazil's fortune, moreover, to get some ideas of humanitarian and schooled civilisation from the Jes- uits, than whom probably no more astute, intelligent, though politically-minded, clerics, ever existed. To be sure the Portuguese nobles and grandees, even when they came to rule personally their fiefs, exercised for a time autocratic power over large jurisdictions and their policy, like that of the Spanish, was to enrich .th e nation /^n^s^i^es at the expense of the people ; yet there was more of re- straint from the Crown than existed over the faraway Spanish mariners who were left on the bleak shores of the Pacific to work their plundering way, almost un- t 34 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY hindered by any laws of God or men. Brazil had at least some men in these trying colonising days, like Father Nobrega, a Jesuit contemporary of St. Francis Xavier, and his rival and follower in disinterested ex- \ ertions for his fellows, while the priest-adventurers fol- lowing in Pizarro's train held a fiery cross over the land of the Incas, scathing and consuming as were the blood- stained swords of Spanish chieftains. The condition of Portugal in the beginning of the six- teenth century was such as to encourage her sons to emi- grate, and so great was the tide that set toward Brazil that it was said that it looked at one time as though Lis- bon and the Portugal cities would be depopulated. Times were hard in the mother-country in these transi- tion days. The Church had been shorn of much of its power but the king was all supreme. Laws were severe ; the death penalty was visited upon robbery, and the ruler could force his subjects to fight his battles and pay their own expenses while they fought. Animals and virtually all of the personal property of his people belonged to him, and roads, docks, revenues and fisheries were also royal possessions. The new and fabled country across the seas, which this maritime people loved and of which they had no fear, offered riches and more freedom than did the home country. The result was inevitable. Portu- gal lost in these sixteenth century days many of her hardiest and best sons, Iberian and Celtic and Saracen blood ; and in this migration the decadence of the mother- land was prefigaired, as was also the rise of a greater than Portugal on the eastern shores of the new and ri s- •iug world. The story of these first three hundred years of coloni- sation of Brazil is at best a vexed and checkered history, transpiring beneath the jealous gaze of all Europe which coveted so rich a prize. Shipwreck by sea and the massacre of the Portuguese on land by the Indians, PORTUGAL AND BRAZIL 35 marked the passage of the first thirty years. The early attachment and veneration of the natives for the white men were soon changed to fear, and revenge came for the injuries inflicted upon them by irresponsible and ruthless pioneers. Portugal in blind disregard of the future of her colony, at one time made Brazil a penal settlement banishing hither her criminals instead of ex- ecuting them at home. Sanguinary battles and hideous atrocities grew apace. Meanwhile the French were form- ing settlements in northern Brazil and the Spanish had taken advantage of the apathy of the Portuguese Court and settled on the banks of the Paraguay River in the south. The Portuguese King, Joao III, now thoroughly alarm- ed, inaugurated his famous Captaincies (Capitanias) giving to fifteen of his grandees who had distinguished themselves by services to the Crown, fiefs, or land grants, of 150 miles of seacoast, with an unlimited depth of area. They were given the remarkable privilege of occupying, pacifying and developing their feudal holdings at their own cost — probably the most economical scheme of col- onisation ever devised. It was indeed too cheap and too absolute to be permanent. The nobles became petty kings, abused their great privileges, and it was found neces- sary to appoint Governor-Generals to watch and control the nobles who in this change were stripped of their plenipotentiary powers, possessing their lands as fiefs. Thus for two centuries until the imperial independ- ence of Brazil, the country breathed the air of battles by sea and land and many vicissitudes. During this time the Dutch gained a strong foothold, especially in the northern provinces, the French having at various times a transi- tory occupation of central portions of the new land, and the mother-country for a time passed beneath the yoke of Spain. Much water passed under the bridge during these stirring and eventful years, and many influences 36 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIE COUNTRY were given birth which the Brazil of the twentieth cen- tury has not entirely lost. It was in this period that slaves were imported from Africa for labour ; it Avas an era of the discovery of Brazil's enormous riches in gold and precious stones ; the sugar mills and the coffee berry arrived ; and Durand de Villegaignon, a native of Prov- ence and a Knight of Malta, made his unsuccessful at- tempt to plant a colony of French Huguenots on an island in the Bay of Rio de Janeiro, the first Protestant colony of the new w^orld. It was of this early attempt to unfurl the banner of the reformed religion over Brazil that an evident sympa- thiser with the French Huguenots speculates in his book entitled, "Brazil and La Plata": "With the remembrance of this failure in establishing the Reformed religion here, and of the direct cause which led to it, I often find myself speculating as to the possible and probable results which would have followed the suc- cessful establishment of Protestantism during the three hundred j^ears that have since intervened. With the wealth and power and the increasing prosperity of the United States before us, as the fruits at the end of two hundred years colonisation of a few feeble bands of Protestants on the comparatively bleak and barren shores of the Northern continent, there is no presumption in the belief that had a people of similar faith, similar morals, similar habits of industry and enterprise, gained an abiding footing in so genial a climate and on a soil so exuberant, long ago the still unexplored and impene- trable wilderness of the interior would have bloomed and blossomed in civilisation as the rose, and Brazil from the seacoast to the Andes would have become one of the gardens of the world. But the germ which might have led to this was crushed by the bad faith and malice of Villegaignon; and, as I look on the spot which bears his name, and, in the eyes of a Protestant at least, perpet- PORTUGAL AND BRAZIL 37 uates his reproach, the two or three solitary palms which lift their tufted heads above the embattled w^alls, and furnish the only evidence of vegetation on the island, seem, instead of plumed warriors in the midst of their defences, like sentinels of grief mourning the blighted hopes of the long past." legaignon w^as undoubtedly a scoundrel, but sigh- ings 'Wer the things that might have been, savour of ''vain r^rrets," especially in the light of new republican progress iiV3razil. In the national allotment of lands and peoples and\eligions, man proposes but Providence dis- poses. To use tte strong-packed phrase of a distinguished European statesSaan, ' * Things are what they are ; results are what they shaX be ; w^hy then deceive ourselves ! ' ' To him who take^hort and passing views of the civi- lisation of peoples oiH^r than his own there seems at hand ready-made remed^s for their evident deficiencies. ''If they could only be liBe us," we cry, looking out of dim parochial eyes. As ouXyision sweeps more widely over nations and men, as o^r search for intent and meanings drives our thought beneath surface impres- sions, groping for "things invisible And cast beyond the moon^ a new reasonableness for international div^sity is pretty sure to arise, and we become conscious ^i^t our very differences make for speed toward that "DiVme far-off event, toward which the wdiole creation movesN Certain it is that the revolutionary struggle" of the Brazilian nation for its independence, beginning even as far back as the seventh of September, 1822, when Brazil severed forever her political ties with Lisbon, and the Prince Pedro I was proclaimed Emperor, — a struggle that is not yet ended — has been the sme qua non of the country's elevation. I have never heard it stated that 38 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY among the world changes wrought by Napoleon he made a new Brazil, but when his Peninsular Campaign drove the Portuguese Prince Joao VI, who was then Regent, to abandon Portugal and to establish the seat of Mon- archy in the Western Hemisphere, on that day in 1808, the Brazil of the present began to break her chains of enslavement, and sighted her final republican emancipa- tion from afar. One of the first signs of beneficial change was the open- ing of Brazilian ports, which had hitherto been closed to all but Portugal, to international trade. The centenary of this momentous event for the nation was celebrated by a great national exhibition in Rio de Janeiro from August to November, 1908. During the first year after this act, ninety foreign ships entered the new port, and in 1910 a trade treaty was concluded with England. The >>'^z//^<'*^ renowned ''Brazil woods," from which the country de- , X a^ (dy^ rived its name, began to be utilised in bwilding -British ^^^ me^ M)f - wa r ; English merchants took up residences in the ^< _ narrow streets of the old Rio, and Brazil's great game , '!'' of foreign commerce was on. A glance at the condition of the country at this com- mencement of the new epoch in the dawn of the nine- teenth century, throws light upon the rapid achievement of the last hundred years. Previous to the opening of the nineteenth century, Brazil had been endeavouring to live a stifled existence under the weight of the arbitrary and shortsighted Por- tuguese Court. As has been suggested, she was a coun- try with no ''open door"; indeed she was restricted by a policy as strict and prohibitoiy as ever shut in China and Japan from touch with the outside world. If by chance a vessel allied to the mother-country was per- mitted to anchor within the beautiful harbours of this land, where every possibility of production awaited only the coming of population and world contacts a flour- PORTUGAL AND BRAZIL 39 ishing commerce inevitably brings, not even the crew was allowed to go ashore without a guard of soldiers. If an alien ship was driven of necessity into a Brazilian port for repairs, a strong guard from the custom house was promptly placed on board, and a time limit was placed by the authorities on the ship's stay. These oppressive measures affected everything. The gold mines, discovered in the opening of the previous century by the Paulistas in the state of Minas Geraes ("General Mines"), had been rendered partially im- potent for the want of implements which could not be imported. Agricultural supplies and household necessi- ties were at a premium. The ancient national annals tell of wealthy planters who could furnish golden plates to their guests upon which to eat, but did not have enough knives to "go around," while a single drinking glass had to do service for the entire company. This latter state of conditions of the earlier colonial days impressed me particularly in contrast with present conditions, as I was shown about the fine and flourishing glass factories now existing in southern Brazil. There was no free press, because there were no printing presses in Brazil in the opening of the nineteenth century ; books were rare as there were no libraries. "Dependence upon Portu- gal" was the slogan of the Lisbon authorities, and despite many evident signs of rising independence on the part of the Brazilians, the present day enterprise and enthu- siasm of life and industry were conspicuous by their absence. When the Prince Regent Joao VI brought his train of Court followers and the Portuguese throne to Brazil in 1808, he found a country large and rich enough to sup- port a population of one hundred millions and more, but which as far as figures can be ascertained, held only 430,000 inhabitants of white blood, 700,000 Indians and 1,500,000 negroes, the latter for a large part in a con- 40 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY dition of slavery. There were only twelve cities and sixty-six towns, and the total population of the largest territory at that time in the Western Hemisphere could be housed in one of our larger American cities and have room to spare. Slavery was under full and shameless headway. Twenty thousand slaves were being imported yearly, and in the slave market at Rio de Janeiro five thousand slaves were annually placed on sale. The Portuguese Crown owned ten thousand slaves which were used in the dia- mond fields, while the Benedictines employed one thou- sand on their plantations. ** Social life," according to one narrator of these early nineteenth century days, **at this time was of the most degraded kind. The habits of the lower orders were filthy, and those of the rich abom- inably vicious. The monks swarmed in every street, and were at once sluggards and libertines. For the sum of two dollars any coward could hire a bravo to waylay and stab his enemy. The negro population were em- ployed in every description of labour, both agricultural and domestic." In spite of these drawbacks the resourcefulness of the Brazilians had been revealed in many ways during the preceding century. Cities had been constructed and Rio Cc^rcoy»(*o cl6 Janeiro especially, which had been made the Capital, ^c^ -r^^ii-t^ transferred from Bahia, was beginning to rise out of her t^^^JJjt o^ marshes, showing signs of the queenliness that was to ^ Ucr^"^ ;> - be. Already the colonies were outstripping the country of their parentage, and Brazilian exports amounted to $12,500,000 with imports of $10,500,000. The fruits of three centuries of colonisation up to this time had not been greatly impressive in the region of material or in- dustrial progress, but a new nation had slowly been evolving. A gradual incubation had been proceeding, so silently as scarcely to be realised by the Brazilians themselves, through all these conquering and calamitous IT MIGHT BE ALMOST 'ANYWHERE IN THE ORIENT nTHE HOME OF A NEW SETTLER IN SOUTH BRAZIL PORTUGAL AND BRAZIL 41 years; and now the day was approacliing when Brazil was to break its shell of isolation and become a part of a truly self-conscious national world. The spirit and influence of the French Revolution reached Brazil by way of the mother-country. When Napoleon, then the imperial ruler of France, insisted that Portugal should give assent to the Continental sys- tem, which meant she should break with her old ally, Eng- land, the Prince Regent, Dom John VI, found himself in a desperate dilemma between two great powers of the era. Although the Prince Regent of Portugal was by no means a weak or vacillating character, as future events proved, at this time he waited too long before he finally decided to declare war against England. Even then Sir Sydney Smith with the British fleet was block- ading the mouth of the Tagus and the thunder of Mar- shal Junot's guns came ominously by land as the army of Napoleon marched on Lisbon. It was a trying moment for the monarchy of Portugal. The Ambassador of Eng- land gave Dom John VI two choices, either to surrender to England the Portuguese fleet or to be personally con- ducted by the British squadron, together with the entire royal family, to the coasts of Brazil. The Portuguese ruler selected the latter alternative, and on the 29th of November, 1807, a notable date for Brazil, the first imperial potentate and thus far the only one to reign in person in the democratic Americas, with the treasure and archives of the Portuguese Crown and a host of Court followers, left the shores of the Old World. The resounding salvos of the British and Por- tuguese cannon which sounded in the ears of the depart- ing monarchical family, were taken up with increasing volume on the 7th of the following March, 1808, when the new Portuguese-American ruler sailed into the harbour of Rio de Janeiro amidst the vivas of Brazilian multi- tudes. 42 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY When the news of the coming of the Portuguese mon- arch to take up his royal residence in the New World Colony came in advance of the arrival, it sent a thrill of hope and delighted expectation through the entire coun- try. It seemed too good to be true to these more or less distracted colonists that their king was to found his Court on the soil of Brazil. All the latent love of the mother-country which had been half choked in the breasts of this proud people by reason of their three centuries of reverses and rule by adventurers, sprang up afresh. No hospitality or no honour could be too rich or magnifi- cent for this generous and pomp-loving people to bestow on their sovereign. Guanabara Bay was thick with boats in gala dress that had sailed out to meet the royal squad- ron. The hills of Rio were alive with spectators who mingled their welcome with the clang of the bells and the salute of guns, as the Prince upon landing proceeded to the Cathedral to give thanks for his safe arrival and offer prayers for the future prosperity of the Kingdom of Brazil. It was said that the city was illuminated for nine suc- cessive evenings. Swift messengers carried the glad news throughout the land, and from the La Plata to the Amazon, Brazil trembled in the exultation of a new des- tiny. The high hopes aroused were not ill-founded, during at least the opening days of the new regime. Not only did the Portuguese Prince give to the country of his enforced adoption the Carta Regia which flung wide the gates of world commerce, but he also brought the first printing press, and the Royal Library with sixty thou- sand volumes which he opened for the free use of the public. New academies of fine arts and medicine sprang into being almost fullgrown; new diplomatic embassies from England and France arrived, new buildings were erected ; fashions from Europe began to change the prov- PORTUGAL AND BRAZIL 43 incial aspect of social customs; better communications with the interior parts of the country were accom- plished, and the entire face of the Brazilian land under- went a sudden change. It was only a few years after these transformations that Brazil was raised to the rank of a kingdom, form- ing an integral part of the United Kingdom of Portugal, and when the Prince Regent was crowned Dom John VI in the Palace Square of the nation's Capital, the_yery_ pa lms that ru stle d their troj)ical heads_above thesun- stained roo fs of Rio seemed no less beneficent and peace- ful than was the happy aspiration that breathed across all the Brazils. But, alas! for human hopes and permanent security! This was only a dash of Brazilian sunshine which is often scattered by the sudden storms that sweep over the green crests of the Sierras. The country was not yet emanci- pated. As Livingstone once said of Africa, ''the end of the exploration is the beginning of the enterprise." Within these new and mixed elements with which a Euro- pean monarch was here endeavouring to reinstate a tot- tering throne, there were antagonistic and highly diverse ambitions and ideas, forces of unrest and political striv- ings whose ultimate unity not even the steady hand and brain of Dom John VI could compass. Imperialism and democracy never permanently mix. The nineteenth century emperors of Brazil were not the first, neither will they be the last of the world's rulers, to realise this fact. It took only thirteen years for the new King of Por- tuguese-America to learn that the twenty thousand or more place-loving and unprincipled adventurers, whom he had brought with him from the old country, steeped in monarchical ideas, were not fit amalgam with which to cement nations in this hemisphere. The old and bitter feeling between the Portuguese and Brazilians soon dis- 44 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY played itself. The men attached to the Court cared little for Brazil, but much for their own advancement and titulary distinctions. To calm the storm that he saw aris- ing, the Emperor began to pile decorations and the flow- ers of knighthood upon the Brazilians. It created a mad scramble after rank and oflfice, which seemed more desir- able than industry. Every one aspired to become a ' * cavalheiro " or a "commendador," and sycophancy took the place of honest achievement. In Latin America the traveller wonders how there could come about amongst certain classes the repulsion to labour, and the overwean- ing attachment to the leisured life of the titled gentleman. The student of this period of Portuguese rule can get a key for its growth in Brazil. The Emperor, seeking to stem the tide of popular Brazilian disfavor rising against him, made knights of business men, traders and coffee merchants, regardless of distinguished services meriting such reward. A knight thus set apart from the common herd by Royal favor must of necessity abandon the menial career of a mer- chant, henceforward subsisting upon previously acquired fortune or turning to politics. This they did in large numbers and one of Brazil's strong handicaps to national progress was given sanction. Yet, distinctions, which the Brazilian has always loved, according to his nature prone to ceremonial and display, could not stop the flood of independence which was in these years rolling across the world. Not only France but the English North American colonies, and neighbour- ing Spanish-American provinces, at this time engaging in successful revolutionary struggles for their freedom, hastened the issue. The revolt of Pernambuco, where the spirit of self respect and excellent colonising principles were notable, occurred in 1817. A corrupt Court aggra- vated the native people. The only printing press in the country had been brought from Lisbon by the Emperor, PORTUGAL AND BRAZIL 45 and its organ, the Royal Gazette, was closed to any one who would speak against Government practices. The Brazilian press has not yet lost the habit then so doroi- nant of giving columns of its space to dry official edicts, birthday odes, and flowery panegyrics. The revolution which came in Portugal in 1821, when the people demanded a Constitution, was synonymous with one of the three bloodless political revolutions in Brazil, and the result of the first one was the conferring by King D. John VI upon his twenty-three-year-old son, Dom Pedro, Prince-Royal, the office of Regent and Lieu- tenant to His Majesty in the Kingdom of Brazil. When the disheartened Portuguese Monarch, with his royal family and nobility, embarked on a battleship for Por- tugal, April 24th, 1821, he clasped his son in his arms and exclaimed: ''Pedro, Brazil will, I fear, ere long separate herself from Portugal; and if so, place the crown on thine own head, rather than allow it to fall into the hands of any adventurer." IV THE BRAZILIAN EMPIRE "Independencia on morte" {The watchword of the Brazilian Revolution) The new Prince Dom Pedro I, very soon after the de- parture of his Royal father to Portugal, found oppor- tunity to reveal the spirit that was in him. Liberal meas- ures were in the air, and the oppressive attempts of the Portuguese Cortes in Lisbon to humble Brazil could not be subdued even by King John VI, who not only was fav- ourably disposed toward the Brazilians, but also knew that authoritative decrees were only intended to hasten the independence from the mother-country which he had predicted. The time spirit of the world at that time, the silent, evolutionary processes of more than three centur- ies in the big colonial country, and the taste of Constitu- tion-making which the Brazilian Assembly had recently enjoyed with the young Prince as a strong adherent, had prepared the hour for the birth of independence. The immediate cause of the action that once for all set the new country free was the demand of the Lisbon Cor- tes that the young Prince should be sent home to Por- tugal, ostensibly to complete his education. The order was too thinly veiled. It was meant to mean that Brazil was to be placed again under the colonial vassalage of Portugal. This set Brazil on fire. The Camara at Rio de Janeiro, the Paulistas in the South, the powerful and influential Brazilian statesmen like the famous Andradas, the whole land, in short, with the exception of certain Portuguese elements at Bahia and in other scattered lo- de THE BRAZILIAN EMPIRE 47 calities, gained for once a united voice — its spirit rang with the same ''give-me-liberty-or-give-me-death" watch- word that fused another American nation into being, and underneath were the kindling republican fires which this same Northern Republic reiterated in the message of Woodrow Wilson on the evening of April 2nd, 1917, — *'The world must be made safe for democracy." There have been many important crises in Brazil, but no moment in all the country's career has yet been more truly momentous or freighted with more tremendous fu- ture destiny, than was the decision that severed at this time this great division of the Western Hemisphere from trans-Atlantic rule. It really marked the beginning of expressed democracy in Brazil, for the ensuing sixty- seven years of Imperial guidance of the Pedros was prob- ably the mildest imperialism the world has ever wit- nessed; so mild and beneficent as to form, as many be- lieve, the best possible preparation for a Republic in fact, which came in 1889, but which was one in reality many years before. This Independence Day also marked one of the clearest evidences of the underlying temper and love for liberty which burns to-day in the breasts of these people. The young Prince-Royal Dom Pedro I chanced to be at the city of Sao Paulo when the dispatches from Lis- bon demanding his recall were received. His action then was indicative of the man whose decisiveness was not one of his frailties. It was on the memorable date for Brazil, Sept. 7th, 1822. As the annals state: "Dom Pedro re- ceived a bundle of dispatches from Portugal. He read letter after letter — one particularly, two or three times, and then destroyed it. No one ever saw it, nor did he ever tell what it contained; but after a few minutes' thought, he raised his hand and exclaimed, ' ' Independen- cia ou morte!" ('^Independence or death!") It was Brazil's Boston Tea Party in a coffee city. 48 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY Dom Pedro, who soon was to be Brazil's first Emperor, earned here, beside the small stream of Ypiranga in the now great and prosperous State of the Paulistas, the name with which the Brazilians are wont to speak of him — ''0 Washington do Brazil." The watchword was taken up by the people. Salutes were fired. The glad news ran on the wings of the wind throughout the land. Rio de Janeiro was illuminated. The morning of the country's independent existence dawned. The Proclamation of Independence speech of the youth- ful ruler who was crowned the Constitutional Emperor and the Perpetual Defender of Brazil, in the Campo de Santa Anna in Rio de Janeiro the following 12th of Oc- tober, may with justice be afforded a place with the great historic pronouncements of the New World ; ''Let no other shout issue from your lips but Union," said he. ''Let no other word be reiterated from the Ama- zon to La Plata but 'Independence'; let all our provinces be strongly chained in unanimity not to be broken by any force ; let our prejudices be banished, substituting in their place the love of the public good — Brazilians! Friends! let us unite ourselves ; I am your companion, I am your defender ; let us obtain as the only reward of all our toils the honour, glory, and prosperity of Brazil; for the ac- complishment of which I shall always be at your front in the most dangerous places! Permit me to convince you that your felicity depends on mine. It is my glory to rule an upright, reliant and free people. Give me the example of your virtues and of your union, and be assured that I shall be worthy of you." It was but natural that Portugal should make strenu- ous objection to such open disobedience to the Crown. She sent a large force of soldiers from Europe and an army of 12,000 men under General Madeira gathered at Bahia to resist the bold claims of the young independ- THE BRAZILIAN EMPIRE 49 ents. Dom Pedro cut off their supplies by land and with the aid of two British sea-fighters, Lord Cochrane and Commander Taylor, raised a fleet of eight ships and 300 gims, and though greatly out-numbered, dispersed the Portuguese fleet, chasing it home across the Atlantic. This was the last determined effort of Portugal to regain her lost colony, and within three years from the declara- tion of Brazilian liberty on the plains of the Ypiranga, Lisbon had acknowledged an independent Brazil. Dom Pedro I had brought unity and a renewed spirit of self-respect to the Brazilian people. At first he was immensely popular, but his connection with the Portu- guese Crown established a few years after the Revolu- tion as a price for Portugal's recognition of the new con- ditions, together with the financial stringency in the land, and distrust among his Ministers, presaged his downfall after less than ten years of rule. The Emperor, who was by no means lacking in courage and decision, delayed too long to suit his subjects in giving the nation a liberal Constitution. His Cisplatina war, by which Brazil lost UrugTiay, while it helped to raise the first Brazilian army, greatly depleted the already overstrained Government Treasury, and the revolt of Pernambuco added to the na- tional disfavour of the people regarding a ruler still thought to be influenced by the Braganza family of mon- archs. The Emperor had descended from a long and illustrious line of European rulers and kings. His wife was Leo- poldina, an archduchess of Austria and in her veins ran the blood of Maria Theresa, while it was her sister, Maria Louisa, who was the bride of Napoleon. Dom Pedro him- self, while he truly loved Brazil, with whom he had cast whole-heartedly his lot, had established many useful re- forms, and his proposed Constitution was remarkable for its liberal sentiments in these times. It provided for the Empire a Government that was ' ' Monarchical, heredi- 50 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY tary, constitutional and representative." The religion of the State was to be Roman Catholic, but all other be- liefs were to be tolerated. It provided for judicial pro- ceedings in public, the right of habeas corpus, and trial by jury. The senators and representatives of the General Assembly were to be chosen by electors as is the Presi- dent of the United States, and the provincial legislators were to be elected by universal suffrage; the presidents of the provinces were to be appointed by the Emperor, but the press was free and there was no proscription on account of colour. This Imperial Constitution, which was ratified by the people March 25th, 1824, was doubtless the most liberal of all the documents of its kind which up to that time had been accepted by any South American people. It is the Constitution which is yet in existence in Brazil as far as many of its policies are concerned; the monarchical and Imperial power being of course eliminated. Moreover its spirit and intent have been so universally in line with the ambitions of the Brazilians, that no nation of the Americas outside of the United States has been more truly democratic politically, or freer from disrupting and tragic revolutions, during the last century, than has Brazil. If the course of affairs in this country is compared with the conditions in Mexico for instance, where a Con- stitution was enacted only a month previous to the adop- tion of the Brazilian charter, the contrast is striking. Mexico, with her like rich advantages of population, ter- ritory and resources, has been a sad spectacle of unscru- pulous demagogism and despoiled dominions, her Con- stitution repeatedly overthrown, a country in which the ''rights of man" as regards the security of property have been to a shocking degree unknown. Meanwhile the light of freedom and justice that began to flame in these early nineteenth century days in the morning sky of Brazil's THE BRAZILIAN EMPIRE 51 constitutionalism, has constantly brightened through the changing vicissitudes of the years, and her present en- lightenment and safety of her institutions speak well for the stability upon which her modem civilization began in those eventful days. The transfer of Emperor-hood from Dom Pedro I to his young son who became later Dom Pedro II, but who at this time was only six years of age, marks a picturesque and pathetic page in Brazilian history. When in 1826, by the death of his father, Dom Pedro II became by succession the King of Portugal, he be- gan to utilise more than ever the militaiy aid of the mother-country, and in this way as by other impolitic acts aroused the slumbering antagonism of the Brazilians to Portuguese interference. The three Andrada brothers of w^ealth and intelligence were solidly arrayed against him and by their life-long knowledge of and connection with the affairs of Government, proved deadly foes. Al- though removed from official connection with the Gov- ernment by the Emperor, the Andradas still swayed the minds of the Assembly, while through a Journal called the Tmnoyo (named from an Indian tribe which was the bitter enemy of the early Portuguese settlers) raked the decks of Imperial policy and intimated that the Em- peror's career would resemble that of Charles I of Eng- land, if he did not speedily turn aside from his anti- national course. Affairs now were rapidly crashing down to serious issues. There were many conflicts between Portuguese troops and the populace. The Assembly, influenced by the Andradas, declared itself in permanent session as a challenge to His Majesty. But Dom Pedro I was no vacillating Emperor. Mounting on his horse, at the head of his cavalry, he rode to the Chamber, placed his can- non in position and sent up one of his generals to order the immediate dissolution of the Assembly. The Repub- 52 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY licans were taken by surprise, the session was broken up and the three Andradas with other obstructionists of the Emperor's policy were seized and placed on a ship and deported to France. Unfortunately for Pedro, the populace sentiment was with the Assembly, and despite a lull in the hostilities and the better spirit which had been engendered by the Emperor's liberal Constitution, the democracy al- ready half-bom would not be stilled. The impression grew that the Emperor was still a Portuguese and not a Brazilian at heart. On April 6th, 1831, the axe fell. The Emperor had dismissed some of the old Ministers and placed others of his own choosing in their stead. The people of the nation's Capital gathered in the famous Square of Campo de Santa Anna, where many historic scenes Brazilian have occurred, demanding the reinstatement of their Ministers. Dom Pedro hearing of the ominous meeting sent a magistrate to the Square to read to them his vin- dication. This only added fuel to the fire, and the gath- ering crowds increased the danger of the popular explo- sion. Then the representatives sent by the people to the palace to demand of him the return of the patriots, re- ceived the obdurate and somewhat puzzling reply, *'I will do everything for the people, but nothing by the people!" As this answer was returned to the Campo, the troops had begun to join the people; the Emperor's battalion arrived at 11 o'clock that fateful evening and were followed soon by the Imperial Guard which had refused the summons of their ruler to come to the palace for his protection. Still the Emperor stood his ground. He declared that he would suffer death rather than consent to the dicta- tion of a mob. Evidently here was a ruler whom public opinion could not easily blow around. Finally in his necessity he sent for one Vergueiro, a patriot whose in- THE BRAZILIAN EMPIRE 53 tegrity and popularity were well known. He was not to be found. It was two o'clock in the morning of April Tth, 1831 — the messenger from the populace and the com- bined assembly of troops pressed for a reply, reminding His Majesty that the growing masses of waiting patriots would not be patient much longer. The Emperor with great dignity and firmness said: *'I shall certainly not appoint the Ministry which they require: my honor and the Constitution alike forbid it, and I would abdicate or even suffer death, rather than consent to such a nomina- tion." The adjutant turned to leave and carry the an- swer to his general when Dom Pedro, as though strug- gling with a great resolve, asked him to wait a moment. He then sat down at his desk and wrote his final message to his Brazilian subjects: ''Availing myself of the right which the Constitution concedes to me, I declare that I have voluntarily abdi- cated in favour of my dearly-beloved and esteemed son, Dom Pedro de Alcantara." Arising and addressing the messenger, the intrepid and really great representative of the famous Bragan- zas, the man whom the Brazilians literally ''stifled with roses" only a few years since and who now was de- serted by even the men he had taught and raised to prominence, the Prince-Royal, the Washington of Brazil, said — "Here is my abdication: may you be happy! I shall retire to Europe, and leave the country that I loved dearly and that I still love." Tears now choked his voice and he turned away with his Empress to an adjoin- ing room where their sorrow was unseen. Six days later as the first Dom Pedro stood on the decks of a British man-of-war, ready to sail away for- ever from his child, his people and the Empire he had helped to make free, looking for the last time upon the unparalleled splendour of Rio's Bay, he thus let his full heart speak in a letter of farewell to his son : 54 THE BEAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY "My beloved son and my Emperor, very agreeable are the lines which you wrote me. I was scarcely able to read them, becaiTse copious tears impeded my sig-ht. Now that I am more composed, I write this to thank you for your letter, and to declare that, as long as life shall last, affec- tion for you will never be extinguished in my lacerated heart. "To leave children, country, and friends is the greatest possible sacrifice; but to bear away honour unsullied, — there can be no greater glory. Ever remember your father; love your country and my country; follow the counsel of those who have the care of your education; and rest assured that the world will admire you, and that I will be filled with gladness at having a son so worthy of the land of his birth. I retire to Europe : it is necessary for the tranquillity of Brazil, and that God may cause her to reach that degree of prosperity for which she is eminently capable. "Adieu, my very dear son ! Receive the blessing of your affectionate father, who departs without the hope of ever seeing you again. "D. Pedro de Alcantara. "On board the Warspite frigate, April 12th, 1831." Thus on a scene not unmixed with sadness did the cur- tain fall at the end of the first Imperial epoch in Brazil. Of the 48 years of Brazilian history which followed, to the hour when the military, the republican political elements, and the people united in the conviction that the time had come for Brazil to exemplify in her Govern- ment the democratic sentiments long brewing, those fa- miliar with the country are largely aware. It was the fourth and last period of Brazil's preparation to become a full-fledged Republic. The long colonial era of settle- ment, long-distance officialdom and conflicts with other. Powers looking covetously upon the riches of the giant land; the brief reign of the Portuguese King, John VI, with his title-loving adventurers; the notable and for- ever historic decade when Brazil's first Emperor-Libera- tor Dom Pedro I united the scattered fragments of a dissentient people in a Constitutional Union of freedom and equable laws; and then the benign and cultured re- gime of Dom Pedro II, whose shadow hovers still visi- THE BRAZILIAN EMPIRE 55 ble above the country, and who departed as an old year melts silently and inevitably into the new, not unla- mented, on that memorable November evening in 1889. Dom Pedro II was clearly one of the notabilities of his generation. Through his lineage of blood he brought to Brazil some of the most highly treasured inheritances of the ancient European Houses of the Braganzas, the Bourbons and the Hapsburgs. Aristocracy, chivalric dig- nity, literary and scientific attainment, and a high-mind- edness and a friendship for men — all belonged to him in an unusual degree. From the sensational hour when the power of law and custom was riven in twain in order to lift him, a mere lad of fifteen years, to the steps of the Imperial throne, even to the moment in the years of his snow-white hair and beard when his ears heard but dimly the cries of "Viva la Republica!" the Brazilians who loved him had a habit of disconnecting him with their troubles of State. They struck hard at their enemies, both at home and abroad, but stood a protecting circle about their Emperor. If in his later and declining years he gave state-craft diminishing attention and made pil- grimages to Europe and America while the lesser and more political-minded remained at home to devise and at times to intrigue, his return was welcomed with much the same spirit as actuated their fathers in 1840, when w^ith the ''boy Emperor" kneeling in the Brazilian Assembly to take the auto de juramento investing him with the prerogatives of his Imperial throne, they cried with a nation's voice — ''Viva Senhor Dom Pedro II, Con- stitutional Emperor and Perpetual Defender of Brazil!!!" On that early July morning too distant now for the memory of many living Brazilians, it was said that the shout of the populace that rolled after the youthful ruler as he left the Assembly to proceed to the city palace was "like the voice of the seas," and I think that few men 56 THE BEAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY of Brazil will accuse me of hyperbole, when I say that the sentiment that followed the aged Emperor as he left forever the shores of his loved land nearly a half cen- tury later, though inarticulate, was as deep as the seas that bore him away. For Brazil, as for the world at large, the reign of Dom Pedro II was highly significant. It was packed with events too numerous and too well known to be tabulated here. It witnessed the inauguration of steam navigation for all Brazil ; it included the Paraguayan War in which the bravery and patriotism of the country was placed on permanent record; it was darkened with the horrors of slavery, and it also marked the bright day of its aboli- tion. It was a period when industry and commerce, no longer *' noosed and haltered," ran ahead. These years embraced an epoch which North Americans can quite fully understand if they know their own history — an epoch in which Republican hopes and fears were often so intermingled as to bring the nation at times to the brink of despair. Yet all the time they were dawning toward fulfillment. They were lodged deeply in the in- exorable laws of American development. The wise and amiable Dom Pedro had to go at last because the times had marched on past him. The sun of monarchical gov- ernment had set on the Western Continent. The New Order in the free comity of American nations was al- ready waiting for Brazil, the last great country to join the sisterhood of Western republican states. The veteran Brazilian statesman, Dr. Ruy Barbosa, at the time of the fall of the Empire the Minister of Fi- nance in the Provisional Government, depicts clearly the reasons for the third notable revolution of Brazil : ''The most prominent ground of dissatisfaction with the Empire was centralization, with the absence of any real federal system. The people of Brazil had gradually lost all interest in the Empire. The Emperor might have THE BRAZILIAN EMPIRE 57 had amiable intentions, but the system of administration was corrupt and incompetent. The provinces had no rights as members of a confederation of states. They longed for autonomy in local administration. The Em- peror had grown old; his mind had failed him, and he was suffering from an incurable disease. In his dotage, Princess Isabel was the real head of the State. Sur- rounded by Jesuits, she had no will of her own. Priests were always about her, and clericalism was threatening to become a direct menace to Brazilian liberty. ''The Empire had served its purpose and was out of date. It retarded national progress. It was absolutely necessary to assimilate the institutions of the country with those of the liberal and progressive republics on the American continent. Every thoughtful Brazilian had been conscious that the revolution was imminent. The military revolt would have failed if the country had not been gradually preparing for a change of political order. The revolution was a startling surprise to those who were not familiar with the conditions of public thought ; but all intelligent citizens had for a long time accepted it as a foregone conclusion. When the military forces set the example of declaring for the Republic the people in all the provinces acquiesced in the movement with an unanimity that armed the Provisional Government with absolute authority. It was in its earliest aspects a mili- tary revolt but the hearty support of all classes of Bra- zilians in all the provinces converted it at once into an irresistible national movement." That Dom Pedro II played a role of far-reaching im- portance in what has proven for Brazil the happy con- summation of her long evolutionary, political struggles, no one acquainted with the past or present history of the country would deny. His integrity, as well as his intelli- gence and his deeds, have given him a ''place in history." 58 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY The principles dominating his long political career are given in the poem composed by himself : "If I am piovis, element, just, I'm only what I ought to be; The sceptre is a weighty trust, A great responsibility; And he who rules with faithful hand. With depth of thought and breadth of range, The sacred laws should understand, But must not at his pleasure change. "The chair of justice is the throne : Who takes it bows to higher laws; The public good and not his own, Demands his care in every cause. Neglect of duty, — always wrong — Detestable in young or old, — By him whose place is high and strong, Is magnified a thousandfold. "When in the east the light of sun Spreads o'er the earth the light of day. All know the course that he will run, Nor wonder at his light or way : But if perchance the light that blazed Is dimmed by shadows lying near. The startled world looks on amazed, And each one watches it with fear. "I likewise, if I always give ^ To vice and virtue their rewards, But do my duty thus to live; No one his thanks to me accords. But should I fail to act my part. Or wrongly do, or leave undone, Surprised, the people then would start With fear, as at the shadow'd sun." THE ORIENTALISM OP BRAZIL No one familiar with the Orient remains long in any portion of Latin America without being reminded of the East. The signs of Orientalism are frequent in Brazil, which in some respects is as Oriental as the Orient. Un- doubtedly the tropical sunshine and the habits, customs and manner of dress and life, which in equatorial re- gions the world over is similar, has something to do with this impression ; yet there are other good and suffi- cient elements interlarded with the history and evolution of the country and woven closely into the Brazilian an- cestry, connecting the youngest American Republic with the pervasive influence of age-long Eastern civilisation. Brazil, first of all is Portuguese in stock, and Portugal from the eighth to the middle of the thirteenth century was ruled, in some part of her territory at least, by Mo- hammedans. During these centuries the Iberian Penin- sula was probably more thoroughly Arabised than was any other portion of Europe. As the Hindus of the present day reveal in many of their customs of religion and life the impress of their Mogul conquerors, as the Egyptian Christian Copts are still hardly distinguishable from the dominant and predominating Moslems of the Nile Valley, so the Spanish and the Portuguese, with their South American posterity, present indications re- peatedly of the inter-penetration from one of the most powerful and contagious racial and religious forces the world has knowTi. The sons of Portugal may have taken many of their fighting ideals as well as their examples 59 60 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY of statecraft from their early Roman rulers ; the alliance and friendship of Portugal with England from the thir- teenth century have undoubtedly meant much to Portu- guese commerce and navigation; but in order to under- stand the historic background of Brazil one must needs recall the fact that the /Vrabs conquered the Brazilian mother-country, together with the Iberian Peninsula, in the eighth century and Mohammedan Caliphs and Moors had several hundred years in which to stamp upon this section of Europe a type of civilisation distinctly Eastern. The visitor from the North is quickly impressed with the Latin American treatment of women. On the West Coast of South America, especially, the partial seclusion of the fair sex reminds one of Eastern customs, while throughout Latin America the woman's world is confined to the home in a degree unknown in the United States or England. The multitude of movements for women that stagger the North American statistician are still unknown in Brazil. Public life is a man's world, and not until recently have women been employed in business offices. It is not customary for women or girls to appear on the streets unattended by one who corresponds to the Spanish duenna, and in the cafes and public restau- rants women are usually conspicuous by their absence. The Brazilian would hardly go to the length of saying, as it is often stated in Peru, that if a young man is allowed to see a young lady alone in her home, it should be for the purpose of proposing marriage to her, yet the scrupu- lous care with which the men of this country guard their women folk, even from introductions to men who are not of their elect circles, reveals customs singularly re- mindful of the Orient. If certain of these ways of life relative to women appear at first sight to the Northerner as strange and medieval, the uncensored woman and girl- life of the United States usually strikes the Brazilian as savouring of the other extreme. One Brazilian said to THE ORIENTALISM OF BRAZIL 61 me : " What are you going to do for a home-life in your big country, when all your women go into business or reform movements, and have no time to keep house or bear children?" There is perhaps no portion of the life of South Ameri- ca resembling more truly Oriental custom than that which has to do with the family as a kind of clan, rather than composed of individuals. The patriarchal life, lived un- der a common roof-tree, is quite universal in South America among the better families. Indeed it is not more common in India or China than amongst these people who are proud of their names, their antecedents, and the purity of their blood. The sons bring their wives to the father's home as is the custom in China, and here as in the Orient, there is a kind of family communism that many of the progressive South Americans at present opine, as being inimical to the development of independ- ent initiative on the part of the younger generation. A family of my acquaintance in Argentina is more or less typical of Latin American custom. The guest will be invited to dinner, providing he is especially fortunate as a foreigner in being admitted into the intimate family circle, and instead of finding merely his host and his wife to greet him, the immense house (in this case containing over a hundred rooms) seems to swarm with men, women and children bearing the same name. On the occasion of my visit there were thirty-eight people who sat down at dinner, and all of these had their abode under the same roof tree, being the parents, children and grandchildren. The family was virtually a clan sufficient in itself for its social life and amusements. It is because of the enor- mous family relationships that the seclusion of women is no hardship here, and one hears frequently in South America, as in the Orient, the woman 's answer as to her reason for not making friends outside her circle of rela- 62 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIE COUNTRY tives, *'0h, we have so many in the family, that I do not need to go outside." This patriarchal custom makes usually for a strong and beautiful family life, and one seldom finds anywhere a more delightful atmosphere than that existing in the South American home. The devotion of the woman to her household and children, as well as the reverence with which the sons and daughters continue the memory of their sires and grandsires, reminds one of the Far East w^here filial piety is the supreme virtue. Among the weaknesses of this system realised by many South Am- ericans is the tendency to intermarry in a comparatively closed circle, in order to keep the family property in- tact, and also in certain cases, as in sections of Brazil, to preserve the purity of the Portuguese blood. The famous Li Hung Chang of China built his home, to which he wished to retire in his old age, in Shanghai in- stead of Canton, his home province. When asked why he did such an unusual thing, contrary to Chinese custom, he replied, ' ' I built my house as far as I could from my ancestral home with the hope that my numerous poor relations could not get the steamboat fare to come and live with me." Many a South American, if he speaks from his heart, will reveal similar desires, as it is the custom here, as in the Orient, for the members of a family less fortunate in this world's goods, to seek out their prosperous rela- tive and give him the pleasure of their company through life. This is not simply requested as a favour, but is de- manded as a right, and is seldom refused. In a city of Brazil a prosperous physician died leaving practically no property. When his widow was asked why a man who received enormous fees for many years should leave no wealth, she replied, ' ' How could he ? He had forty people dependent upon him." The generosity of the Brazilian not only extends to his relatives, but THE ORIENTALISM OF BRAZIL 63 his great-heartedness and loving nature are revealed in the adoption of children who have been so unfortunate as to lose their parents. Even in the poorest families there are frequently one or more adopted children. We formed the acquaintance of a family who had ten children of their owai, and still had room in their heart and their house for the adoption of four in addition. As in the East, the houses are large and are filled with innumerable servants, and these servants partake of the character of their Eastern prototypes in their general inefficiency, and also in their willingness to perform the many small and menial acts of personal service which the Brazilian requires, but which would hardly be ex- pected of servants in the United States. Another Oriental characteristic, which, it might be re- marked in passing, is not confined on this continent to either the Brazilians or the Spanish Americans, but which is particularly noticeable among these Latin peo- ples, is the love of display. At times this approaches ostentation and the acceptance of veneer for reality. There is a tendency to put a good front on everything regardless of what may exist in the back-yard. Over- ornamented houses where the colours of the spectrum are exhausted in furnishing striking colour schemes ; the use of jewelry by both men and women to an extent that sur- prises even the Broadway habitue ; prodigal spending on celebrations, flower-decorations, the luxury of lights in the cities, superb office buildings of unique design where in the North, plain utilitarian sky-scrapers would be found; wonderful parks and plazas everywhere filled with horticulture and statues ; and a penchant for dress to be remarked among all classes. If it is true, as some one has said, that the sense of being well-dressed gives a feeling of tranquillity which religion is powerless to bestow, the Brazilians should possess a repose rivalling the Buddha at Kamakura. Surely they are among the 64 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY best-apparelled men and women to be found in any part of the world. It should be noted that in this regard they display a taste and a culture that is mindful of Paris, rather than anything east of Suez. In the matter of manners and etiquette, where the Bra- zilian also excels, one finds Oriental suggestions. Like the cultured Latin American generally, the Brazilian is uniformly polite and his observance of form and punc- tilio is hardly surpassed in a Japanese Imperial court. As to the Easterner, being courteously pleasant is a kind of ingrained trait. Social amenities like hat-lifting, handshaking, seeing guests to the street, gift-making and delightful speeches, calculated to give pleasure and sat- isfaction to the recipient, are almost a sacrament. Like the Oriental, the Latin American will rarely say an un- pleasant thing, if he can think of any remark that is agreeable. It has been stated that an Oriental will tell an agreeable falsehood rather than a disagreeable truth. At any rate he will please you if his intuition and imagi- nation do not fail him. While no one would accuse the Latin Americans of falsifying in order to be polite (as far as the Brazilians are concerned, I gained the impres- sion that their honesty both in business and social life is quite up to the level of such virtues found in other parts of the Western world), one finds a striking resem- blance between them and the men of the Orient in this attempt to discover what you would like to have them say before they speak. The indirect method of approach pleases them best. One of their writers has said: *'If the American seeks the shortest road to a given end, the Latin American looks for the prettiest." It becomes at once apparent why the North American with his naked directness and often bluntness of manner and speech fails to be frequently a ''simpatico" person in these Republics. A truer conception of the real difference in attitude regarding this matter of being polite, on the part of the THE ORIENTALISM OF BRAZIL 65 Anglo-Saxon and Latin respectively, would obviate many difficulties and embarrassments between North and South Americans. In the realm of deportment, the American can learn much from the Brazilian. There is still preva- lent in sections of the United States the idea that direct- ness of speech and action are invariably the accomplish- ments of high integrity and probity, while politeness and gentlemanhood are the shadows of insincerity. I have known men who seemed to take pride in their rudeness and the brutality of frankness. The desire to please or to appreciate the point of view of another does not seem to enter their consciousness; certainly these have no such place in their scheme of life as in Latin America. Agnes Repplier remarks : "In my youth I knew several old gentlemen who might on their death beds have laid their hands upon their hearts and have sworn that never in their whole lives had they permitted any statement, however insignificant, to pass uncontradicted in their presence. They were authoritative old gentlemen, kind husbands after their fashion and careful fathers ; but con- versation at their dinner table was not for human de- light." They were doubtless of that type, "pious and disagreeable," sad remnant of the old Saxon heritage expressed as to sentiment in the old English saying — * ' What is the good of a family if one cannot be disagree- able in the bosom of it?" "So rugged was he that we thought him jiist, So churlish was he that we deemed him true." St. Francis de Sales, himself a Latin, drew quite a dif- ferent line of ideal — "It is better to hold back a truth than to speak it ungraciously," he said. It is quite time that we in the colder and more practical North begin to realise our deficiencies in the matter of behaviour. It is quite time that we stop calling polite- 66 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY ness a "thing on the surface," not meaning thereby to be complimentary, for, as Whistler once answered this accu- sation, "on the surface is a very good place for polite- ness to be." As a matter of fact a man's outward atti- tude, expressed in his general deportment, constitutes usually his main chance to affect the sum total of the human existence with which he comes into contact. Cour- tesy, as we find it in Latin America and among Orientals, is not a hollow thing. It is a part of a real culture. There is a heart quality present. Henry James said, speaking of French attendance, "Your waiter utters a greeting, be- cause, after all, something human within him prompts him. His instinct bids him say something, and his taste recommends that it should be agreeable." He who resides among the people of the Southern Re- publics and is the recipient of their delicate and generous favour, which is rarely marred by any suspicion of boor- ishness and crudity of thought or action, is inclined to recall what one of our most honoured New England writ- ers once said — that he liked a self-made man, but that he liked even better for steady companionship a man whom an enlightened civilisation had helped in making. If William Wyckham had insight in giving to the great Eng- lish boy's school at Winchester the motto — "Manners maketh men," — the Brazilian, in common with Latin Americans generally, has a notable contribution to ren- der other parts of the Western continent, where there is less consciousness of the subtle potency of pleasing de- portment. Industrial initiative and interest in large constructive modern enterprise involving practical talents, are traits in which Brazilians are weak, together with Orientals, especially the inhabitants of India. The mental ten- dency of the Latin American, as a rule, is literary and political rather than scientific and practical. It is well known that the inhabitant of these lands dislikes figures THE ORIENTALISM OF BRAZIL 67 and statistics almost as much as does the East Indian. Even Government statistics are usually taken with cer- tain reservations by those who know the way in which they are prepared. Throughout South America one hears repeatedly in almost identical words, the lament confronting the trav- eller in virtually every section of the Near East, namely, that the people are keen, often enthusiastic, to begin un- dertakings, but are lacking in dogged perseverance in carrying them through to completion. It was said that among Coleridge's effects, at his death, there were in- numerable manuscripts begun but never finished. Among those of the Latin temperament which has more elements of similarity with the East than with the Teutonic and Saxon West, feelings hold a higher seat than cold logic, and there is wanting the steady power of will that endures opposition gladly and drives its way through difficulties. One finds less frequently than farther North that obstacle furnishes incentive to enlarged display of energy and de- termination. This may be because the Latin American in common with many of the people of the East does not live to work as truly as does the North American espe- cially, but rather looks upon labor as a necessity at times, a passage to be endured on the way to enjoyments more in keeping with the spirit and desires of a people to whom pleasures of thought and environment bulk larger than industrial efficiency or complicated scientific manage- ment. It is a matter of easily ascertained history that the larger enterprises involving material and administra- tive abilities on a huge scale, undertakings requiring prac- tical rather than theoretical talents, have been carried through in this part of the world largely by foreigners, — Germans, Englishmen, and Americans. A South American writer has spoken of the deficiencies of his countrymen in a manner more sweeping than would seem to accord with the facts of awakening industrial 68 THE BEAZILIANS AND THEIE COUNTEY enterprise among Brazilians at least, but which contains much of the true tendency — * ' The Latin American, a crea- ture of dreams and a victim of neglect, brings together all the conditions essential to a writer or a musician, and he lacks initiative. Somewhat of a dilettante, he is not well adapted to the period into which he is born." The Bra^iilian's use of language, also, has suggestions Oriental. He not only employs a large amount of lan- guage, but he is also quite as hesitant as the Chinese, for example, in coming to the point or in answering a direct question in a direct way. There is a deluge of talk with many gestures about the merest trifle. In rural districts of the country, notably, if one stops to ask a policeman a simple question concerning direction, he is likely to find himself involved in a lengthy conversation, pleasant enough but not necessarily relevant. I visited a lecture room a few years ago in the city of Cairo and was surprised by a student who held up his hand to at- tract the teacher's attention. Upon being asked what he wanted, the youth replied, ' ' Sir, I want to talk ! ' ' The traveller in the Latin Eepublics is often conscious that the native inhabitant is possessed with a similar desire. He wants to talk. He likes to talk quite as much as the loquacious Oriental. He is very good at talking too, and although from the point of view of the more reserved Teuton, he seems at times to overdo the business of speech, one must confess that the South American's con- versation is both fluent and graceful in diction. I have never travelled in countries where it was so true that most any one could get up and make a fine speech. The flow of words is charming, although when, later, one is separated from the magnetism of the vibrant gesticulat- ing speaker, he is sometimes at a loss to know what all the talk was about. The young son of one of my friends went to hear a famous preacher who talked steadily for one and one half THE ORIENTALISM OF BRAZIL 69 hours. On his return the father asked his son how he liked the sermon. *'Fine!" answered the son. ''But what did he talk about?" queried the father. At which the boy replied, perhaps truly, ''He didn't say!" To many foreigners the South Americans appear to use both in their common conversations and also in their books more words than are needed to express their meaning. There is such ready facility of speech and writing that one craves for the speakers and writers the virtues of limitation and restraint. It is Oriental to use eloquence and figures of speech, adorned with flowery expression, to convey ideas and sentiment ; it is also decidedly Latin American. Educationally, there are many parts of Brazil that re- mind one of the Orient by reason of the more ready use of the memory than of the reason. It is easy for the student of these lands to commit to memory, not so easy for him to think for himself independently. This is even more true in some other Southern Republics, — Bolivia and Peru, for example. Practical or applied learning is not naturally popular among these students. Literature, drawing, the arts and government studies on the other hand are easily grasped and much real excellence is ex- hibited. The Brazilian is apt in the mastery of languages other than his own, and in the cosmopolitanism which this linguistic ability affords him, he easily surpasses the American and the Englishman, who usually knows but one lang-uage. In India one finds to-day a large, very much too large, race of la^^^ers, made up of the educated men who enter this profession with the idea of using it as a stepping stone for political and government position. The case is not otherwise throughout South America, where law- yers are legion. There are many parents who send their sons to the universities and law schools to fit them for the bar, regardless of whether or not these youths intend 70 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY to enter permanently the profession of law. Here, as in many of the Oriental nations, law is the popular profes- sion. Some say this is because of the distaste of the peo- ple for business or commercial pursuits, law also leading to government offices affording a comparatively easy gen- tlemen's career; while others will tell you that it is be- cause the South American temperament, like that of the Easterner, carries one naturally to a profession wherein he excels, because of the fundamental bent of his mind. Probably both reasons are operative in South America as well as in India. As to the attitude toward time, the keeping of engage- ments, etc., the Oriental traits are repeatedly revealed in Brazil. In the first place the country to a large extent is located in the tropics ; and in tropical climates no one hurries except the newly arrived foreigner. But the free use of time in Brazil is something more than tropical; it is national. Mr. James Russell Lowell said: "The Neapolitan's laziness is that of a loafer ; the Roman's is that of a noble. The poor Anglo-Saxon must count his hours and look twice at his small change of quarters and minutes ; but the Roman spends from a purse of Fortunatus." The Bra- zilian's use of time is neither Neapolitan nor Anglo- Saxon ; it is rather like that of the Roman gentleman, who found time a vast commodity made particularly for the service and not the slavery of man. The Brazilian does not place small stress upon the keeping of engagements because he is indolent ; the matter of saving minutes does not seem to have occurred to him as particularly im- pressive. He has for the most part spent his life in an environment somewhat removed from the strident sounds and rushing feet of great industrial cities. He has been the inheritor of the spirit of the Portuguese and the Moor, and in his great tropical country there has always seemed to be ample time for the siesta and the indulgence THE ORIENTALISM OF BRAZIL 71 of friendship. One finds no suggestion in his manners that it has ever crossed his mind that the world was going to close to-morrow promptly at five o'clock. He is as much of a spendthrift of time as he is of money. He acts as though there were an unlimited supply of both commodities. To the foreigner, this tendency to delay, to be dila- tory in answering letters, to come late to engagements and in a hundred ways revealing a lofty indifference to time values as they are reckoned in the United States, at least, is sometimes a hardship difiicult to condone. Foreign educators will tell you that it is difficult to get either students or professors to hold rigidly to class hours. At times the pupils are more desirous to learn than the teachers are to teach. In one city I found the students of one of the institutions on strike, their griev- ance being that the professors, who were for the most part professional men carrying on an outside business of their own, not only did not arrive on time at their lectures, but in many cases forgot them entirely. As to dinner parties or social engagements, it is quite generally expected that people will be late, even later than in other countries outside of South America, quite as late as is the attendance in Oriental cities. In the case of a certain public official from the United States, who was scheduled to lecture in a West Coast city, invitations to the guests belonging to the country were issued for three o'clock, and those to foreign inhabitants for four o'clock. The arrangement proved to be a happy one and creditable to the penetrating discernment of the committee, since the guests all arrived at practically the same time, around four o'clock. This disregard of time is being overcome slowly in Brazilian cities, particularly in the realm of business en- gagements, because ot the stress of trade growing each year, and also no doubt by reason of the contact with 72 THE BEAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY foreign men of affairs who have brought from their home- lands habits of promptness and despatch relative to busi- ness matters. The love of music, artistry of all kinds, and things liter- ary, is general throughout Brazil. The strains of music caught from a doorway by the passer-by frequently re- mind one of the minor chords that thrill the Westerner so strangely among the inhabitants of North Africa, East India or in fact almost anywhere in the Orient. The romance and poetry-loving of the East are found on every side. There is Oriental colour and sentiment in the modern Portuguese literature of Brazil which one day will be discovered to contain the literary and mystic beauty which it certainly possesses. The atmosphere of this wonderful country beneath the Southern Cross forms a natural habitat for the traits that, while they are Latin are also of the East, in essence. That they are not prac- tically Anglo-Saxon, and that they do not breathe with the hard worked term *' efficiency" makes them no less contributary to the abiding values of the human race. As long as there is a place in the world for those talents of spiritual and literary and artistic excellence, as long as sentiment which had its rich original home in the East rules the hearts of men, so long will the dwellers of the earth, be they of the North or South, the East or the West, be glad that there are places here and there on this rolling planet where the goddess of Beauty and Music and Poetry still dares to lift her head and utter un- ashamed her messages to the finer side of humanity. He who in his Northern isolation of cold business ac- complishment takes it upon himself to rule out of useful- ness traits and talents that are as immortal as the soul of man itself, simply because these are not understood or cared for especially, is not simply lacking in cosmopolitan charity, but impoverished as to the deeper riches to which all the wide world should be in part contributor and THE ORIENTALISM OF BRAZIL 73 debtor. That some of the richest jewels of human ex- istence shine in settings that are strange to us, makes them, for that reason, no less real. As the American and the Englishman turn more and more to the charm and dignity of the tranquil, thoughtful East, to get a breath of its priceless antiquity before mo- dernity levels it to a mediocre present day utiUty, like- wise are they beginning to find in such countries as Bra- zil an Orientalism closer at home, and its fascination is no less strong in that it furnishes an inevitable and re- quired complement for the values that are distinctively Anglo-Saxon. VI REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT The conducting of Government by the will of the majority is the most complicated of all human undertakings. Viscount James Brtce. An old riddle asks, ''Wliat is the most wonderful thing the Creator of the world ever made!" The answer ran, "The human face, since there are so many of them and no two of them are alike." A similar definition might be given of Eepublics ; there are Republics and Republics, and no two of them are alike. In the nature of the case they couldn't be alike, for the nature of the material and the traditions with which they begin are never the same. The United States is probably the only form of republican government extant that be- gan on the ground floor, so to speak. It was neither a revamped monarchy nor an oligarchy reduced to demo- cratic terms. It had no papal or clerical party claiming at least half the authority with the state as did certain European and South American nations. No high walls of aristocracy or bureaucracy were present to be scaled or thrown down. The general character and drift of the principles of equality, freedom and individual rights were already at hand in the minds and hearts of the people when the Declaration of Independence came. Liberty- loving principles were the only principles this Northern Republic knew or wanted to know. The American Con- stitution was simply the expression of the principles which had actuated the early colonists and which their descendants had accepted as naturally and inevitably as 74 EEPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT 75 children accept the governing rules of their parents' home. Democracy was the environing atmosphere. It was not superimposed on something else that previously existed. There were few refractory elements to block its progress ; as compared with certain other democracies which have come since, the United States might be said to have moved out upon its republican destiny as un- trammelled and free from a clogging past experience as a school boy coming out of his sequestered halls, con- scious of no past, only sure that the present and the future lay enticingly ready before him. It is only with such thoughts near at hand that the American can apprehend in any correct manner by way of contrast at least the nature and the achievement of the South American Republics, which are of comparatively recent growth, and which have had to fight their way through seas of inheritances, whose waves of old world despotism and feudal oligarchy have rolled often moun- tain high against their frail newly made and untried barques. That they have survived utter shipwreck is the chief wonder with which the student of their history is filled, as he ponders the massive obstacles that have strewn their path. To say that many of these Latin Republics have not yet attained to the right of being called Republics at all is perhaps natural and easy judging them from standards of democratic polities worked out with much labor during many centuries. To say that they mistake written con- stitutions for accomplished facts, and aspirations for achievements, and theories for practice may also be true in certain instances and from the same sage point of view of foreign and superficial observation. The satire that has been poured out on these South American nations in their struggle for liberty and stable government, the pic- turing of them as revolutionists in perpetuity, as savages and painted Indians living in jungles, or subsisting on the 76 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY favour of foreigners, or missionaries, is as ridiculous as it is untrue. The world in general is now quite ''fed up" with all this unrelated hearsay. It is beginning to learn in the words of the countryman that "many of those lies ain't true." What Chili and Argentina and Brazil and Uruguay, especially, have already swiftly accomplished, as the years of nations go, is but an earnest and harbinger of even greater things eye hath not seen nor ear heard in the other South American nations, even now on the threshold of visualisation. One needs but to watch the discerning eyes of the trade experts to guess something of the next century in Latin America. That trade and wealth and an ever increasing owning civilisation will assure there the stability of republican institutions is but a correlation of all the national history that men know. To speak then of Brazilian government or politics is to narrate concerning a national government in transition, still carrying along as inevitable baggage the heritage of feudal oligarchy, the remnants of slavery existing less than thirty years away, together with imperial traditions whose shadows still hover above the heads of living Bra- zilians, traditions as proud and courtly as was the gran- deur of mediaeval Portugal whose king ruled his subjects from a Brazilian throne. Brazil's republican history began properly on the 15th of November, 1889. She had during the first five years two military men as heads of her provisional govern- ment. Marshal da Fonseca and Marshal Floriano Peixoto. This period was marked by the formation of the new Constitution in February, 1891, modelled after the Consti- tution of the United States. During her twenty-eight years of existence as a Republic, Brazil has built her. political structure upon and about this instrument; cer- tain amendments have been made to adjust this govern- ment compass more truly to national requirements, but as a rule the theory as the mode of the Brazilian republi- EEPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT 77 can regime follows closely that of the Northern Re- public. That the constitutional authority has been nomi- nal and partial at times is due not to a difference in ideals so much as to the widely scattered inhabitants which have militated against the formation of a strong and united public opinion, and also to the great diversity of the popu- lation in race and intelligence. One of the most severe trials of this early republican period came in 1892 when the revolution of the southern state Rio Grande do Sul broke out and before its con- clusion at the end of nearly three years involved both the navj and the army. Monarchical influences were not ab- sent and at one time when the bombardment of Rio de Janeiro w^as commenced, serious consequences were pre- vented only through the intervention of the foreign war vessels lying at that time in the port. In the year 1894, the first civil president, Dr. Prudente de Moraes, began his administration, ended the civil war, and commenced the work of rebuilding the new Brazil which has been continued by five successive presidents to the present time. While there have been at times a breaking ont of the elements of unrest, temperamental in an emotional people and inherited from centuries of fighting men, the Govern- ment has proved itself equal to the occasion, and it may be truly said that to-day Brazil furnishes a theatre for the peaceful pursuit of industry and human happiness comparable with that of modem states in other parts of the world. In spite of the fact that politics tend to re- volve about personalities rather than principles, as is nat- ural especially in those parts of the country where back- ward and illiterate races have not yet risen to the stature of competent and responsible citizenship, the spirit of democracy is generally pervasive and there is a strong national loyalty and patriotic pride. Many important events and accomplishments have been 78 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY packed into the first three decades of Brazilian repre- sentative government. The boundary question, the hete noire of South Ameri- can RepubHcs in their early free government history, has been settled between Argentina and Brazil, thanks to the arbitration offices of the United States. By the Treaty of Berne, the territorial limits between French Guiana and Brazil were established. A formidable and threat- ening financial crisis, from 1898 to 1902, was safely passed, though not before specie payments were sus- pended and paper money withdrawn. The unique and al- together notable showing of Brazil at the St. Louis Ex- position in 1904, in her beautiful white Monroe Palace which was copied at the Capital City of Rio de Janeiro, heralded the country's resources and delicate dignity in the northern part of the American continent. The Third Pan-American Congress held in this building was attended by 80 representatives of 20 nations, aiding in demonstrating the universal inclinations to peace exist- ing in the southern Republic, and also in revealing the deep lying desire of the Brazilians to prove by their hos- pitable modern spirit their worthiness to contribute their share to international welfare. The recent annals of Brazilian history show conclu- sively that a republican form of government has been capable of bringing in both constructive legislation and economic and material reform after a fashion unknown in the previous centuries of the nation's life. The Federal Capital has been transformed in this awakening indus- trial era from a fever-infested, rambling mediaeval town into one of the most magnificent cities of the world. Col- onisation on a sensible basis has been begun and nearly every country of the Old World has begun to send its people to this vast and still undiscovered and unexplored continent of opportunity. A steady upbuilding of fed- eral and municipal enterprises has occurred, and steam- EEPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT 79 ship lines and railroads, light and power plants and dock- works, manufactures, schools, libraries and charitable institutions have come, with a gradual but certain ten- dency on the part of Government and inhabitants to turn their effort into practical channels, rather than spend it upon fruitless political discussion and personal rivalries. No one can study the developments in telegraph, tele- phone and postal service, in the building of an army and navy, in the growth of a free and intelligent press, in the commercial contacts with Europe and the United States and the growth of the ability of keen political minds to grasp the higher principles of public interest, without according to Brazil her full measure of praise for deeds that more than compensate for her mistakes in this her new game of nation-building on democratic foun- dations. To be sure the country has been heavily in- debted to foreign capital and foreign energy and busi- ness experience in this period of construction, as has been every one of the South American countries. Still Brazil has been furnishing in government as well as in trade a respectable share of able men and leaders. As one of her oldest statesmen recently declared, "Ideas in politics and business have no value apart from the men who can give them life." If Cervantes was right in saying that a man is the child of his own works, it is also right to keep ever in mind that a nation never rises above the ideals and acts of its greatest men. In ' ' splendid names ' ' modern Republican Brazil is not poor. The famous Baron Rio Branco, by his political acumen as by his great humanity, stands out among the prime ministers of modern times. Dr. Rny Barbosa, by his scholarship, his eloquence and his public service to Brazil, is to the Southern Republic what Webster was to our own early history. Dr. Jose Carlos Rodrigues is the Charles Dana of Brazil, the founder and for almost a generation the publisher of one of the highest grade 80 THE BEAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY newspapers in the Western Hemispliere. The political service of his Jornal do Comercio has been and is in- valuable. Judge Amaro Cavalcanti, the present mayor of Rio de Janeiro, has had for many years a leading part in the making of government, and his position as advisor and a foremost citizen is remindful of the dis- tinguished place Joseph Choate occupied for so long in the United States. During his recent visit to the United States, Dr. Lauro Miiller, who has held with distinction the office of Minister of Foreign Affairs in Brazil, im- pressed the American people with his ability and wide interests, receiving a degree from Harvard University; although his German-Brazilian parentage has deprived him of office at present, his service to Brazil in many public Government positions gives him a high place among Brazilian statesmen. The list of notable names in connection with Republican Brazil would include Benja- min Constant, whose positivist movement helped shape the initial days of the Republic, the celebrated veteran Paulista statesman, Dr. Rodrigues Alves, former Presi- dent of the Republic and President of the flourishing State of Sao Paulo, together with scores of other names of public men who have served the modern State with unquestioned distinction and loyalty. To present the weak side of Brazilian politics is not so difficult a matter for one who has lived for any length of time in the big Republic, since the Brazilians themselves, like their neighbours of the North, are continually telling you of the deficiencies of government, while both the rostrum and the press ring with true democratic frank- ness as to things that should be accomplished and the things that should be left undone. If there is anything that the Brazilian does not dare to say pro or con relative to his lawmakers and politicians, we have failed to note it. If one is inclined to believe that autocracy or any form of old world diplomatic secrecy exists in present REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT 81 day Brazil, he should get some kind friend to translate almost any edition of one of the Federal Capital's daily newspapers, or better still be present in one of the Bra- zilian cities when the democratic emotion of the Latin American populace rises in its might to assert its in- alienable rights. But when any American, French or English democrat assumes to throw stones at another attempt at democracy, he is bound to have in mind the shortcomings of his own nation as regarding government, and recall, as Clemen- ceau wisely remarks, that ''nowhere are institutions worked according to rule." It remains for the observer to respectfully point out the conditions as he sees them from a necessarily somewhat external point of view, trusting that any mistakes of vision or analysis which he may make will be alike conducive to thought and dis- cussion, along with his more correct interpretations. In other words the writer of nations other than his own must be always praying the well-worn prayer of the western cowboy — ''Don't shoot the organist; he is doing his best!" It will be recalled by some of the older inhabitants of the United States, that when the dignified and scholarly Dom Pedro visited our Republic, it was said that Brazil was not only the best governed, but was also the only orderly political entity in South America. When the aged Emperor left Brazil in the year 1889, and the pro- visional government, then instituted, marked the first step in the new republican regime, the leaders following the example of other Spanish American states, took as their chart for the ship of state the North American Constitu- tion almost exactly as it lay beneath the hands of our early signers at Philadelphia. An American student of political affairs has said that the difference between the Brazilians and us in the United States seems to be that "we have clarified our Constitu- 82 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY tion by a five years' Civil War and certain Amendments, and that the Brazilians have not." We find at present that the Brazilian politicians are busy revising their Con- stitution and introducing a new Civil Code, intended especially to eliminate abuses and difficulties which have gradually grown up in the realm of ' * State Rights. ' ' The Brazilian states are now virtually nations with elected authorities and autonomous administrations. Their financial policies are directed by their own Presi- dents and ministers, under the control of Parliament. These states possess their own systems of justice, public education, control foreign loans and syndicates, and in some cases maintain under the guise of police forces, virtual armies. In Sao Paulo for instance one is amazed at the vast numbers of policemen to be seen everywhere — often two or three for a residence block in a city. A somewhat delicate situation involving both politics and economics exists in the matter of export duties which are fixed by the states and vary considerably. The profits from these export revenues are collected by each state for its own needs, while the Federal Government collects all import duties. There is a tendency on the part of the states to tax capriciously new industries that show signs of becoming profitable, and the whole system makes for a decided lack of uniformity in export duties. The pro- posed revision of the Constitution would modify these conditions, if such men as Bulhoes and Cincinnato Braga are successful in carrying out their ideas. In a country where unproductive wealth is not taxed, save as these export duties on agricultural products may be considered as such a tax, every state budget is largely dependent for its revenue upon its taxes levied on its ex- ports. There is not only a double line of custom-houses in Brazil — one facing outwards and one inwards — ^but there are two species of contraband, that against the Government by the smuggling in of foreign merchandise REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT 83 and another against the states, which are defrauded by the smuggling of state products out of the countrj\ As Brazil has no land frontiers across which products are sent in any appreciable amount, the port supervision is easy and with the exception of occasional smuggling across the frontiers of Uruguay and Argentina, the leak- age from this cause in exports is less than it might be otherwise. The Federal Government, or what is known in Brazil as ''The Union," has control of the federal army and navy, all monetary questions, and fixes and applies the customs duties on the imports of foreign merchandise. The Fed- eral Government also manages the Postal service. The Revolution which, without bloodshed, brought in the Re- public, was followed by decentralisation of authority and until recently the various states have been far too inde- pendent and individual in their policies to make for the best national administration. With the acquirement from Bolivia of the Territory of Acre, one of the chief rubber-producing regions, the Union has been increasing its dignity and authority, for these revenues from the Acre not only paid off the indemnity promised to Bolivia in three years, but now make a notable addition to the Union budget. The visitor to Brazil notices many indica- tions of new loyalty to the Union. The army is especially popular in these days. Many new companies of volun- teers are being formed from young men in the various business houses. I witnessed a numerous display of these new recruits on the celebration of Brazil's Day of Inde- pendence. The fine boulevard of the Beira de Mar was packed with Brazilians cheering the volunteers and listening to the "Flag" speeches. The idea of a Republic, which is a far less tangible thing for the average Brazilian to grasp than was the person of a Monarch, is gradually taking shape in the national consciousness, and one must expect 84 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY during the next decade a considerable growth of federal sentiment, as the constitutional revisions modify the conflict of laws which have existed between the federal statutes and the various state codes. The drift at present is toward "federalising" things in Brazil. An indication of the need of this reform is suggested in a word of a prominent official of Rio : * ' It is curious to note that the Federal Government at each election falls into the hands of a President and a group of his friends who invariably represent one state in the Union, rather than a party with a platform. To-day we are governed by Mineiros (Minas Geraes men). Before that it was Paulistas (Sao Paulo men), and so on. Under the Empire it was a government of Cabinets which fluctuated and changed, while the Sovereign remained fixed. ' ' There are three crying needs which await the interven- tion or the supervision of the Union in Brazil: the ex- tension through the states of a system of compulsory education which many of the states cannot afford to in- augurate ; the peopling of the land through a statesman- like policy of national colonisation ; and the building of roads in the widely separated rural districts. There are some difficulties connected with the dividing of state lands among immigrants as the domains of the Imperial Government were divided among the states; the states having neglected to take up this important matter, a new law proposed to the central Government not long ago gives the Union a chance to put in a nation-wide system of colonisation. If the national conscience grows with the prosperity of the country of almost exhaustless resources, these re- quirements will soon begin to be satisfied, and the result will be a new Brazil. Another phase of Republican politics in Brazil more important at the opening of the Republic than at present,i but still a force, is connected with the philosophy of Au- EEPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT 85 guste Comte, the Positivist Movement. In tlie middle of the nineteenth century a Brazilian generation, similar in many of its aspects to that of France in the latter eighteenth century, revived the literature of the earlier period and read with avidity the encyclopedists and the philosophers who were so largely responsible for the tragedies of Paris in 1793. The doctrine of Comte seemed to the Brazilians to be the remedy for the evils that were brewing in the Latin American land. This philosophy which took strong hold upon the mid- dle classes, and through the influences largely of Benja- min Constant spread in military circles, was actuated by a high ideal for democracy and especially fought slavery which was at the time bringing in complications with England. I visited the Positivist church in Rio de Ja- neiro, one of the two or three churches of this cult in the world to-day, and had a long conversation with the leader of the society. Dr. Texeira Mendes, who for thirty- five years has preached Positivism in this edifice. The church was draped in mourning and I learned that this had been the case since the breaking out of the European war. Across the heavily draped doorway were written the words ''Order and Progress" — the motto given by the Positivist to the new Republic when they designed the Brazilian flag and placed their emblem upon it. In the basement of the church I was shown the original design of the national ensign, made by a member of this order. Although this church of "The Religion of Humanity" has at present only about eighty members, Dr. Mendes informed me that there were in Brazil several thou- sand people who were more or less associated in sym- pathy at least with this philosophy. Its main tenets re- late to civic and social righteousness, and its high and chivalrous attitude to woman, whose thorough and cul- tured training these people consider as essential to the 86 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY future development of the human race, has undoubtedly influenced thought and political progress to a greater de- gree than is usually realised, even by Brazilians. At present the faith seems to have a diminishing hold upon the people at large, and its lack of what many would call a vital religious principle makes its growth difficult with deeply religious natures. Although Brazilians, like other South Americans, have a decided liking for politics, this Republic differs from many of the Spanish American states in not having strictly any well defined and permanent political parties. In the time of the Empire there were the two old parties — Liberal and Conservative — but these disappeared di- rectly after the Revolution. There are many political adversaries and there are semblances of parties rising about strong personalities at election times. Such was the case during a recent election when Dr. Ruy Barbosa, the popular orator and Brazilian writer, had a large following. But such groups of men lack traditions and they seldom possess political doctrines or platforms of constructive principles, and the adherents soon disintegrate after the interest in election has subsided. These transient parties usually get a cer- tain popular following by exploiting the unpopularity of some particular measure held up by their opponents, or the representatives in power. All male citizens above the age of 21 years are en- titled to vote, but the high percentage of illiteracy, said to be beyond 70 per cent, of the total population, reduces the electorate while the partisan character of the officials in power and their hold on the offices by reason of po- litical favours granted, make elections more or less a farce as far as the votes of the people are concerned. There is a widespread indifference on the part of the people at large relative to voting, the negroes having little interest through their ignorance or peurility, and REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT 87 the immigrants often because of their uncertain resi- dence in the country. The old Brazilian families who live apart and are usually among the influential ruling classes, do not look with much favour on the formation of new political parties faithful to a set of principles. All sorts of stories go the rounds regarding the mis- carriage of the suffrage. It was not so long ago that one of the ''ward-heelers," as we would have styled him in the palmy Tammany days, actually ran off with the ballot box in a certain Brazilian city, when there ensued a merry chase by police, small boys and populace in the neighboiirhood, which ended in the ballots being strewn along the street and a justified contest of the vote on the part of the defeated candidate. In another instance we were told by a Brazilian that when he went to deposit his ballot, the polls were locked though it was in the midst of the regular voting hours, while a merchant in an inland town informed me with no show of humour that he was afraid to vote, since it furnished almost a certain fight, and as he was not a strong man physically he did not feel he was called upon to thus endanger his person. All of which recalls to the older American, scenes and *'unscenes," as the old darkey expressed it, in our own Republic when election day was something like a ''Rum- Romanism-and-Rebellion" carnival with marked bal- lots and votes to the highest bidder. That such events are becoming more and more rare in Brazil, as they have largely disappeared in the United States, swept away by the growing public sentiment that the ballot is the free-man's most sovereign privilege and responsibility, the leading Brazilians hope and believe. The glare of publicity and a rapidly advancing modernity are affecting the old easy political order as they are changing aU old customs here. As the Brazilian gaucho sings. 88 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY "The bagpipe has killed the old guitar And the match has killed the tinder box. The bombaeha has killed the xcriba And the fashions of the cities have killed the old-fashioned talk." Brazil has taken the step with several of the more progressive of the Latin American Republics of separat- ing from politics all religious and social problems, though in northern parts of the nation there are some rather complicated racial antagonisms connected with political matters. The Constitution contains an article providing for the settlement of international disputes by arbitra- tion, and the trend of the political sentiment is usually toward peace, despite the fact that close watch is kept upon the political and military movements both of the Spanish American neighbours and of the United States. The Brazilian lawyers with their natural aptitude for legal matters have worked out important measures which could well receive the attention of other republics. One example is the legislation requiring all business record books to be registered, becoming official documents with every page initialed and greatly expediting justice in case of suits. An important influence in political Brazil resides in the old families who live somewhat isolatedly and because of their wealth and social station become significant factors in things of State. They correspond somewhat to the old aristocratic families of our South thirty or forty years ago, when the men of education and caste went into politics as a body, and had not learned the advantage of the later industrial life which has since revolutionised the southern part of the United States. This type of man in Brazil, be he planter, big absentee land-holder or wealthy politician, partakes of the characteristics of the old feudal baron, and is usually against the government that politically opposes land and cattle interests. There are indications that this constituency is beginning to feel EEPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT 89 tlie new tide of utterly free and equal democracy grow- ing in the country which is travelling ever toward the French Cambon's slogan, '*War to the manor-house, and peace to the hut." The main cleavage in political principles seems to be, at present, between those who would increase consider- ably the central federal authority of the country, and those who hold rigidly to the motto in the spirit of which the nation was founded — ''The States Independent." In the minds of the most thoughtful Brazilian statesmen, the conviction is evident that the administration of the countr}^ should be more truly centralised. The size of the Republic, as well as the methods, often unscrupulous, of political control exhibited by the officials of certain states, calls for a firm central authority in the interests of national unity as well as of national integrity. That the Constitution is being slowly but surely adapted to the diverse population, that it is being made to ''march," must be the conclusion of those who study Brazilian statecraft. The day of perfect government is still a distant dream in Brazil, as it seems to be in other parts of our war-wracked world. The nation which builds its republicanism upon the basis and traditions of the only empire the Western world has ever known, possesses problems unique, and some of them more intricate of solution than exist in any other South American repub- lic. There will be many a crisis in the adjustment of labour and legislation, many a threatening misunder- standing between the states of this far-flung common- wealth ; the experiences of France and the United States wiU be undergone, with adaptations to a mixed popula- tion in whose nostrils is the breath of both East and West, and above whom wave the tropic palms. But there is no other word for Brazil but democracy. It is deeply lodged already in the hearts of the people. It will come increasingly potent with time, and will en- 90 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY dure beneath the shadow of the Brazilian eagles as long as time endures. In the prophetic words of Carlyle, spoken over the republican beginnings of France: "A constitution, as we often say, will march when it images, if not the old habits and beliefs of the constituted, then accurately their rights, or better indeed their mights ; for these two, well understood, are they not one and the same? The old habits of France are gone: her new rights and mights are not yet ascertained, except in paper theorem ; nor can be in any sort, till she have tried. Till she have measured herself, in fell death grip, and were it in utmost preternatural spasm of madness, with principalities and powers, with the upper and the under, internal and external ; with the earth and Tophet and the very Heaven ! Then will she know." VII A LEVIATHAN COUNTRY A new world : a new fourth part of the globe. Americus Vespucius, of the Southern Hemisphere. Racial traditions and temperamental inheritances are powerful forces in the moulding of any peoples ; not less potent are its geographical location, its size and the ex- tent of its natural resources, in the final determination of a nation's character and career. Brazil from many- points of view is a leviathan country, and her very size demands a peculiar destiny. Her sheer bigness is first of all impressive. Only four other countries are greater in territory: Eussia, Great Britain with her colonies, China, and the United States if Alaska is included. Its 3,292,000 square miles of extent include a coast line more than 5,000 miles in length, the largest river in the world, the Amazon, which has a length of 3,850 miles, 100 of its 200 branches being navigable; and its colossal sweep of lands extending through all the variety of temperate and tropical zones, roll from valley and tableland up to green mountain summits that lift their loftiest heads 10,000 feet above the level of the sea. It was evidently due to a limited knowledge of geog- raphy, or ^'an historical accident," that the sturdy Portu- guese discoverers received by the division of western lands in the Bull of Pope Alexander VI, 1493, and a treaty with Spain the following year, more than half of South America, but this fact has already had momentous 91 92 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY result upon the shaping of Brazilian life and institutions. Its full harvest of influence lies still in the future when the present unrealised wealth of this gigantic section of the earth 's surface shall have been completely discovered, converted into territory fit for human habitation, and sub- jected to industrial and agricultural expansion. It is because of her range of national physical possi- bility that this Southern Republic is destined to become great with a greatness that only the richness of land and water extent can give. It is a country that possesses several hundred thousand square miles of unoccupied territory, much of it utterly unexplored, thousands of square leagues of forests which have never yet resounded to the feet of civilised man, regions as extensive as half of Europe in which the deposits of iron, manganese, and minerals of almost every description await the approach of a world's need. It is a country whose own inhabitants hardly realise its alleged fastnesses of Amazon jungle and tangled everglades, still the fiction of unexplored dreams. Those who have dared to push their way to the edges of this vast unknown have found in many places a rich savannah country, with rolling hills and woods, a fertile soil, and the future grazing land par excellence of all the world. Such a country, with such unmeasured sources of material aggrandisement, cannot, if it would, retire from national greatness. There are two distinctive features of Brazil's terri- torial massiveness that differentiate her from any other vast world domain. In all her sweep of lands north to south, covering 29 degrees of latitude, as well as in her wide east and west stretches over 39 degrees of longi- tude, the country has no deserts, but on the other hand contains by far the largest section of fertile and unused land and river space to be found anywhere on the globe. I have talked considerably with Mr. George H. Cherrie, who has spent twenty-eight years in South and Central A LEVIATHAN COUNTRY 93 America pursuing his nature studies, touring several times in various directions through northwestern Brazil, crossing the Amazon region from Peru, from the Orinoco, and approaching it from the south with the Roosevelt Expedition. It is impressive in behalf of this Republic's future to hear him say that he found almost interminable reaches of country lying back from the Amazon, thinly wooded with gently rolling hills, capable under cultiva- tion, which he witnessed, of raising three crops of corn yearly, and destined in his opinion to be one day the arena of the greatest cattle ranges known to man. Shall Brazilians who have already learned how to elim- inate a large proportion of tropical diseases from their first settled coastal lands, and who are pushing inward year by year their frontiers, in the generations ahead be found dw^elling serenely on the banks of a greater Nile, the conquerors of the Amazonian selvas, carving their fortunes out of the rich soil of vegetable and river deposits now awaiting seemingly only scientific energy and the wand of the financier? That this vision, which may seem a dream of fancy now, will become reality through the aid of daring foreign pioneers, is no more improbable than was the scaling of the Andes by rail- ways, and the conversion of yellow fever districts into flourishing industrial cities, fifty years ago. The world is yet too young, and the fire of adventure and the Pizarro spirit in the heart of man is still burning too fiercely to allow such rich guerdon of eifort to lie un- productive for many more generations. Northward and westward the course of material empire is taking its way in the great leviathan land. Already the cattle, min- ing, railway and timber colonisers and prospectors are edging upwards through Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Cath- arina, Parana, and Sao Paulo, spreading their webs of enterprise over the vast interior states of Matto Grosso and Goyaz which contain an area of over two 94 THE BEAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY million square kilometres, one fourth of all Brazil ; when they reach one day the almost immeasurable Amazonas, the giant of all Brazilian states, they will meet there the rubber and sugar pioneers coming westward by river and by railway from Para. Great inland cities will mark the passage of the Amazonian forest; a Brazilian Chicago perhaps in the virgin heart of South America, or a new and vaster Rio de Janeiro, sitting in her queenly strength half way between the southern oceans, whose scepter of unequalled position and pre-eminence will be over all of the Brazils. It is not without significance that the Fed- eral Constitution of the twenty autonomous United States of Brazil ordains that the future capital of the Republic shall be built in the interior central districts. Nor is it alone in the luxury of her prodigious land and water areas, which this country of distances holds in reserve for herself and all the world, that she finds herself secure. Brazil is happy in a diversity of climate, that makes possible in turn a diversity of product, equal if not surpassing that to be found in any other land. No kind of cultivation ranging between the temperate and torrid zones is alien to her possibility. I know that it is common enough for persons in Europe, as in North America, to think and to speak casually of Brazil as a land of red-hot tropics, naked Indians and steaming jungles. And it is needless to deny that the Northerner, who may, by chance, land in equatorial Brazil even in winter (which in this land is the reverse of our northern summer), sympathises often with Mark Twain's definition of winter in India. He said, as it will be remembered, that winter in East India was merely a relative term used to denote the difference be- tween weather that would melt a brass door-knob and weatlier that would make it only mushy. There are times when the traveller, be he in Singapore or Java or the Amazon country, in fact anywhere around the equator, A LEVIATHAN COUNTRY 95 save in the Ecuadorian or Peruvian Andes, is inclined to the belief that he is about to be dissolved into his primal elements and stream away. The writer has not been the first Northerner who, beneath the grilling heat of a Brazilian summer, has felt that no poetry fitted more perfectly his feelings than the Kiplingesque stanzas — "Where the longitude's mean, and the latitude's low, Where the hot winds of summer perennially blow, Where the mercui-y chokes the thermometer's throat And the dust is as thick as the hair on a goat; Where one's mouth is as dry as a mummy accurst — There lieth the Land of Perpetual Thirst." Notwithstanding all that may be said about Brazil's tropics, it is to be noted that a greater part of the Re- public occupies elevated plateaus, and contains the great- est hydrographic system in the world. The mean tem- perature for Rio de Janeiro has been about 70 degrees Fahrenheit for the last forty years, and sunstrokes are virtually unknown in any part of the wide domain. At the same time one should remember that you can- not grow bananas and rubber on an icefield, and that many of the products which have come to be world neces- sities, as well as some of the most delicious sensations of eye and ear and brain, are experienced in the tierra caliente, the land of exuberant fertility, where, as Pres- cott says with exquisite delicacy, "fruits and flowers chase one another in unbroken cycle through the year; where the gales are loaded with perfumes till the senses ache at their sweetness: and the groves are filled with many-coloured birds and insects whose enamelled wings glisten like diamonds in the bright sun of the tropics." It may also be intimated in passing that out of the tropics, out of the places of siesta and silence and sun- shine, have come many of the idealists, poets, mystics and religionists, whom the world holds dear, and that Brazil, 96 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY like India, has been called a land of ideas rather than one of industry — only of late seeming to realise in com- mon with her Oriental sister in the zone of the ''After- noon life" that to be practical and enterprising, as well as thoughtful and romantic, is also the privilege of her climatic diversity. The variety of her productivity is amazing. In the entire Amazon valley the land furnishes, not rubber only, but also ivory, nuts, woods, tobacco, hides, cacao (a boom crop), while there are signs at present of an enormous advance in cotton, promising to be as important to the north as the cattle boom is becoming to the south of Brazil. Many of the tropical fruits of this Amazon re- gion go to Argentina, as do the yerba mate, and much of the pine woods of the state of Parana. In the central portions, there is found also some rub- ber, some cacao, and coffee, but the section is particularly notable for its deposits of gold, diamonds, manganese (the latter being one of the swamping exports), sugar, fibres, hard woods, and a large trade in hides. Really, only ''the wash on the surface," as the experts say, has been made in the great diamond fields of Minas Geraes and Bahia, though one large concern is now doing some careful prospecting work. Regarding petroleum in this central region, one is met with the remark, "The pros- pectors do not tell all they know." There are no iron and manganese deposits like those in Brazil to be found anywhere on earth, save possibly in the Ural Mountains, from which export has been delayed, as it is said for the sake of valorisation. The south of the country is at present the New West, the fusing ground of colonists, and the home of agricul- ture, lumbering, fruit raising, coffee growing, and enter- ing at present one of the greatest boom periods the coun- try has ever known in the cattle business. In journeys that took me for many thousands of miles through this A LEVIATHAN COUNTRY 97 sonthem hemisphere of Brazil, my astonishment at the wealth of natural resources and the possibility of the country for virtually every kind of agriculture and enter- prise known to-day to our own great West, led me to ask the question again and again, "What has caused the delay in taking advantage of the thousands of rolling acres of practical development?" The answers were various, — the distance and isolation and the lack of proper roads and steamship lines; the Brazilian's desire to preserve his national material birthright and his nat- ural suspicion of the too large entrance of foreigners; and the answer perhaps most common, the need of capital and energetic leadership. It may aid one's conception of the vastness of the fu- ture for this southern and temperate section of Brazil to realise that the four states of the Brazilian southland, together with the lower end of Matto Grosso, included within the temperate latitudes and having climate not un- like that of California, contain an area greater than one- third of the entire United States of North America, or more land capable of cultivation than is included in the combined areas of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Ari- zona, and New Mexico. It is also almost staggering to think of the great State of Amazonas and its 732,000 square miles of territory, more than the sixth part of Europe, and embracing more land and water than one- third of the United States, treated to the effort and enter- prise that has been spent on the valley of the Mississippi. The cry of Brazil for many years to come must be ''Give us men to match our country!" If the popula- tion of Brazil were as dense as that of Belgium at the beginning of the European war, its territory would con- tain more human beings than exist at present on the entire face of the earth. It is estimated that the coun- 98 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY try's 24,000,000 could be, with justice to the resources, increased at least eightfold. *'We need men — labour, labour, labour, — that is the cry of all these sparsely populated South Americas," writes one of the best informed foreign residents whom I met in Brazil. "Immigration should be encouraged," he continues, "but this can only be done if you find a class of immigrants who will not assume the strut of con- querors; and to make them come you must give them roads — good roads — not foreign concession railroads, but cheap and good highroad and waterway, so that every little farmer may learn that a crop is worth growing, because he can carry it somewhere and sell it. The lack of roads here is the crying evil. Make your small man prosperous and he will gain self-respect; then he will demand for his children the public school education which he himself has lacked. Functionarism, the great curse of administration here as in other countries of Latin Amer- ica, would be largely done away if you encouraged tlirift and self-respect with the governed. I till my field and want to sell my crops unhindered, and I want my son not to be a pensioner on the State, but to inherit my field, and by thrift to increase it. If this were the pre- vailing spirit the horde of functionaries would fall away. The easy and free intercommunication between the in- terior and the coast, and between the several states, seems to be the remedy for much of the evil." The concluding observations which this astute student of affairs. South American as well as Brazilian, are so relevant both to the matter of utilising on the part of Brazil her leviathan country and also as to the part the United States might take in this great adventure, that I beg leave to quote his frankly expressed conviction: "I have often thought," he says, "that the saving of these countries of South and Central America lies in the hands of the people of the United States, if we but A LEVIATHAN COUNTRY 99 knew it, and realised the moral responsibility, as well as the political convenience. ''Had one-half the capital that has flowed into the United States from Europe in the munitions business since the war began been invested in Latin American port-works, railroads, highroad building, and general public utilities, we should not only have made a good financial investment for the future, but also have sealed the political compact of Pan-Americanism far better than by invoking 'Monroe Doctrines.' "It may not yet be too late. But to accomplish this, some strong current of public opinion should be created in the United States. It will not be enough to present the investment itself as a financial possibility — our coun- try should be made aware that if we do not help these people, somebody else will. Who that somebody else may be is problematical — very probably it will be that European nation, or coalition of nations, which dislikes us most." The above statement of my South American friend is as timely as it is true and prophetic, and in no Republic of them all is the opportunity more enticing to foreign interest than here in this virgin continent of Brazil, standing now on the broad frontiers of her vast estate. VIII EDUCATION The Sejiools are the most unmistakable thermometer of any social structure. Clemenceau. Among the first impressions of the traveller in Brazil, especially if he be an American accustomed to compul- sory education for his youth, is the presence of young children on the street and about the homes during school hours. Although one will be told that certain of the states of this Southern Republic have laws compelling the children to attend school, these laws are not general, and because of many obstacles, such as the wide dis- tances between towns and sparsely settled districts and the lack of funds for education, public sentiment does not appear to be strong for their enforcement. It is reported that there are upwards of 13,000 schools with an at- tendance of 750,000 pupils in Brazil, but one gains the impression from travel in ariouE sections that the ma- jority of these students are in the professional institu- tions, like law, medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, or attend- ing the more newly developed schools of Commerce, Architecture, Arts and Crafts and special or private schools, corresponding more to the high school grade as it exists in the United States. It is common to see intelligent and finely dressed men wearing on their forefinger a huge, pretentious-looking ring, usually some coloured stone surrounded by dia- monds, which is an emblem signifying that the wearer is a member of one of the learned professions, the colour of 100 EDUCATION 101 the stone designating whether it is medical, law or pharmacy. This does not mean necessarily that all of the gentlemen thus bedecked are practicing these profes- sions. In Brazil, as in other Latin American countries, it has long been the mark of social standing and prestige to be associated with a learned calling. As in India, the profession of law especially has been generally popular, and intimately associated with political and governmental office. In these countries a professional degree and higher educational training for such degrees have been closely allied with public life, and not dissevered as they have been so often in the United States, from matters of state and political preferment. In Brazil there is no university, as the term is under- stood in Europe and North America, the professional schools by their longer courses extending over five and six years, being the institutions of liberal culture, and the preparatory schools, which also include certain col- legiate subjects, being immediate stepping stones thereto. Although there are signs of convictions that Brazil should have one or more really great universities, as yet her youth receive the chief amount of their liberal training in the schools which, with us, are usually con- sidered to aim particularly at specialised callings, and for the purpose of fitting youth along somewhat narrow channels for the chosen lines of their career. There are furthermore no such schools in Brazil de- nominated in the United States as graduate schools, where advanced students may engage in research and special training to become high class teachers, or ex- perts along lines of academic, scientific, or journalistic excellence. For such training Brazilian young men have been accustomed to go to Europe, especially for law and medical advance studies, or to the United States for engineering, commerce, and pedagogical training. The numbers of such students who are going northward has 102 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY been increasing' rapidly of late and in nearly every one of a score of our larger universities there will be found from a dozen to thirty young men from Latin American countries. Although there is a decided predilection on the part of Brazilian students for French culture, it is significant that the new and ever increasing tendency for social, industrial and scientific progress in the country has turned a larger stream of youth towards the United States in recent years. There are at present four times as many South American students studying in institu- tions of the United States as there are in France. It is in the realm of elementary education that Brazil is particularly weak to-day. This is revealed in part by the somewhat astonishing percentage of illiteracy, which is estimated to be not less than 70 per cent, of the entire population. To be sure Brazil has a somewhat more com- plex problem than many of the South American states, because of the numbers of her negro and Indian popula- tion, especially in the north and in the interior of her extensive domain. But there has been and still continues to be a national apathy regarding general education of the lower orders particularly. As a matter of fact, those who are at the head of political affairs (and here in Brazil the Government is almost universally behind edu- cation both as to its direction and to the furnishing of the revenues), have been more interested since the com- ing of the Republic in other things than in education. One official in an inland city soberly excused the mu- nicipal authorities when accused of not furnishing money for a much-needed high school building by say- ing, ''How could we build a new school house, when we had only enough money to build the theatre?'* It is always a nice question and one that will be debated prob- ably for some time to come, whether rudimentary educa- tion is the forerunner of economic and industrial civili- sation, or whether a new nation should first busy itself EDUCATION 103 in becoming materially competent and self-respecting, and then give itself to the development of its educational system. One hears the argument that if you give people good roads, ways of communication and the method of economic prosperity, they will demand education. Others are alike earnest in arguing that if you give the people education they will demand roads and municipal and rural improvements. If the example of the United States is of any value, these opinions should not diverge but coalesce, and educational and industrial progress go hand in hand in the development of Republics. That there is no such general shock at illiteracy in this part of the world as in the North is evident. As one Brazilian housewife expressed it, ''What would we do for servants if we educated all the common people!" Nevertheless it would seem that a dash of education here and there would help the same housewife, for, according to her own statement, her negro cook could neither read, write, tell the time of day by the clock, nor count money. When we asked how she managed to do her work her mistress promptly replied, "I don't hire her to do any of these things. I hire her to cook. She is a good cook, she never expects to be anything but a cook ; she is per- fectly satisfied. Education gives foolish ambitions to the working people. Why educate them?'^ This may seem a somewhat bald, frank statement of the case, and probably it would not reflect the views of the majority of the educated Brazilians to-day, yet it is a view which is plainly held in many parts of the country, and if we are not mistaken it reflects an attitude of mind which for more than one century has been more or less common in certain parts of Europe, and not entirely absent from the minds of a certain type of industrialist in the United States. It is seemingly possible to get accustomed to illiteracy though it is often embarrassing to a foreigner. One day 104 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY by chance I dropped my mail in the street, and going to the bank to which the mail was addressed, in the hope that it might have been returned, I received the follow- ing answer from the clerk: ''There are three chances for you and seven against you, that your mail Avill be returned. If one of the thirty per cent, of the population who can read and write picks up your letters you will get them, for the Brazilians are honest, but if one of the 70 per cent, who can't read finds your mail he will probably either open it through curi- osity, or throw it in the first ash-can." In the matter of education as in other things, Brazil must be judged not simply by her present but also by her past. She was not founded or colonised by a race of men who as a prerequisite for civilisation placed a red school house by the side of the church. The early Portu- guese discoverers and the aristocratic nobles, and mon- archial officials who followed in their train, held medieval views regarding education as about other matters, and probably their general attitude was not so much differ- ent from that of the Brazilian housewife quoted above. Years of slavery and a lack of labour to develop a new country were not influences intended either for the de- velopment of democracy or for the widespread dissemi- nation of equal educational rights among the common people. The heritage which Brazil received from Portugal educationally was neither worthy of the mother countiy nor conducive to the enlightenment of the early colonists. For generations Brazil was a closed port to the commer- cial world. She was also shut up to ignorance for many years by the Portuguese who had their eyes riveted on the country's natural wealth, deeming the gold, silver, diamonds, and woods of the country to be the extent of their interest or responsibility in a new and undeveloped land. EDUCATION 105 **The Portuguese Government," writes an historian of an early period, ''did what it could to impede the progress of its new possession. It hindered commerce, stifled industry, and even prohibited the treatment of metals, cutting of precious stones, installation of print- ing presses, publication of works, and circulation of newspapers — everj'thing, in fact, likely to contribute to the material and moral development of the people. It be- lieved in keeping them in entire ignorance of the wealth of their own land." The first two centuries after Brazil was discovered would have marked an educational blank, had it not been for the Jesuits who were the educational pioneers of the country, scattering the seeds of enlightenment wherever they went, starting schools and seminaries, and being impeded meanwhile at every step by a government that would shut the eyes of the people from knowledge, while it robbed the land of its treasure to fill the depleted cof- fers of Portugal. In the middle of the eighteenth cen- tury the Jesuits, who in addition to their educational interests were probably the most astute politicians that South America has ever seen, were expelled from Brazil. They were succeeded by Benedictines, Carmelites and Franciscans, who in turn originated the monastic schools, but departed in many respects from the enlightening sys- tem of education used by the Jesuits. One meets Bra- zilians to-day who are of the opinion that the country sufiFered a far-reaching calamity, both in the quality of its teachers and also in its priesthood, when these Jesuit forerunners of civilisation were driven from Brazil. After fifty years of checkered history in the various attempts to establish educational institutions in differ- ent places, the Prince Regent Dom Joao, soon after his arrival in Brazil in 1808, inaugurated a new period of literary and educational progress in his systems of pri- mary and secondary training, started the school for 106 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY cadets in the Benedictine Monastery at Rio de Janeiro, and also established the first printing works of the coun- try in the same city. This latter was an important event, as it made possible the use of printed texts in the place of the manuscripts employed by the Jesuits. Brazilian education now began in earnest, and professional and military schools sprung up in different places and were helped by the Regent, who in 1821 brought the public treasury to the aid of the day schools. Brazil was still relatively a benighted country, and many prejudices had to be overcome. Many of the people would not allow their children to study French because, since Napoleon ^s invasion of Portugal, French had been regarded as an impious and libertine language. Nevertheless educa- tionalists worked hard in this period and when the dec- laration of Brazilian independence came in 1822 there was at least a foundation, more or less chaotic, of school instruction. The modem phase of Brazilian education did not begin until the year 1878, under the leadership of the Minister of Education, Leoncio de Carvalho, when public instruc- tion was completely revolutionised. The advent of the Republic in 1889 brought many educational reforms, such as pedagogical schools, the establishment of an educa- tional review, and the placing of the professional schools on a firmer foundation. Much money was spent on edu- cation in the early years of the Republic, more in fact than was spent for education in many of the countries of Europe. Unfortunately compulsory education was not established. Good teachers were not forthcoming. Great distances between schools in the rural districts made then, as at present, regular attendance upon school exer- cise difficult. The Governors of states, in too many cases, used their power of educational appointments in a political manner. As far as one can judge there were never present such excessive and unscrupulous uses of EDUCATION 107 political power, educationally, as have been found and still continue to exist in certain South American Repub- lics, but politics was inevitably stronger than the public desire to educate. The tendency of the students to turn to law and literary studies rather than to technical and practical education, was evident. The obsession of the whole nation in political matters placed a handicap upon general education and the Brazilians of to-day lament that educational training throughout the entire country comprises far too little attention to the present day prac- tical needs of the nation. A country with twenty-four millions of inhabitants, without a real university devoted to higher liberal cul- ture, with no general or national law prescribing com- pulsory instruction, and giving only secondary attention to the systematic establishment and maintenance of scien- tific, agricultural, conunercial and graduate schools, can scarcely be said to have solved adequately its educational problems. There are, however, present signs of advance along many educational lines. A law was passed in 1911 re- forming usages in higher education. This law made the value of degrees in the modern schools equal to those of the oldest institutions; in fact, every holder of a B. A. degree in Brazil is likely to be addressed as "Dr.," and the old elaborate educational ritual accompanying the cap and gown doctorates has been annulled, the graduate receiving the simple certificate after finishing his par- ticular course of study. "All degrees have been abolished," writes one of the Brazilian educators, speaking of the higher honourary titles, "as unsuited to a democratic society." Although the larger institutions are almost invariably state institutions, maintained and directed by the gov- ernment, there is no federal monopoly of schools, since any state may start schools for law, medicine or en- 108 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY gineering, and the certificate of graduation has equal force in all parts of the Republic. If the school receives government aid, the curriculum must conform to certain standards laid down by Brazilian law regarding studies, length of course, and also the appointment of teachers. In state institutions the teachers are appointed by the government, from a list submitted by the faculty. Al- though the executive has veto power upon appointments and school administration, this is seldom utilised and academic freedom rarely meets with interference. The secondary schools are independent, and a separate ex- amination is required to enter the professional schools. The study of law is by far the most general and pop- ular of the courses of higher education, though not more than 20 per cent, of those studying law are said to follow the pursuit of lawyers. The law certificate is not only an open sesame to the aspirant for political or journalistic fame, but it is also an open door to '^ society." The course in law is richer and more comprehensive than that in our professional schools, including international law, political science, the history and philosophy of law, and giving special attention to Roman law and the civili- sation behind it. This latter emphasis makes up in a measure for the lack of classical instruction in higher Brazilian education. Although ancient languages are often conspicuous by their absence in the curriculum, modern languages are given a large place, especially English, French and German. The breadth of the professional school curriculum is revealed by the inclusion of such liberal or university studies as psychology, history, economics, finance and sociology, while in the medical schools, in addition to the usual subjects taught, there are general courses in botany, zoology and physics, and the engineering institu- tions give a general training in the physical sciences. It is doubtless owing to this fact of liberal education in EDUCATION 109 the professional schools that South America has pro- duced so many eminent lawyers. It must not be consid- ered therefore that Brazil is necessarily poverty-stricken in higher academic, historical and philosophical studies simply because she has no university called by the name. A Brazilian educator speaking of the higher training says: "The faculty is a gentleman's school. It gives the general culture that a well-to-do citizen feels is the most useful. It confers social and political prestige, it is the doorway to State service and to positions in the Consular and Diplomatic corps." The investigator will be told in Brazil that the schools of medicine are in no sense behind the law schools in this matter of general culture, and some claim that they give the best type of training of all the professional in- stitutions, and that the doctors, in spite of their leaning to the theoretical side professionally, are, as a rule, the most highly educated men of the country. The State of Sao Paulo doubtless takes the lead edu- cationally. Its Mackenzie College, its fine agricultural college, its normal and law schools, and both its primary and higher education, are worthy to be compared with that of many modern states in North America. The new interest being taken in engineering, revealed in the flourishing engineering clubs, as well as in the schools for engineers now being enlarged and established at considerable expense in several of the more progres- sive states, is a promising sign of the times. There are fifty-five military schools of varying grades in the different states of the Union, and a decided awak- ening is seen in these institutions at the present time. The European war has sent a decided thrill through all of the institutionalism of Brazil. Volunteers and mili- tary cadets are seen frequently marching in the streets of larger cities and towns. I inspected with some thor- 110 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY oughness the Colegio Militar in Rio de Janeiro, an in- stitution closely associated with the name of Benjamin Constant, one of the former instructors. The Colegio is beautifully situated on one of the hills that make up this city, occupying for its administrative work an old baronial palace, formerly owned by a prominent Bra- zilian. There are six hundred students being prepared here under military instruction resembling that afforded at West Point. Certain of these students do not find their way into the army, as the institution provides a cur- riculum attractive in its broader course of study and fitted for general preparatory training. Excellent, well- lighted and well-ventilated class rooms, up-to-date lab- oratories, athletic and parade fields, swimming pool and modern apparatus, together with an efficient staff of in- structors selected from departments of the Brazilian army, combine to make this school a fitting example of what the educators of Brazil can accomplish in prepara- tory education. The country is also well supplied with special schools. The thirst for study along particular lines impresses the visitor as he looks through the institutions, many of them of private foundation, where such studies as drawing, painting, music, and arts and crafts, are being pursued zealously by the young Brazilians. The artistic branches of learning are especially emphasised and are enjoying great popularity. In the beautiful building occupying a prominent corner of the Avenida Rio Branco, Rio de Janeiro, I attended the anniversary exercises of the School of Arts and Crafts — a night school having an attendance of more than one thousand pupils. The huge building on this oc- casion was filled to overflowing with the students, their parents and friends. Music, drawing, cartoon-making, and eloquent speeches on subjects relating to the instruc- tion of the school comprised the programme. The pres- EDUCATION 111 ence of alert intelligence and no small degree of spe- cialised ability was evident in the work of these pupils who obtain their education absolutely free of charge. The society which owns and promotes this million dollar property receives yearly a certain appropriation from the government, but Brazilians contribute by subscrip- tion the larger part of the revenue needed to carry on the work. As to foreign missionary schools, Mackenzie College, located at Sao Paulo, originally under Presbyterian aus- pices, but now non-sectarian, is probably the leading in- stitution in South America representative of the founda- tion of foreign missions. This institution has trained a large number of the modern technical workers of the country, and its scientific instruction is much more promi- nent than is usual in the colleges of the United States. There are twenty-seven young women among the four hundred or more students, and it has an affiliated Ameri- can school located a short distance away, called Eschola Americana, which enrolls more than five hundred pupils, of whom 124 are girls. It is a cosmopolitan student body in every sense of the word, there being in the combined enrollment of the two schools under the college auspices 514 Brazilians, 150 Italians, 47 Portuguese, 45 Germans, 34 North Americans, 28 English, 15 French, and 39 mem- bers of other nationalities. The College by its broad- spirited and efficient work commands the thorough sym- pathy of the government educational officials and it is practically self-supporting from its tuition fees. The college has also been an important factor in the arousal of interest in intercollegiate sports, as well as in bring- ing together students from other Brazilian institutions in fraternal and social associations. The attitude of the Government was revealed towards this institution when at the death of its president Dr. H. M. Lane in 1912, a 112 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY public acknowledgment was given both in the Legislature and the Senate. The union of the Northern and Southern Presbyterians in a theological seminary at Campinas is said to be the best developed institution for Protestant ministerial training in South America, while the Southern Baptist college in Rio de Janeiro, the mission school work at Bello Horizonto, and the work of the Episcopal Church in South Brazil, are all developed largely along North American lines. The work of the Young Men's Chris- tian Association in Brazil, by its night classes, is mak- ing certain contribution to the general educational life of several of the larger cities, and the Methodist institu- tion at Uruguayana, in southwestern Brazil, enrolls up- wards of 200 boys whom it gives a high school training preparing many of them for entrance to Mackenzie Col- lege. The mission schools have been especially successful in the southern states of the country and the kindergarten work established in Sao Paulo in 1882 has been a notable contribution. The effectiveness of educational missions in Brazil, as in other parts of the world, depends largely upon the character and training of the teachers sent to carry on the schools. Too often in the past the same mistake has been made as in starting trade. The wrong people have been sent. People ignorant of the country, narrow in mental and spiritual grasp, and beset with religious prejudices, have failed of the largest usefulness, as they would fail at home. One Latin American teacher is re- ported to have received the following letter from a dis- tinguished educator of the United States, to whom he had applied for a teacher : ''Our men go to China. There is only one man who might go to you. He is rather un- couth and awkward. He reminds me of a great awkward Newfoundland pup, but I think he would just fit into your work." An American who has done valiant work to- EDUCATION 113 wards the new and coming day of better education in Brazil, writes of receiving frequent letters of late from women scliool-teacliers living in various rural sections of the United States, saying they want to come to Brazil and teach. *^In Heaven's name, teach — what!" he writes. He continues in expounding the feelings that one finds among more than one foreign educator in South Amer- ica, who has attempted to develop the material sent to him, and fit it to meet the high demands of teaching in- telligent Latin Americans: '*! have a hard time ex- plaining to them that the measure of their success here would be exactly that of a young Portuguese lady in sim- ilar circumstances who wanted to go from Lisbon to the United States, with the vague idea that she could * teach.' They have not the language (some of them 'have studied some Spanish' and think that that will do in Brazil where the people speak Portuguese) ^ never in their lives have these would-be foreign teachers faced a breakfast that did not have eggs and buckwheat cakes in it ; never have they seen a foreigner at close range ; their world is Kokonk, or Waco, or Pembertonville — and that is all. I don't blame them. But what I wonder at is the psychological phenomenon. ' ' No one of any breadth of mind and hospitality to good works can fail to admire the devoted zeal with which educational missionaries from the United States have girdled the earth with their teaching messages. Those who are properly equipped and have sufficient common- sense and breadth of mind to succeed as teachers at home have chosen one of the speediest and most efficient ave- nues of approach to the intelligences of foreigners when they enlist in the educational work carried on by many of our capable missionary boards. But a country like Bra- zil, as all Latin America in fact, where the Roman faith is as truly the national religion as Mohammedanism is in Egypt, or Hinduism is in India, and where the tempera- 114 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY ment of tlie keenly sensitive Latin is even more suscep- tible to the mental or religious or social approach, is the last place to send the remnants of American instruction or instructors, while the "uncouth and awkward" teacher is as out of place here as is the narrow religious in- tellectual. The advice which President King of Oberlin College is reported to have given to the delegates at the Congress of Christian Work in Latin America, held at Panama in 1916, is as wholesome as it is strategic, rela- tive to education by foreign missionaries in Brazil: "If ever we are to reach these intellectual leaders, we must use the modern approach. ... I came back sick at heart from the Orient, ' ' says Dr. King, ' *■ partly because I found in India and Japan many excellent and godly mis- sionaries who were standing square across the path of educated Hindus, Japanese and Chinese. They were say- ing virtually, ' You cannot have anything to do with evo- liition and historical criticism and be a Christian.' Well, a great German said years ago, ^The wounds of knowl- edge can be healed only by knowledge,' and we must make the approach to these men with a little different conception of the relation of religion to the modern and the intellectual world. I do not know anything in the in- tellectual realm that forbids a man's being in the deepest and most real sense of the word an honest and consistent follower of Jesus Christ." It is men of this type and range of mind who, if we have properly adjudged the Brazilian, would be welcomed by the intellectuals of the country, who are not so indifferent, as they are some- times pictured, to religion, especially when it is "mixed with brains." As to the students themselves, we found them unusu- ally intelligent, and like Brazilians in general, invariably good-mannered. Principals say that they have little trouble in discipline. Many of the well-to-do send their youth to private schools. The education of girls is back- EDUCATION 115 ward, as in most South American countries. Co-educa- tion is not general. The Catholic seminary and fitting school is lacking in thoroughness, inclined to give the young ladies a dilettante smattering of polite studies, and the curriculum, while strong in doctrinal religion, is weak in modern scientific studies. French books are used as text-books in many institutions, and the libraries are much richer in books of languages, other than the na- tional tongue, than are our North American reading rooms for students. Religion has little or no place in the Government schools, and a separate Church and State has brought about a clearly divided line between secular and theolog- ical, or religious, instruction. Teachers affirm that at least 90 per cent, of the students in the state schools are non-religious and that the other 10 per cent, are nominally Catholic. In Brazil, as in Argentina, the Church has but a slender hold upon Government-school students. I did not discover the same amount of rationalism or antagon- ism to the prevailing faith of the country, as exists in the higher institutions of the Argentine Republic. The Ger- man system of packing a considerable portion of the year's work into the months immediately preceding ex- aminations is more or less prevalent, as is the lecture method of instruction. The memoriter tendency is along the line of least resistance, and the training of students to think for themselves is no more common here than it is in other countries. Some think that it is less em- phasised in all of Latin America than in some other parts of the world ; it is easy to affirm this, but perhaps hard to substantiate. Lecturing is so much easier and so much less expensive of energy and of the "drawing out" abil- ity, than the art of teaching young men and women by question and discussion to really obtain some opinions of their own, that I find professors in all nations quite ready to lecture hour after hour to students who obediently and 116 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY automatically 'Hake notes," which they seldom examine after the examination period has been safely passed. The chief task laid at present before Brazilian educa- tors seems to be the training of the minds and hands of the country's youth, to apply in practice the knowledge they secure in the class-room. These young men are to be called upon to produce their titles to the huge Brazil- ian estate now beginning to be discovered. Sane polit- ical ability and training are needed, but there are already two law schools for every institution intended to fit men to lead in the development of the country's land and trade. As James Russell Lowell once said, "Govern- ment cannot be carried on by declamation." Some one must provide the industrial and commercial sinews of the Government's strength. Detached education, theoret- ical rather than intelligently applied learning, — these are the loose rivets in the Brazilian educational armour. Tra- ditions of feudahsm have made commerce and business application contemptible in other places of the earth, but in Latin America these plaster casts of medieval Eu- rope, have not as yet been entirely removed. In Brazil the educational institutions are not lacking in the profi- ciency of higher generalisation, in the absorption of rules, in subjectiveness ; they are threatened rather by the dan- ger of inadequate foundation in scientific practice and ex- perimentation — too much law and library, too little lab- oratory and field work. An enormous section of country and a considerable population are still beyond the hearing of the teacher's voice. Economic conditions bar many. Backward states must get government and federal aid. Better means of inter-communication, now on the way, will leave less ex- cuse for indifference to education. Political leaders, in- terested in the game of statecraft which they know, are the guiding, nominal heads of educational enterprise which they do not know. Trained educators and teachers EDUCATION 117 are sorely needed. Compulsory attendance on primary instruction should come as rapidly as money and schools and instructors can be found. Public opinion needs to be stimulated to find these without unnecessary delay. In many parts of the land, I found awakening interest in press and public discussion concerning federal aid for nation-wide education. Students returning from abroad bring new visions and fresh convictions. The projected exchange professorships with the United States and European countries will light new fires. Better financial times are quite certain to aid in turning the efforts of a naturally patriotic and idealistic people toward the fit- ting of their youth to go in and possess the renascent Brazil. A country with such resources and such intel- ligence in its ruling classes cannot long brook the fact that so great a portion of its population, through illiter- acy, are unable by their votes or their influence to help make the Brazilian world ''safe for democracy." Good schools aim at good government, as well as good citizen- ship generally, for Brazil. Ignorance is without latitude and longitude. It is everywhere the foe to republics. Knowledge, widespread and free as sunlight, is every- where the surest lamp to the free nation's feet. IX BRAZILIAN HOME LIFE I ASKED an American resident in Brazil why we heard so little from foreign travellers and writers regarding Brazilian homes. He answered, ' ' There are at least seven reasons why they don't talk about Brazilian homes; the first is because they never get inside of one, and the six other reasons don't count." This answer was at least concise, and probably not without truth, but I should be inclined to add that if any half-way decent foreigner failed to get an invitation to a Brazilian home, it was partly because he did not remain long enough in the country even to meet a Brazilian. North Americans, as well as many Europeans, are wont to give themselves a few fleeting weeks, and sometimes but a few days to *'do" Brazil, a kind of ' ' ten-minutes- for-the-Louvre-and-on-to-the-Luxemburg" sight seeing trip, which would scarcely be sufficient to form an inti- mate home acquaintance with men who speak another language, and have inherited and hold somewhat strict ideas about introducing strangers to their women-folk. Any experiences which the writer enjoyed along this line, he attributes to the fact of a somewhat leisurely sojourn in this country affording opportunities for unhurried in- terviews with many Brazilians, whose courtesy and gen- erous hospitality abide in memory among the choicest delights of South American travels. As a matter of fact, I remained in Brazil five months longer than I expected to do, when arriving, and if there are people more kindly BRAZILIAN HOME LIFE 119 thoughtful and delightful as hosts, I, at least, have failed to discover them in my wanderings. After all, how does a nation stand revealed more truly than in its homes? Its public appearances are frequently deceptive. It is what it is, at home. A few years ago, we heard and read a good deal about France as degenerating, or at least becoming a static pol- ity and civilisation. Men had thoughtlessly taken the scintillating night-life of Parisian Boulevards for France. They had left out of account the tens of thousands of happy and frugal firesides in hundreds of small towns or tiny hamlets, dotting the gardens and fields of rural France, each one representative of hard working lives of peasantry and middle-class, each one potently sig- nificant of that matchless national spirit which ''knows how to die," as did the French-Revolution fathers, for the "rights of man." It's not always safe to judge a nation by a single city, and forget the rural homes. American globe-trotters make the "Grand "World Tour," if not in eighty days, in less than as many weeks, which furnishes only a chance to whirl through the large cities and to see the regulation "sights" awaiting the regulation adjectives, and the down-pour of American dollars. We secure our ideas of Japanese men and wo- men from the seat of the rolling "rickshaw," and from the movies and red-light districts of Tokyo. From such angles of vision it may be easy to make wholesale criti- cisms of the morals of Japanese women, as some writers and travellers seem to delight to do, or compare unfavour- ably the Japanese, the "little browTi men," with the heads of households we have known in many an American commonwealth. But let the traveller go to the quaint and artistic Nippon homes that breathe the breath of sobriety and homely loves beneath the cherry^ blossoms here, there, everywhere, throughout the Sunrise Kingdom; let him walk through the narrow streets of the mountain villages 120 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY after nightfall and look througli the thin rice-paper shojis to find Japan. He will see large families, the aged grandfather at the seat of honour, and about him his sturdy sons and grandchildren; he will hear the glad laughter of children, and the strumming of the samisen, and in that shadow picture about the tea braziers, he will see in truer light the strength and promise of the nation. A few years ago, I chanced to take passage from Cal- cutta on the same steamer with one of my countrymen who had been spending some time in India, and, to use his words, was ''awfully disappointed with the people." ''What do you find about them to dislike?" I asked. ' ' They are so utterly stupid, ' ' he replied, ' ' so lacking in ordinary intelligence." He then went on to enumerate at length his tribulations with his Indian "boy," his gharry drivers, and dwelt on the vileness of the hotels. When in answer to my question as to whether he had been a guest in any real Indian home, he replied in the negative, say- ing that he imagined they were even more impossible than the servants he had met ; I ventured to remind him, that almost in hailing distance of the hotel where his troubles had been so numerous and from which he judged the population of 315,000,000, there had been only the night previous in the beautiful home of the Tagores a family gathering according to custom, where several hun- dred of the bearers of that name, artists, writers, poets, sculptors and musicians, there assembled; this home would have given him a different view point from which to study the intelligence of this nation. What defence has a nation against such superficial detractors ? As Mr. Lowell remarks in his essay on the "Condescension of Foreigners," "An umbrella is of no avail against a Scotch mist." Let us go, then, to the Brazilian home. It is the nation in microcosm. In its almost endless variety, it furnishes one of the best ways to understand a people more highly BRAZILIAN HOME LIFE 121 diversified in race, custom, tradition and individualities than any other South American nation. The Latin races are said to be lacking in home-making qualities, as compared with English or Teutonic peoples. Moreover the Portuguese, who gave Brazil formative principles, were more truly the copyists of Roman civili- sation than any otlier European stock, and the Romans were famous for their slight attention to the home. Yet Portugal has been ever a land of homes, and her New World Brazilian daughter has inherited the instinct. It is a land placing great emphasis on family life. Un- doubtedly the Lusitanians are indebted largely to the Moors for this trait, for there was engrafted upon the Latin stock during the long Arabising of the Iberian Peninsula, not only the Oriental family regard and ex- clusiveness, but also many other Eastern habits of thought and life. Certain it is that Portugal's South American descendants have always guarded with jealous eyes their private abodes. Many of their happiest hours are spent within the home-circles, and no customs seem- ingly are held more highly in cherished esteem than are home attachments and family associations. There is always a danger, in writing of a subject like Brazilian home life, for the narrator to over-generalise. Home and family life is, like the civilisation generally, diverse, and it is necessary to define the strata of life one is talking about if an attempt is made to find univer- sal characteristics. There is the home of the seringuero or rubber gatherer, in the lonely fastness of the Amazon wilderness; and the tepee of the still savage Indian of the forest jungle. The fisher-folk, a considerable clan scattered along the Brazilian coast from the extreme north to the Argentine boundary, have a life distinctive, bringing their hauls of fish ashore in frail-looking boats and in light-hearted talk and song sit about their rude huts at twilight to sup on a bit of farinha, a drop of 122 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY native whiskey, and some of the Brazilian dried beef — to the accompaniment of the violao. Fishing, attended for them with perpetual peril, partaking of their hard- earned spoil at night beneath the swaying of the cocoanut palms, a dash of romance and singing — this is the sum total of life and home for these children of the tropical seas. For hours I have sat and watched their labour and their happiness, so far removed from the "streets where man gathers inland," where no enticements could lure them. Some day a Brazilian poet will sing of these Bra- zilian men who go down to the sea in boats, as Sarojini Naidu has sung of their brothers afar, the Caromandel Fishers — "Sweet is the shade of the cocoanut glade, and the scent of the mango grove, And sweet are the sands at the fall of the moon with the sounds of the voices we love, But sweeter, Brother, the kiss of the spray and the dance of the wild foam's glee: Row, brothers, row to the blue of the verge, where the low sky mates with the sea." Should one be just to the many-sided home and social life of this gigantic country, he must need write also of the occupations of the gaucho, or Brazilian cowboy, liv- ing his daring and picturesque existence in a world apart on the Southern interior plains ; then there is the impor- tant section of Brazilian society best seen in its original home in the State of Minas — the fazendeiro, or caipira, as he is sometimes called, the country magnate whose wealth is his broad plantations, and who lives also more or less isolated with his family, constituting their own kingdom, independent and free and hospitable as was any of our old South-land planters, or any medieval bar- onial lord. It is this land-holder-class that makes a strong appeal to young and old Brazil alike. This king of the land and horses and wide distances fascinates and calls m 13 X 5 BRAZILIAN PIOME LIFE 123 forth something inherent in the Brazilian character. The country is first of all an agricultural domain of colossal area, and the fazendeiro still holds in his hand the na- tion 's key. Of him one has said, * ' Such authority as he knows has vanished, perhaps, from the gi'eater part of the world ; but in Brazil it rules unquestioned, forming a powerful bond between the soil and its owner. In his solitude the land owner indulges his law of intellectual culture; he inclines toward philosophy; he possesses a certain natural eloquence. This Brazilian aristocracy enjoys political as well as social power. They form the structure, the framework of all party politics ; they are its strength, its very life ; it is they who govern and admin- ister Brazil." One is confronted here with the remnants of a feudal oligarchy, with the culture and refinement belonging to it in the middle ages of Europe, but with the striking difference that this older and influential Brazil- ian social order is being voluntarily changed and mixed with a complex variety of mass population, slowly but surely forming a democratic society, in which the spirit of republicanism and equality is stronger even than the spirit of the national religion. The racial diversity revealed in Brazilian society is as pronounced as is the variety of its geographical groups. A study of the home life is a study in ethnology. The original Portuguese stock is found in all phases of transi- tion from unadulterated purity through partial and com- plete mixtures with native Indian and Negro and fusion with foreign nations, Italian, French, German, English, Spanish and American. The Brazil of to-day is a melting pot of races and nationalities as heterogeneous as it is distracting to the chance traveller. On beginning to ask questions, one finds himself entangled in an intricate maze of fusions between Portuguese and Brazilian-Por- tuguese, foreigners and Brazilian-foreigners, Brazilians who are Brazilians, and Brazilians who are ethnologically 124 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY caboclos, or mastizos, or sertaos; or Brazilians who locally or historically are Paulistas, German-Brazilians, Dutch-Brazilians, pure-blooded Indians, or sons and daughters of a half a dozen foreign races or nations, who are Brazilians because they were born in Brazil. The vis- itor, freshly landed, and plunged suddenly into this di- verting congeries of human, national and racial amalga- mation, is inclined to sympathise with the probable enlightenment of Colonel Roosevelt who is reported to have inquired of a sea captain concerning the population of a certain West Indian Island, when the old sea dog replied: ''Well, there are some Spanish, a few French, some Portugee, a few Dutchmen, and about ten other nationalities that God Almighty never intended." The amazing wonder of all (especially to a North Am- erican less familiar with European races, and holding decided views concerning colour lines, etc.) is the manner in which this country is slowly, and apparently with har- mony and democratic social and racial relations, evolv- ing a distinct Brazilian type. The salient characteristics of what is becoming to be known as the true Brazilian character include the aristocratic culture and high intel- ligence of the old family Portuguese stock, at once Latin and Moorish by inheritance, the exaltation, daring and passion of a vigorous Aborigines blood, softened by the affectionate, emotional strain of the African especially in North Brazil, — the whole shot through with the typical modernity and enterprise that marriage and general con- tact with European races have afforded. With such ele- ments, the national home life of Brazil is being com- pounded. Knowing its ingredients, one is not surprised to find in its members at the summit of society the quali- ties of imagination, intuition, courtesy, alertness of mind, sentiment, a conservatism that is Eastern, a love of beauty that is Latin, and a tropical hospitality and sim- plicity as generous and charming as Brazilian sunshine. BRAZILIAN HOME LIFE 125 Any concrete description of a home of the better class is a biography of the life and characteristics of the Bra- zilian woman — the wife and mother. Domestic existence is peculiarly her sphere of action and influence, and from this throne of home life she rules, and also shines. This has been more or less inevitable in a country where, for many generations, women have had no part in the outside life of business, politics or social movements, but have been immured behind domestic walls almost as carefully as are the women of the East. In the larger centres, and especially in the Federal Capital, twentieth century in- fluences are opening the doors of the somewhat outworn household cage, and women are seen in public places, on the avenues, at the opera and the theatre, and in motor cars (where by the way, the Brazilian senhoras and sen- horitas, with their dark hair, beautiful Paris-made clothes, which are not more beautiful than their eyes, are among the most fascinating moving-pictures of the tropi- cal city). These women of the class aristocratic are also familiar with Paris, Genoa and Lisbon to which they make frequent voyages with their husbands, bringing home the latest thing in styles, both for dress and the ornamenta- tion of their homes. Such women, like all the feminines of these parts, take readily to language, which they have learned at an early age (the only satisfactory way really to acquire foreign tongues) and it is common for the linguist to be able to converse with the intelligent, witty lady of the higher circles in French, Italian, Spanish, and often in English, in addition to the native Portu- guese. It has been stated by writers, who are perhaps more gallant than strictly truthful, that the Latin Amer- ican women are more intellectual and well-informed gen- erally than the men. Be that as it may, one finds many scores of homes throughout the country where the grade of culture, the knowledge of Portuguese and French lit- erature, the acquaintance with art and music, and the 126 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY inherited love for the Beautiful, expressed variously in the collections of rare bric-a-brac, choice paintings, well modulated arrangement of flowers, and the presence of colour, betoken a type of civilisation difficult to surpass in any country. This elevated grade of appreciation and culture is said to be limited to perhaps a few hundred families of wealth and old traditions, — a somewhat de- tached and segregated aristocracy of intellect and train- ing existing at the apex of Brazilian society ; below there is as yet no great middle class of population, to relieve an abrupt descent to the more mediocre and even illiterate proletariat, which forms the democratic sub-stratum of the nation. While this is probably the case, stated broad- ly, my observation leads me to believe that there is at present a distinctly marked middle class in the process of formation made up of the new wealth and progress of the awakened commercial Brazil, and that throughout the en- tire social order there are evident the traits of gentility and sentiment, woven inextricably into the Portuguese- Moorish-Brazilian nature. It is significant, moreover, for the future of this country, that the ideals which the people have enthroned in their hearts at least, are those informing the refined and tasteful apostles of culture, who are the leaders in political and social matters, rather than the lower aims of milreis and militarism, which have all too potent influence in some other nations. Brazilian women are not only nice to look at, and in- telligent conversationalists; they are furthermore "the mothers of men." It is a land of large families, eight or ten children being no exceptional thing in a Brazilian home. The upbringing of children is not attended with any superfluous modern fads, and eugenics, twilight sleep, birth control, together with other reforms of our North- ern ** efficiency" civilisation, are as yet unknown. It may be only a matter of time when Brazil, like the United States, will begin to copy Germany in this machine-made BRAZILIAN HOME LIFE 127 existence, and a race of non-domestic females simply de- voted to some '^ cause" will be joining a lot of non-domes- tic men who had rather go reforming than make homes, and the old land of the Pedros will ring with snif ragette speeches and sterilised drinking cups. If in the distant future these transformations occur, it is to be hoped that the Brazilian home, now so distinctive and filled with fam- ily reunions, will not be exchanged for our huge filing- cabinet-apartment houses, in which the simple pleasures of family life are made difficult and often impossible. The home again reminds of the East in the presence of the parental authority, and the reverential attitude of children to their elders. The boy kisses his father's hand as he enters the room, and this custom of sons is continued through life, the father of a grown-up family never omitting to bend his head over his aged father's or mother's hand at meeting, as respectfully as does his boy above his own. Household duties occupy the atten- tion of Brazilian women more than is usual in the North, the husband being the responsible host to do the honours to the guest. The women have their trials with negro ser- vants, and from sheer necessity for independence per- haps, they are usually proficient in the ability to cook, and to grace their ample tables with special dishes of their own making. Although, as has been hinted, the ladies in the elite classes of the two largest cosmopolitan centres, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, are now rapidly taking on Euro- pean customs, in general the old traditions prevail, mak- ing it impossible for ladies, young or old, to receive male callers alone, to dance at balls after marriage with any men other than their husbands, or to be seen on the street or at public functions without escort. The woman of the home lives a circumscribed life, that would seem tame enough to her North American sisters. Mothers are known chiefly through their children, and like the women 128 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY of the Orient, seem quite as eager as the men to maintain the cherished feminine isolation. There are probably no women more virtuous or faithful to their marriage vows in any nation than the women of Brazil. Life generally in the country, strange as it may seem, is lived less in the open, than in many northern cities. Women have not yet entered to any great extent the out- door arena of athletics. The public participation in ath- letics, and the swimming contests in which women of for- eign nationalities engage at the new foreign Country Clubs, seem somewhat shocking to the national feminine sense. Salt water or sea bathing is popular, and the Brazilians with their entire families may be seen in many sections at a sinfully early hour of the day proceeding to the beaches. The Flumenenses are partic- ularly favoured since in many cases their homes border on the smooth shining waters of the Bay, while many of the less-favoured classes spend their summers opposite in old picturesque Nictheroy, where there are many boat- ing clubs and water privileges. Sunday excursions, horse races, foot-ball matches and regattas, are attended large- ly, as the Brazilians in many senses as to their customs are simply old European races transplanted, and among these the use of the Continental Sunday as an active holi- day is everywhere general. There are fewer social problems than with us in the United States ; if they have them, the people do not seem to know it. Life flows along comparatively easily; the climate prohibits over-strenuousness, and there are no sanitariums for broken nerves. The Government is com- paratively free from serious outbreaks, and no revolution of any importance has occurred in the country for many years. There are few if any labor strikes to record; divorces are prohibited by the religion of the land and are rarely known. Bachelors also are so rare as to be almost suspicious characters which may be a veiled compliment BRAZILIAN HOME LIFE 129 to the charms, as well as to the capacity, of Brazilian women as home-makers. The Brazilians are an ab- stemious people, and their coffee-drinking, which is more or less a perpetual function with many, corresponds to the beer habit in Germany; it is not more injurious to nerves as the Brazilians prepare it, and certainly is not as conducive to the equatorial expansion of the individual as is the Teuton's beer-garden. Allegiance to home and family life is prominently re- vealed in the numerous anniversaries. To experience a birthday anniversary in Brazil is an important matter, a certain excuse for a family gathering, sometimes a ban- quet (which is a rare event in the country as compared with the incessant "dinners" in North America) honour- ing a distinguished personage, and space in the daily papers recording at great length the names of those who sent congratulations, or were present at the important natal-day festival. This may be due in part to the great stress laid on friendships in this land, and the length people go to making and cementing them. As every one knows, if he has tried to do business in Latin America, or get favours of any kind, friendship is no ''glittering gen- erality" south of Panama. During my sojourn in Brazil, I recall particularly in this connection a complimentary dinner given to a distinguished Brazilian diplomat, au- thor and prominent member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. There were present seventy of the gentle- man's friends and admirers. There was a profusion of flower decorations as always at such functions here ; even the tables were rimmed with Brazilian roses. In spite of the proverbial ''excitability" of the Latin tempera- ment, there were no emotional outbursts, nor any "He's a Jolly Good Fellow" songs and wild cheers. There was a natural restraint, which in some other countries might be taken for lack of interest. Everything from the read- ing of telegrams (eveiy one sends telegrams in Brazil 130 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY when congratulations or social events are in progress) to the partaking of the five kinds of wine served, was done decently and in perfect order. Good form and gen- tlemanly decorum, no loud talking or undue excitement anywhere. After the congratulatory addresses had been made by a number of eminent men, government officials and well-known scholars, some in French, others in the national tongue, both of which were evidently understood equally well by all the guests, the gentleman in whose honour the banquet was given rose, and with utter sim- plicity spoke substantially as follows: "I have tried to serve my country in diplomacy; in that I have not been eminently successful. I have done some literary work; but there are many other younger and more truly successful writers than I have been. I have also tried to make friends. Although I may have failed in the first two mentioned ambitions of my career, this gathering has convinced me beyond any doubt that I have succeeded in friendship. Therefore I am to-night exceedingly happy and content. ' ' This was no speech to the '' galleries. " No one could have heard it and felt the reflection of it upon the hearers, without being convinced of its perfect sincerity. It rep- resented an ambition and a triumphant result bulking large in the hearts and aims of Brazilians. If Emerson was right in his estimation of values, other nations may go to school to Brazil: the sage of Concord said, ''Life is simply a means for expressing a sentiment." Men's clubs for social purposes are notable in Brazil, and even in the smaller cities and towns the visitor will be given guest's cards to buildings extremely well-ap- pointed, and conducted with due orderliness. I found nothing in Brazil to compare in ornateness or social standing with the Jockey Club of Buenos Aires, or in fra- ternal atmosphere with the Union Club in Santiago, Chile. The Brazilian clubs are known for their balls where all BRAZILIAN HOME LIFE 131 officialdom and society appear, and also as a rule for the possession of first-class gamester facilities. There is a lamentable absence of books and readers, and even the old and revered Club dos Diarios in Rio de Janeiro, with its 700 or more members, and its yearly income of $250,- 000, does not maintain a restaurant, and is usually quite deserted at night. The Brazilians are not club-men as are the English or the North Americans. One misses the wann atmosphere of cosiness and the lack of conver- sational circles around issues of public and civic interests. There is slight reminder of the kind of club described by Dr. Holmes, filled with dozens of ** ringing intelligences," each answering to some chord of the macrocosm, a place for isolated thought or conversation, where ''you see wis- dom in slippers and science in a short jacket." Perhaps this is because family life still furnishes here wide op- portunities for discussion with relatives and friends, claiming the majority of the masculine element after business is over. THE TRIUMPH OP THE ENGINEER Plotted sites of future cities, traced the easy grades between 'em Watched imharnessed rapids wasting fifty thousand head an hour; Counted leagues of water-frontage through the axe-ripe woods that screen 'em — Saw the plant to feed a people up — and waiting for the power ! Kipling. Dr. Frederick Stark Pearson, who together with his wife were lost in the Lusitania disaster, has been called by many of his own engineering brotherhood, the world's greatest engineer. He certainly possessed in his un- usual genius the talents and capacities in extraordinary combination, of versatility, of intellect, the creative imag- ination of a poet as well as of a scientist, and pre-vision. He was an engineer of construction and a master of op- portunity. If Caesar dammed the rivers of Spain for the purpose of war, that he might destroy his enemies. Dr. Pearson threw his concrete blockades across the riv- ers of many countries, in order that human welfare and the civilised life of men might be safeguarded and ad- vanced. His work was particularly that of the pioneering engin- eer and his daring and defiance of obstacle, that ''two- o 'clock-in-the-moming courage," breathed of Napoleon's famous dictum: *' Obstacles are just things to be over- come. ' * He was no more awed by financial obstacles than by technical ones ; in his world-vision he drew on the re- sources not simply of the country of his birth, but he commanded money from Great Britain, France, Belgium, 132 THE TRIUMPH OF THE ENGINEER 133 and other countries, while his own money flowed like water from his hands in the interest of his wide projects. Any business reverse to him was but the passing of a chance cloud in the horizon of his unquenchable hopes; he ''took his medicine," as his associates said, then with a calm smile went doggedly on in the steady prosecution of his work. The accomplislmaents of this notable world's engineer are too well known, as regards American engineering at least, to require more than passing suggestion here. The West End Street Railway of Boston is one of his monu- ments, and we all know how after the successful electri- fication of the street car system of Boston, which was attended at that time with so many new and difficult en- gineering problems, Pearson came to Brooklyn, intro- ducing electric street cars in that city and erecting, ac- cording to his own design, the most advanced and largest power plant then known on the continent. New York City is also indebted to him for its underground conduit or trolley system which remains to-day virtually as he left it, while the big 96th Street power house which in 1896 was the contribution of his engineering ability di- rectly to the Metropolitan Street Railway Company, was for years a model for other city engineers both at home and abroad. The Pearson electrical enterprises are to- day found in Providence, in Montreal, in Toronto, in Winnipeg, and many other American cities, while his planning and oversight of the hydraulic installation and the electrical development at Niagara Falls, by which a plant of 160,000 horse power was made to supply electric light and power to the city of Toronto, 100 miles distant, was alone enough to bring him fame. The man who carried through in Boston the really first great system of electric traction the world, up to that time, had ever seen, was destined before his untimely end to be the instigator of similar undertakings in Mexico, 134 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY South America and Spain. In Mexico the traveller will be shown the extensive engineering works furnishing the City of Mexico with light and power, and here as in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, as also in the Spanish city of Barcelona (where the water power of the Ebro river was utilised for the supply of electric lights, tramways and general power) to the inquiry as to the originator and moving spirit in the enterprise, the same name will be heard — '*F. S. Pearson." The significance of his work in Brazil is suggested by one who knew the conditions un- der which Dr. Pearson laboured there : * ' in place of sev- eral lines of mule cars, an antiquated gas plant and a telephone service where one could walk to the one he desired to talk with quicker than to telephone, Rio de Janeiro now enjoys the highest type of modern electric railway service unexcelled anywhere in the United States or Europe, an electric lighting system which makes it the best-lighted city in the world, a new and modern gas plant, and a regular Bell telephone service which is now being extended over the United States of Brazil." It was not single-handed and alone that Dr. Pearson thus sent out his lines to the end of the earth ; he added to his own ceaseless energy the human enginery and abil- ity of a devoted band of associates, and his loyalty and devotion to his staffs of fellow workers marked a dis- tinctive trait of his successful career. Many of the mem- bers of his engineering family he took with him from city to city and from country to country, and the remark which an old lady made concerning Ex-President Garfield after his death, could be made regarding him — **he was very human." Perhaps the foremost characteristic of the engineer whose life and work are interwoven closely with the lat- ter-day progress of the country we are now studying, was his vision, always unfalteringly wide and ever growing. He saw things * * in the big. ' ' During my travels in Brazil, THE MAIN CAR STATION IX THE OLD MULE-TRAMWAY DAYS PRESENT CAR STATION AND MAIN OFFICE OF THE "RIO DE JANEIRO TRAM- WAY, LIGHT AND POWER CO., LTD." THE OLD RIO OF IMPERIAL DAYS THE NEW RIO OF THE REPUBLIC THE TRIUMPH OF THE ENGINEER 135 I was riding one day on horseback in company with one of the men who worked with Pearson in Massachusetts and was with him almost from the first in the extensive Brazilian enterprises. ''He was ready to 'scrap' any- thing and everything," he said, "anything not the best and the biggest for his large schemes went on the scrap heap. It was expensive business, but in the end it made for larger economy." A fellow engineer in the United States who had known Dr. Pearson for more than a quarter of a century, speaks thus of him : "He was always leading his profession in the demands which he made upon the manufacturers for increase of size of engine dynamo or transformer, for the highest practical efficiency, for the highest operat- ing pressure; in fact, he was always pushing everything and everybody to the limit, and yet his judgment was so well balanced that I cannot remember a single instance of failure of any of his engineering works in any important part." Surely he was among the world's greatest Light-bring- ers of the latter part of the nineteenth century and the dawn of the twentieth; history of industrial enterprises will give the engineer, Frederick Pearson, a prominent niche. His best eulogy is his work. As the old Latin line puts it — **If you want his monument, look about you!" It was in the year 1900, that Pearson and a band of his financial supporters first turned their eyes toward Bra- zil. It was still at that time the Old Brazil of Imperial days respecting especially the style of transportation in the cities, lighting, and modern telephone conveniences. Whether by chance or calculation, however, the coming of the northern engineers synchronised almost exactly with the period of that modern municipal reform which has swept of late certain of the larger centres of Brazilian population into the first rank of the progressive cities of 136 THE BEAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY the world. The Tramway Light and Power Companies, which American engineers, backed by Canadian, Eng- lish, French and Belgian capital, brought to the two chief cities of the Republic, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, in those days of city industrial regeneration were among the most essential and timely factors, as the Brazilians them- selves are among the first to acknowledge. Those who to-day behold the three-car tramways in the city of the Cariocans, equipped with every modern device for comfort and safety, carrying daily the thous- ands of inhabitants of the Federal Capital through the busy streets and far out, ten miles and more, around the obstructing leafy loveliness of the City's palm-crowned hills, even to the most distant suburban edges of her ex- panding life, can scarcely realise how suddenly this trans- formation has occurred, or how efficient has been the man- ner of its achievement. It was only a little more than a decade since the visitor to Rio de Janeiro found himself jolted along over the narrow and un-macadamed streets in rattling mule-cars, and when he passed the mule barns, there were emitted upon the moist tropical air odours that were neither incense nor perfumes. It was a dis- tinction perhaps but not with appreciable difference, to his olfactories at least, from those somewhat earlier Bra- zilian days, before the city had arisen in her sanitary might, when the lover of Brazil nights, strolling out upon what is now the lovely Avenue Beira Mar, "moving in meditation, fancy free," was suddenly confronted by the 'Higers," or slaves who conveyed each night to the water's edge the accumulated sewage of the city, where the next tide swept it out to sea. There is a story connected with these open-sewer and mule-stable days, which the Brazilians, whose humorous sense often surpasses their pride in times now dead and gone, are wont sometimes to relate. An inhabitant of the Flumenensian city of these somewhat unprogressive THE TRIUMPH OF THE ENGINEER 137 and smelly daj's, while on a visit to Paris became very ill. All restoratives were applied in vain, until a French physician well acquainted with the Capital of Brazil was called in for consultation. He decided almost immedi- ately that it was impossible to expect the recovery of the patient unless he could breathe again his own, his native air. As the sick man could not return to Rio, the phy- sician prescribed that immediately there should be con- cocted in the sick-chamber a compound of the most "vil- lainous smells." According to the story, the invalid re- covered almost instantaneously. It was not because such conditions were especially fav- oured, but because south, as well as north of the equator, habit is inclined to be second nature. As Paul Laurence Dunbar said in one of his dialect poems : "We done get into ways We jus' can't help pursu'in." In the old Inca city of the Andes in Peru one of the town officers told me that for some time they had had money in the municipal treasury for sanitation (and I do not recall any place on the face of the planet where the immediate use of funds for this purpose was more in- sistent) but the inhabitants hesitated to vote it for this purpose, falling back on the time worn plea that their fathers had lived thus, why shouldn't they? We all re- member the play called "Milestones" which had much vogue in London, New York and other cities because of its true reflection of human traits; it revealed the pio- neers of one generation becoming the conservatives of the next, scouting the schemes of their sons which seemed to them to be risky and too foolhardy for trial. It was with such forces of adherence to the established and the customary, that the first promoters of electric energy had to deal in Brazil. The common answer to 138 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY the project of electric tramways in the Federal Capital, was *'nao pode" (you can't do it). The idea that cars almost as large and heavy again as those which the mules were tugging, with their great loads of humanity, could be made to go ''of themselves" with the impotent-look- ing assistance of a small wire, seemed too preposterous for credence. If the promoters had been dependent upon the Brazilian populace for capital to start their far-reach- ing enterprises, the day for the electrification of these cities would have been postponed to a much later date. As it was, it took nearly five years from the time the ideas began to take shape, to the granting by the Federal Gov- ernment, May 30th, 1905, rights to operate in Brazil to ' ' The Rio de Janeiro Tramway, Light and Power Com- pany, Limited"; this company had been incorporated June 11th of the previous year under the laws of the Dominion of Canada. The date was a notable one for the country as well as for the foreign company which received then privileges "to acquire and operate street railways, telephones and telegraphs, and for the exploitation of light, heat, force, by any energy, animal, steam, pneuma- tic, electric or mechanical in the Republic subject to the laws of the United States of Brazil. ' ' Already the Brazilians of the City of Sao Paulo had made beginnings in electric matters, the first service for the distribution of electric light being inaugurated by the "Companhia Agua & Luz Do Estado de Sao Paulo," dur- ing the year 1891, the generation being by steam at first with a 50 K.W. capacity. In 1900, the capacity of this plant was 300 K.W. The next step was the electric tram- ways and the record shows that on July 8th, 1897, the municipality of the Paulista Capital City signed a con- tract with the company with Brazilian name for the in- stallation of electric tramways, and on the 28th of Sep- tember, 1899, a contract for the distribution of electric current for light and power. In the same year these priv- THE TRIUMPH OF THE ENGINEER 139 ileges were purchased by the ^'Sao Paulo Tramway Light and Power Company Limited," which has always been in close affiliation with the Rio de Janeiro Company. The first electric car in Sao Paulo was inaugTirated on the 7th of May, 1900, the installation of Parnahyba, for the supply of electric current, generated hydraulically occurring in the ensuing year. The preliminary personal investigation of Dr. Pearson in this region, and the legal assistance given him by Mr. Alexander Mackenzie, later the President of the Canadian Company which was to work in Brazil, together with the many difficulties encountered, forms an interesting page in the history of foreign development of industrial effort in South America. The mule lines naturally fought the innovators, and for a time it kept the new electric com- pany busy repairing the tracks that were torn up by the opposing faction of the *'mule" regime. The large for- mer experience in such undertakings in other places in the North, and capital, for the lack of which the Brazil- ian Company found it necessary to sell its rights, finally won, and when the notable day in 1900 came when the first electric car made its trial trip in this fair city of the Paulistas, the whole city turned out to celebrate. The President of the State, Dr. Rodrigues Alves, opened the throttle of the engine ; Ex-President of Brazil Dr. Prudente de Moraes was in the power house ; Dr. An- tonio Prado, Mayor of the City, closed the line circuit breaker that protected the line, while a half dozen other Brazilian notabilities, each took some part in opening and closing switches; while the manager, Mr. R. C. Brown, a staid Boston man, with his assistants, superin- tended and ''watched that nobody got a shock." At 1 :30 P.M. on that fair May day in 1900, accompanied with the "Vivas" of a vast crowd of spectators, the first electric- ally promoted car of an organised system moved out of the power house beneath Brazilian skies, cari-ying its 140 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY full quota of passengers made up of the leading men of South Brazil, The first great electric tramway service in all South America was inaugurated, and the rejoicing Paulistas, by banqueting and "free rides to the pubHc" during the memorable day, made plain their appreciation of the significance of the event. Seventeen years have since rolled their progressive span over the forward-moving life of the Brazilian coffee state and the chief city of this great southern Union of commonwealths. The history told briefly and electric- ally is epitomised in the following recent note made by an industrial specialist: ' ' The State of Sao Paulo is rich in powerful waterfalls, which accounts for its large increase and developments of electric plants, giving light and power to about 150 cities and localities, and to the chief farms and manufac- turing industries of the whole territory. It is calculated that the hydraulic power in the state is 3,000,000 H.P., of which 250,000 H.P. have been developed for indus- trial uses. The most important power plant is that of the * Sao Paulo Tramway, Light and Power Co. ' at Par- nahyba, twenty-two miles from the city of Sao Paulo. It is owned by a Canadian Company, operating the street car lines of the Capital of the state, and supplying prac- tically all of the light and power used in the city. ' ' It is said that the Brazilian, like the Latin American generally, is not practical, that as Kipling might say, he is "without decimals in his brain." It is probably true that the ceremonialism and tendency to delay in making business decisions, often bring frenzy to the minds of men from northern countries accustomed to prompt and rapid methods. One also hears that the Brazilian is a man who puts great stress upon the present at the ex- pense often of the future enterprise, and that the pleas- ure-ground of life is more to him than the practice- ground. Still, he who follows the manner in which Brazil- THE TRIUMPH OF THE ENGINEER 141 ians have welcomed and co-operated in modern under- takings during the comparatively brief period of their republican civilisation (which in a manner different from any other polity gives the world a chance to see the real character of a people) will be slow to call the inhabitants of this Republic either a non-progressive or a non-indus- trial people. They have given huge concessions in order to attract men and money to their undeveloped country. They have resembled the Japanese in the commendable trait of not allowing foolish national pride to stand in the way of accepting means and methods which have brought success in other parts of the world. Though naturally conservative, and for generations isolated from other nations by geographical, as well as by trans- portation limitations, they have recently revealed a mo- dernity of feeling and action, especially along industrial and material lines, that is as amazing as it is promising for the future of Brazil. There are few better examples in the country of this Brazilian progressiveness and ready adaptability than that given in the study of the successful Light and Power Companies whose engineers have simply been the leaders in the two important cities of the country, while the work- ing out of many intricate details and most of the labour, have been accomplished by Brazilians themselves. In the Capital, for example, where the large task exists of furnishing electric energy to supply a city and surrounding district of nearly a million and a half of inhabitants, the Company having the work in hand em- ploys 6,773 men, all but a small handful of managers (for the most part Americans) being Brazilians. In the big gas works of the Rio de Janeiro Tramway, Light and Power Company, Ltd., the two foremen who take the re- sponsible positions are both graduate engineers from Brazilian institutions, one of them from an engineering school in the Capital City, and the other from Mackenzie 142 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY College in Sao Paulo. Three thousand men of the coun- try run the 1,181 electric tramways as motor-men and con- ductors; conveying yearly upwards of 190,000,000 pas- sengers; 869 Brazilians manufacture the gas which sup- plies 21,424 consumers in the City of Rio de Janeiro; there are 278 telephone girls, nearly all Brazilians, who attend the calls from 11,811 telephones installed in busi- ness houses and private residences ; while in the electric power and light division we find 583 men who have been trained to the efficient and highly responsible task of serv- ing 42,382 electric light consumers, and 2,216 users of electric power. Such figures, so easy to narrate, speak of tremendous achievement crowded into a period of time hardly more than a decade, for it was only in 1906, on the 24th of November, that the Company which has served the Cap- ital City of the Brazils so competently passed its first current from a temporary power plant 50 miles away in the Brazilian mountains, along its transmission line to Rio de Janeiro. Such facts also speak eloquently, not alone for the capacity of the Brazilian for training to serve with efficiency in one of the most intricate and tech- nical enterprises of the age, but they give, or should give, an abundant degree of confidence to foreign enterprises to consider this country as one of the great opportuni- ties of the century for large and intelligently directed in- dustrial development. It cannot be impressed too forcibly, however, that the foreigner or the foreign firm, be the line that of engineer- ing, railroading, making dock works or digging mines, looking toward Brazil as a field for action, must ever have in mind a high qualitative leadership, if any per- manent success is anticipated. The words of Mr. W. T. Nolting, whose extensi-'-e experience in the Philippines in connection with the United States Government has fitted him peculiarly for his responsible post as Agent THE TRIUMPH OF THE ENGINEER 143 for the Receiver of the Brazil Railway Company, speak- ing to this point, said : "Here in Brazil, we want to do things from the top down, rather than from the bottom up. The trouble with business in Brazil has been often that we have sent small agents and small men down here, men who are not only ignorant of the field and the language, but who also are without grasp and vision." In the study of the Light and Power Companies of Rio de Janerio and Sao Paulo, one comes to the conclusion that the instinct and intelligence with which Dr. Pearson and others in the beginning of the enterprise, selected the men who were to pioneer the work, formed a potent rea- son for its present triumph. This is evidenced in every branch and never more clearly than in the case of the present Vice President, Mr. F. A. Huntress, who has been the managing head of the enterpise in Brazil almost from the beginning. The unexpected and often exceedingly trying exigencies of a work so extensive and responsible as the lighting and transportation of a great city involves ; the many delicate negotiations with highly intelligent and cultured Government officials ; and that which is perhaps quite as important for success as all else, the ability of choosing and handling large bodies of men for industrial purposes — these are tasks requiring a high order of ability. That such proficiency has not been absent at any stage of the development, is abundantly apparent. It was my privilege, when in Rio de Janeiro, to visit the large gas works which are carried on by this enterprise under the name "Societe Anonyme du Gaz de Rio de Janeiro." This is a virtually new plant reconstructed in 1911, cov- ering an acreage of 136,000 square meters, and manu- facturing daily 110,000 cubic meters of gas for the use of the Federal Capital and District. It is interesting to note that this Federal District because of the configura- 144 THE BEAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY tion of the land and mountains is enormous, spreading over a territory more than double the area of Chicago or Philadelphia, and nearly one third larger than Greater New York. This entirely modern piece of work, than which there are few if any superior examples of the kind in any country, serves as a reserve power plant in ease the main electric power of the company should be disabled. It also gives the city 22,080 gas lamps, furnishes 23,305 gas appliances for domestic and industrial uses, incident- ally produces 175 tons of coke daily, manufactures 70,000 tons of creoline a month for disinfectant purposes, and utilises its graphite as a by-product of its flourishing en- terprise. The plant uses three hundred tons of coal daily, and in these times coal costs from $16.00 to $20.00 per ton in this section. Mechanical and automatic proc- esses have taken the place of manual labour to such an extent that, despite large increase of business, eighty men are doing more work than was accomplished in the old days with six hundred labourers. "A reduction of men-days," said the manager, ''is the object of all mod- ern industrial enterprises." The men who feed the big retorts receive nine milreis a day (about $2.25) and are among the well paid workmen in the city. The ordinary day labourer's rate in Rio de Janeiro is three milreis or about seventy-five cents. There are no trade unions in Brazil, and one is told that the workmen would not toler- ate a union of this kind at the present time. There are, however. Benefit and Protective Societies for workmen. Strikes have been so infrequent as to be practically negli- gible. Yet there is little doubt but that the problem of labour, to open and to develop her vast rich country in all its hidden parts, is one requiring Brazil's best and earliest study. Lying above her beautiful Federal Capital, form- ed by the strange configuration of mountains, is what the THE TRIUMPH OF THE ENGINEER 145 Cariocans call ''the Sleeping Giant" — Gavea forms the head, Corcovada furnishes the trunk and legs and Pao d* Assucar the feet. It is significant of the still drowsy, dormant streng-th of the land taken as a whole. At pres- ent the Giant is lacking human feet and human hands. ''Population" is one of the slogans of the awakening Brazil. The Portuguese, fresh from the old country, to- gether ^vith the strong Brazilian negro, make good day- labourers, but there are not enough. The Italian, the Po- lack, the German and the Hollandaise are assisting in the breaking of new lands for colonies, and the Brazilian whose training and inclination leads him to political, medical, engineering, mercantile or clerical pursuits is proving a match for any other nationality on his home ground. But the country could stand a tide of immigra- tion on a large scale, keeping in mind the United States, and learning from her failures as well as from her suc- cesses along this line. The Rio de Janeiro Light and Power Company is offer- ing opportunity as a training school for young Brazilians, not only in its divisions of tramways, power stations and lighting plants, but also in the reorganisation and pro- motion of a municipal telephone system which has made remarkable strides in the past seven years of supervision by this concern. With an entirely modern system based on the telephone experience and method in the United States, the Company has 57,864 miles of single and dis- tributing wires, with the control of a submarine cable to Nictheroy across the Bay, and "long distance" lines w^ith Petropolis, Sao Paulo and other sections. It has sent Brazilian girls to the United States to study and equip themselves for becoming chief operators at the four large exchanges; they returned as the pioneer "tele- phone girls" of Brazil, and in their turn have trained others who all together are handling 160,000 calls daily in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The company provides 146 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY rest rooms, restaurants and reading facilities for its "Ex- change" girls when they are off duty, not forgetting the essential Brazilian coffee which is served to the employ- ees free of charge. Thus we have some sidelights upon the story of one of Brazil's largest private * 'foreign" enterprises. It is a romance of big business through ducts and car-tracks, through tunnels and wire ganglions, transformers and gas-pipes. Brazil's romance in the past has been con- nected often with navigators and emperors, with many a famous name of State, and with lines of nobility worthy of national pride. Now she has entered the age of the engineer and the industrialist, no less worthy of honour and historic fame because they labour more quietly and often "behind the mountains.^' An old Chinese proverb runs: "Industries are the roots, while culture and statecraft are the flowers of a nation. " It is the man with blue-prints and sextant who is now leading this monstrous, potentially-undiscovered country to the fundamental natural and industrial sources of her wealth and greatness. There are many foreigners who are joining with some of the finest of Brazil's sons to follow the "whisper" that leads them "beyond the ranges." Among these and a multitude that are yet to come there will be sure citizenship, in the world of engi- neering pioneers, for the wizard of electrical construc- tion, Frederick Pearson, and that competent fraternity of light and power promoters who, in the great cities of Brazil, have followed in his train. XI SEEING RIO DE JANEIRO BY TRAMWAY We have been told that if we would know a people, we must know their songs. Taking perhaps undue liberty with this immortal saying, I would announce that if you would truly know a people you must study their tram- car behaviour. This statement is made with a perfectly clear conscious- ness that I am about to draw a somewhat invidious com- parison between the great city in which it is my honor to reside, and that fair tropical metropolis known as Rio de Janeiro. Not long ago it fell to my lot to conduct the highly cultured foreign Minister to the United States of an un- named European nation, from the Grand Central to my home in Riverdale, The diplomat had recently arrived in the country and having heard a great deal of our wonderful modern system of underground railways, he asked particularly that he might travel up-town that evening on the subway. I sugested that an automobile might be more comfortable at that hour (it was six o'clock) adding persuasively, and with a natural desire to have the first impressions of my distinguished guest favourable ones, that the subway cars were inclined to be somewhat crowded at this particular time of night. My diplomacy was most painfully ill-timed, for His Excel- lency immediately responded — "Ah, that decides it. I wish to see the people of this great city quite as much as the subway. The study of faces is a hobby with me. It is in fact my pet method of learning quickly the character 147 148 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY of a city." And with an official air he started toward the big letters '' Subway Entrance," while his conductor fol- lowed perforce, not without misgivings. For some intangible reason, best divined by the init- iated uptown passengers, I felt that my friendship was about to be shattered forever with this notability, and that furthermore the polished exterior of at least one diplomat from Southern Europe was soon to be partially if not utterly demolished. The outcome was even more tragic than I had dared to anticipate. The platforms were unusually jammed with muscular crowding human- ity. It was like going to death as to a festival. We hesi- tated. Again I suggested as firmly as I thought my sec- ondary rank permitted, the automobile, or at least ad- vocated waiting for the next train. My companion, though small in stature, had a fiery spirit and Spartan- like he demurred, and at the same moment we were swept into the vortex. It was now a matter of the survival of the fittest. In the joint endeavour to protect my guest and at the same time retain his hand-bag which I was clutching convulsively and which doubtless was filled with important State documents if not his speech which he was to deliver that evening, we became detached. His Excellency, whom I recognised by his shining top hat which had suffered, was firmly wedged into a cavity be- tween two cars where the roar of the train and the cold winter blasts added perceptibly to both his fright and discomfort. I tried to catch his eye to reassure him a bit, but he was pre-occupied in his attempts to dodge the quill of a lady's hat which threatened to blot out his eye- sight. At the Seventy-second Street Station we were all swept precipitately out on the platform, while the guard thundered in His Excellency's ear, "Let 'em out!" By dint of rapid foot-work I managed to reach my guest who in his unexpected egress has lost his hat, and was partially stunned by being mashed against a subway A FULL-GROWN COFFEE PLANT SEEING RIO DE JANEIRO BY TRAMWAY 149 pillar. He seized me as a drowning man clutches at a life-saver, and when his breath came again he exclaimed, *'Mon Dieu, what barbarity! In the language of your countrjTnen, 'nevaire again'!" It is hardly fair perhaps to place this incident over against the Latin American obsequiousness encountered on Rio de Janeiro's tramways (who knows what will hap- pen when the southern Capital has five million instead of one million street-railway passengers!) One is in- clined to surmise, however, that the Brazilians, with their penchant for chivalric decorum, would refrain from going to their offices at all, rather than subject their neat per- sons to such ruffling and humiliating returns therefrom. As a matter of fact the tramways in this southern city which carry in their 1,200 cars upwards of 200,000,000 passengers yearly, are among the agencies of which the people are justly proud. In spite of the 3,000 or more automobiles in the Federal Capital, every one likes to ride on the tramways, not only because of the efficiency with which they are managed, but also because they go everyAvhere, carrying one through scenery that is worth sight-seeing prices no matter in wliich direction one is being transported. One reason possibly for the excellence of this tramway service lies in the fact of its modernity, by which the best experience in such systems of transportation all over the world has here been incorporated. It was only a little over a decade ago, since 1906, that The Rio de Janeiro Tramway Company, having bought out the ancient mule- car system, sent its first electrically-driven tram cars through the streets of the Capital City. It is, in fact, in the memory of living Brazilians that the antique look- ing and acting omnibuses, or ''gondolas" as they were popularly called, were being driven with their loads of Cariocans through the narrow passageways of the old Im- perial city behind galloping mules. In the year 1857, the 150 THE BRAZILIANS AND^THEIR COUNTRY Rev. J. C. Fletcher, in his excellent picture of old-time conditions, furnishes the following account of city trans- portation in Rio de Janeiro : "The Brazilian omnibus is very much like its prototype in all parts of the world, with this single and very important exception : — it is not elastic. A New York or Philadelphia omnibus is proverbially 'never full'; but the same kind of vehicle in Rio can be filled, and when once complete, the conductor closes the door, cries 'Vamos embora' (Let us be off), the driver flourishes his long thong and sets his four-mule team into a gallop. Away we go, rattling across gutters as if there were none, and rushing through narrow streets as though negro water- carriers had no existence. It is curious to behold the heavy-laden slaves clearing the streets and dodging into open shop-doors as an omnibus api3ears in sight. Few accidents occur; and, when they do, prompt reparation is made. . . . The streets, with their diminutive sidewalks, are so narrow that in many of them only one vehicle can pass at a time; . . . narrow ruas which doubtless had their origin in the desire to procure shade." All these have long since disappeared, together with the mule-cars which came later, and co-incident with the recent remaking of the city there came a network of elec- tric tramways threading the metropolis in every direc- tion and worthy of favourable comparison with any sys- tem of its kind in any part of the world. The unified system now owned and operated by The Rio de Janeiro Light and Power Cbmpany, Limited, embraces more than 200 miles of trackage, gives employment to 2,922 men who work on the tramways, and the total number of miles that the various kinds of cars run yearly is con- siderably over 24,000,000. As the summer climate is virtually continuous in Rio de Janeiro throughout the year (the thermometer show- ing an average temperature of 70 degrees Fahrenheit for the last 40 years) the tramways consist entirely of open cars, and the system involves one or two "trailer" cars, attached to the main passenger car; these "trailers" are used not only for passengers, but there are specials for SEEING RIO DE JANEIRO BY TRAMWAY 151 workmen and servants who wish to travel, carrying their burdens of baggage or produce along with them. For the latter purpose, the tramways provide wide spaces between the seats, where ample room is furnished for bags of Bra- zilian beans (the staple food for the lower classes espe- cially), for market baskets, huge bunches of pine-apples, trunks and hand-baggage, in fact for anything of moder- ate size wliich the Cariocan wishes to transport. The trailers for this purpose are usually second-class cars, and half prices are charged for day-labourers, whose soiled working garments do not consort with the fault- lessly dressed Brazilian men and women. This feature is worthy of emulation on the part of tlie street car companies of the United States. Let him speak who has been forced to ride for an half hour or more by the side of a frugal East-Side housewife, taking home her Sunday supply of garlic, onions, or perchance the cheese that alas, neither cheers nor inebriates. The protest also of the down-trodden passenger should be heard regarding the feeling of his pedal extremities, which he has been obliged to drape or straddle about a huge suit-case, or a milliner's hat-box, of the size of a bushel-basket, while the owner looks meditatively the other way or reads his paper with a nonchalance that would deceive a detective as to the rightful owner of the obstructing impedimenta. Such sufferers w^ould find Brazil a traveller's elysium of uninsulted nostrils and un- benumbed legs. The slogan in the Rio de Janeiro tram- ways is ' ' No bundles allowed " ! If, by chance, a foreign- er, accustomed to follow the first law of wise tourists, never to get separated from his baggage, drags along after him into the tram-car his London bag or American suitcase, the conductor appears at his side instanter with smiles and bows, and before the traveller is scarcely aware, his baggage is safely riding upon the back plat- 152 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY form or on the ''trailer/' while he pays a small additional fare for the same. The rates of fare are reasonable, beginning at 100 reis, about 2l^ cents, for short distances, and increasing as one goes to the far-away termini of the roads which are situated from eight to ten miles on the periphery of the far-extending city. The service of these street-railways in relieving the congested parts of the city, and creating the possibility of new residence districts along the Atlan- tic sea shore and far up on the green sides of the hills, which overlook in splendid panoramas the city and the sea, has been noteworthy. When it comes to courtesy, the politeness of the Rio tramway conductors and officials generally, is imme- diately impressed upon the visitor from the northern 13art of the hemisphere. It would make a conductor of a Broadway car grow faint at the mere mention of it. Try to imagine anywhere in the "States" a trolley-car func- tionary touching his cap as a sign of respect when re- ceiving your nickel. One day the writer saw the con- ductor of a Rio tram-car stop his car to wait for an elderly lady whom he chanced to see leaving her resi- dence somewhat too tardily to catch the train; the lady was at least three fourths of a square away, and when she reached the car, this aider and abettor of public con- veyance stepped down, helped the old lady mount the steps, starting his train only after he had made sure that she was comfortably seated. Meanwhile, what of the waiting passengers? In this case there were by count be- tween fifty and sixty in the main car, and the two trailers behind it. "We noted their expressions; there was no sign of impatience on any face as far as we could see. Every one seemed to take the action as a matter of course. ' * Surely the conductor was in duty bound to con- sider a lady's convenience," the countenances seemed to say. SEEING RIO DE JANEIRO BY TRAMWAY 153 A misunderstanding concerning the right fare takes the form of a polite conversation rather than an angry argu- ment, and one rarely misses the presence of unfailing civility on the part of both the conductor and the con- ducted. It is a further reminder of the leisurely and ur- bane life germane to life in the Brazilian tropics. ''Never to be too busy to be respectful!" is the unwritten rule; not ''business is business," regardless of affability as too often in more utilitarian countries, but business along with courtesy and good form, and always to be polite about it in any case. The tram-cars of Rio are usually well-filled but not crowded and rarely jammed, since the prescribed number of seats being taken, there is no chance to stand, save on the back platform ; the late comers wait for the next car or take a "taxi." The arrangement of the cars is like our open tramways in North America in summer time. Smoking is allowed on all but the first three seats, but the Cariocans who apparently smoke less, at least in public, than do the Americans or Europeans, rarely ob- trude their cigarette smoke obnoxiously in public con- veyances. The politeness of man to man is especially noticeable throughout the country. The lifting of hats, the constant handshaking, and the unique affectionate embrace com- mon among men when meeting, all over Latin America, sometimes described a bit vulgarly by foreigners as "back-slapping salutations" are the regular habits of street etiquette. When a gentleman must perforce pass in front of you in boarding a car in order to secure his seat, he invariably touches his hat saying "com licenca" (with your permission) and is answered in like motion by the man whose knees or polished shoes he may have endangered in his passage. During a considerable use of tramways in this Republic, I do not recall a single iu- 154 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY stance of rowdyism, or rudeness or loud haggling over fares. With all their formalities the Brazilian passenger list of the tramways is the most democratic possible. Brazil has been putting off rapidly her old Imperial distinc- tions, and an ordinary street car in the Federal Capital furnishes as heterogeneous and kaleidoscopic effect as the top of a Parisian omnibus. More of the latter in fact, as the black, the mulatto, the mameluco and the octo- roon are all here along with the white inhabitant. The foreign Ambassador may find his seat alongside the ebony black hotel porter, and the wife of the Minister may be sitting beside her negress laundry woman. The almost total disregard for colour lines in this part of the world, where the colour of children does not always match that of their parents, was brought home to an American lady recently who chanced to be sitting by two black children on a car when the conductor coming for his col- lections, first received the lady's fare, and then address- ing her said — "The fares for the children, Senhora," and seeing the northern lady look a bit confused he added, ''Aren't those children yours?" As the tramways weave about through the narrow streets of the older parts of the city, one gets passing visions of Brazilian life. There are small houses so flat on the tops that one might imagine some ocean typhoon had blown off sheer the upper story. They bear all the colours of the rainbow, pink and brilliant blue predomi- nating, with occasionally a violet colour or a green one to furnish contrast. There are no verandas, but every window in this quarter is full of heads, interested be- holders of the happenings of the street. In the more fashionable sections it is considered somewhat infra dig to lean out of the windows, but among the poorer classes it seems to constitute the chief amusement of the women especially, to rest their elbows upon the window sill and SEEING EIO DE JANEIRO BY TRAMWAY 155 converse with or watch their neighbours. This they do by the hour, "getting corns on their elbows," as one visitor vividly expressed it. This process, which the American would probably style *' rubbering," forms a custom so delectable that one is told by real estate deal- ers that a house in full view of the tram-car line rents for considerably more than one less fortunately placed. Wlien nothing better offers, the pretty daughter of the household may watch the trams go by, and perchance at- tract an admirer by her freshly powdered face and elabo- rately dressed hair. It may be well in many cases that the passing glance does not reveal the fact that the black-eyed senhorita, who looks so charming from the window may be dressed for show-window purposes, and that the pretty white blouse may be a dressing jacket, and her feet clad only in heel- less slippers such as are worn by the Brazilian middle class in their homes. The inhabitants, like the homes in these streets, should be seen from the front. They are both arranged with this intent. It was not without cer- tain penetration that some Brazilian house-builders, who work all kinds of stucco designs on the fronts of these diminutive houses, are called "architectural cake-f rost- ers." It seems temperamental in these parts to wish to make a good surface impression (and this is not limited to Brazilians) ; and many a person will appear in public in rich clothing and flashing jewelry, although they have but one good room in the house, and may be obliged to eat black beans and mandioca for dinner. In spite of the changing scenes of perpetual interest in the streets of this city, there is something far more fascinating to the tramway tourist than the well-man- aged cars, the passengers, or the people in their homes along the way. The natural surroundings of Rio de Janeiro make it by far the most fascinating of all the world's cities. As Lord Bryce remarks in his "Impres- 156 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY sions," '*In such a city, the curious traveller does not need to hunt for sixteenth-century churches or quaint old colonial houses. Enough for him that the settings of the buildings are so striking. The strong light and the deep shadows, and the varied colours of the walls and roofs of the houses, the scarlet flowers climbing over the walls, and the great glossy dark green leaves of the trees that fill the gardens, with incomparable backgrounds of rock and sea, — all these are enough to make the streets de- lightful." The tramways of Rio take you through gardens of fruit and foliage as luxuriant as can be found in California, Calcutta or the Kew Gardens of London; they afford views of a harbour and Bay which make the traveller for- get even the Japanese Miajima and her artistic torriis ; while neither Naples nor Edinburgh, Hongkong nor San Francisco can ever hope to equal the tropical splen- dour of this environment. The nature-lover may spend his patrimony, turning his purse into his eyes, in order to behold the Himalayas in all of their Northern-India beauty, or spend his superlatives upon the majesty of the Yosemite Valley and Arizona's Grand Cailon; yet this mountain-locked Brazilian bay, which seems as one looks down upon it caught and held in the sunshine amidst the green bizarre-shaped shafts of mountain summits with their dripping tangled jungle growths — the forests, the city, the granite islands with their waving palms rambling in yellow sunlight over her hills, beyond the sparkling sea and above the giant wall of the Serra do Mar coast range — these taken together are without rival or counterpart. Here, as amid the changing lights and shadows of the Syrian mountains that are round about Jerusalem, the Hebrew singer might proclaim: "The heavens declare the glory of God, And the firmament sheweth His handiwork." SEEING RIO DE JANEIRO BY TRAMWAY 157 It has been said that one learns more from a little see- ing than from reading many books. I only wish that I could adequately portray what eye pictures these rides about Rio de Janeiro stamp upon one's memory. There are two great central stations from which the tramw^ays start to cover widely extended areas. One is at the Hotel Avenida, which has been for years to tourists at least a kind of Boston Common, or Place de 1 'Opera, from which sight-seeing and geographical city calcula- tions begin and end. This big brick-coloured hotel is the pivot of a never-ending swirling circle of tram-cars start- ing here for the various routes leading to the southern portions of the city. In New York we say to the sight- seer, * ' Get on top of a Fifth Avenue bus and ride to the end of the line." In Rio, they tell you: ''Go to the Avenida Central and take any car and stay on it." I followed this latter direction on the night we arrived in the city of the Flumenenses. It w^as a five-mile ride of continuous night-beauty in the tropics, in and out along the famous modern boulevards, Beira Mar, Flamengo (so named because of the birds that frequented this par- ticular part of the bay), circling the half arc of Botafogo, at once a sea-speedway and an electrically lighted gar- den, until we reached the shadows below Pao d'Assucar; here we had our first vision of that barren sentinel, driven up more than thirteen hundred feet into the sky and in its silhouette resembling a huge granite tooth. Here came the vision also of that dancing light of Sugar Loaf's aerial car like a lofty fire-fly, as it floats along its invisi- ble wire, carrying its passengers across the dizzy height to the top of this mountain, where Rio and its Bay look like a phantom city seen in dreams. Your tramway leaves the sea-shore to dodge into fine wide streets, set on either side with rich Brazilian homes — no half-houses these — but palatial looking amidst their palms with high ornamented fences in front. For a mo- 158 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY ment your car is caught into a skein of other tramways that centre in front of the Largo do Machado Park with its tropical vestments through which the outline of the Church of San Francisco, the worshipping place of Rio de Janeiro's aristocracy, is faintly seen. It was here as the tram-train rolled along before the entrance of the fashionable Avenue de Larangeiras, that I caught my first transient glimpse of Corcovado, which seemed to be springing directly out of this residence-district of the city's well-to-do. In my year of crowded experiences in South America, this first five-cent tram-ride in the city beneath the Southern Cross is associated most satisfac- torily in retrospect with palm-filled esplanades, with plazas crowded with luxuriant foliage and bronze statues of Portuguese knights, with visions of curving beaches singing softly with incoming tides, and mixed with the odour of tropical flowers, the gently stirring breath of the Trade winds, salt with many seas. By taking other cars one follows for a time the course described above, then passing through a tunnel in the mountains finds himself skirting the ocean side through Ipanema and Copacabana residential sections, the beach as fine as that at Atlantic City and marked by costly dwellings, which from this point have broad prospects over the defile through which ocean liners steam into Guanabara Bay ; beyond to the right is the vista of open sea. Here the '^league-long rollers" are always thunder- ing in, and the long stretches of white sand are dotted the year around with children in their "sand-clothes" and ocean bathers. There is a common and popular custom among Brazilians of early morning bathing, which is en- joyed to the full within the limits of the quiet bay, and especially on the Nictheroy side, where many Cariocans spend their holidays in the warmest months, during De- cember, January and February. There is perhaps no more quaint or picturesque trip SEEING RIO DE JANEIRO BY TRAMWAY 159 to be taken than the tram service starting at the Largo de Carioca and climbing to Sylvestre on the moun- tain side. The crossing of the famous old aqueduct through which Rio used to get its water carries one high above the houses of the immediate neighbourhood, and afterwards ^\'inds about the leafy hills amid pleasant villas with ever recurring snap-shot views of the city lying below. It is in connection with this route that the nature-admirer can take the Corcovado Railway, one of the most fascinating of all mountain railroads, two and one third miles in length, carrjdng one through primeval forests which seem little changed since the foot of man was first heard sounding in this Brazilian wilderness of exuberant growths. The road takes the sight-seer up the steep mountain side 2,180 feet, landing him only about 130 feet below the precipitous smmnit of the world-re- nowned "Hunchback" or Corcovado peak. Near the summit there has been constructed an hotel whose situa- tion and far vision of the valleys and distant sea form one of the permanent memories of all travellers. There are superb mountain trails from this point following for a time along an old moss-grown aqueduct, then far up into the thick forest the home of orchids, tropical plants and gleaming-coloured butterflies. The forest lover is here always '* knee-deep in June": in George Barley's lines, "Green haunts, and deep enquiring lanes, Wind through the trunks their grassy trains. . . . Millions of blossonis, fruits and gems, Bend with rich weight the massy stems; Millions of restless dizzy things, With ruby tufts and rainbow wings, Speckle the eye-refreshing shades, Burn through the air, or swim the glades; As if the tremulous leaves were tongues, Millions of voices, sounds, and songs, 160 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY Breathe from the aching trees that sigh, Near sick of their own melody." Still these are not the only tramway privileges in Rio, for another system, starting from the famous Square Quinze de Novembro, is almost as interesting, penetrat- ing the central, northern and western portions of the city in some cases to the length of nine miles of continuous travel. From this point one starts for the Zoological Gardens, the new port works of which the Federal City is justly proud, the Jockey and Derby Club race-tracks, where Cariocans flock to the horse-races on Sunday after- noons, the National Museum situated in the beautiful gar- dens once the home of the Emperor; the Government Ministries, and the ride particularly notable up the moun- tain side to Alto da Boa Vista, 1178 feet above sea-level, set like a green jewel in the side of the Tijuca range. He who connects his tramway journey with the forty mile automobile drive about Tijuca will be ready to say in the words of the old Mogul Emperor of his palace in Agra — ''If there be a paradise on earth, it is here, it is here ! ' ' It is through such matchless scenery that the Rio de Janeiro tramways carry more than a half a million pas- sengers daily. No one wonders that the enterprise which stands in Portuguese to the Cariocans as "A Light" has brought forth admiration and appreciation. As far as it would seem possible during the last decade, it has brought to the inhabitants of the fair city by the sea, both men and methods to match her mountains. XII ELECTRIC ENERGY TRANSFORMING BRAZIL It is related that some years ago, an employee of Mr. Thomas Edison entered by chance at an early hour the Edison laboratory, and there found the great inventor alone and uttering aloud this petition : "0, Mysterious Electric Force, give me, I pray, to-day your secret ! Tell me to-day what I wish to know !" The goddess of electrical energy, if there be one, seems to have heard and answered the famous magician's prayer, for wherever one may go to-day even to the utter- most parts of the earth, the incandescent lamp is there before him, and the name ''Edison" is a household word. In sequestered villages far up in the hills of the Sunrise Kingdom, I have seen this tiny and familiar in- candescent shining through the rice-paper shojis of the Japanese peasant's tiny house; and in the fastnesses of the Jura mountains in North Africa, I have been amazed to find among otherwise century-late traditions this bright herald of modem invention, gleaming in a Kabyle hut. It may almost be said that wherever there is power in the watercourses of the hills, there is to-day, not only the possibility but the presence of that illuminating and industrial energy which has transformed so largely civi- lisation in the present generation. It has been said that the two great interests of hu- manity are usefulness and beauty. Electric energy is peculiarly the servant par excellence of both. I know of 161 162 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY no place on the planet where this is better demonstrated than in Brazil, especially in the Federal Capital of that great Republic, where much of its present day industrial- ism, its transportation, its power plants, its telephones and its blaze of evening splendour shining out forty-five miles seaward, has its hydraulic spring far up in the Brazilian hills. In the year 1905, there was practically not an electric light in the city of Rio de Janeiro, and in 1907 there were only two or three small individual plants for private business houses. To-day there are 8,759 public street electric arc lights, 1,126 incandescent public street and 836,269 private electric lamps, in this, without doubt, the best electrically lighted city in the world. One may imagine something of the illumination of this Capital when it is stated that along the Avenue of Rio Branco to the end of Botafogo, a distance of only about four miles, there are 477 great electric arc lamps which together with other lesser lights, turn the tropical nights of Rio de Janeiro boulevards almost into day. New York City with its matchless ''White Way" and all its wealth of electric night beauty arouses wonder; but Rio de Ja- neiro's existence can be seen on the brightening horizon, at a distance four times farther at sea than the lights of the northern Metropolis are visible. The large terminal station, and the three sub-stations, where the high 80,000 voltage from the hydraulic mountain station is trans- formed for various city uses, are impressive by reason of their modern technical perfection; they also reveal the immense adventure of capital and efficiency with which the Rio de Janeiro Tramway, Light and Power Company has so successfully undertaken to furnish elec- tric energy for a million and a half of population, occu- pying the Federal District of Brazil. It is because of the knowledge of the large service thus rendered in making this Capital of a country, comprising ELECTRICITY TRANSFORMING BRAZIL 163 more than half of all South America, so truly notable, that visitors to Brazil are eager to see with their own eyes the piece of hydraulic engineering situated on the tropical rivers in the foot-hills of the Serras. He who is fortunate enough to receive an invitation to visif Lages" (the popular term to denote the Rio das Lages, the river Lages, meaning *'big rocks") begins his journey from the Federal City, on the Central Railroad of Brazil. He has before him a fifty mile ride to the lake in the mountains whose relation to Rio de Janeiro is vital to that city in proiDortion as light, motor power, gas plants, telephones and electric force generally applied, are vital to twentieth-century happiness and necessity. Whatever direction may be taken in leaving this unique city, the impression is gained that this is the angle from which Rio shows its most attractive face. Like certain well-painted portraits, she seems always to wear an ex- pression meant particularly for you. The trip to Lages is no exception. At first the train winds about the pic- turesque Cidade Nova, whose green hillsides are dotted by the small one-room houses of Rio's inhabitants of slender means. The palms, the roofs of red tile and the bright sunshine remind one of Algiers. As the train moves upward on the main road toward Sao Paulo, the perspective widens. You are on the ankles of that great mountain range, extending from latitude 5 degrees south to latitude 30 degrees south, and which breaks down abruptly on the east to the Atlantic, and more gently on the west toward the great undulating plateau of Central Brazil. This plateau is approximately 800 miles long and 300 miles in width, and it contains some of the richest hopes of the country. These Brazil- ian mountains range from 2,000 to 3,000 feet in height, though some are higher, notably the loftiest summit, Italiaya, southwest of Rio de Janeiro about 50 miles, which is a tropical mountain 10,000 feet in elevation. No 164 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY more richly wooded or verdant mountain scenery is to be found in any tropical zone than greets the traveller, as his eye wanders over these sunlit slopes that melt down into wide valleys or seas of vivid blue. It is into this section, which is a part of the oldest re- gion, geologically, of the South American Continent, older even than the vast volcanoes of the Andes, that we are setting our faces now as we leave on our left Cor- covada, looming with intimate impressiveness, and also Tijuca with the rain clouds hanging like soft grey gar- lands about her head. ''When Tijuca has her cap on" (when her head is cloud-capped), the Flumenenses say, "it is going to rain." The suburban stations are quickly passed and you are ascending into the Brazil of your old geography, where the trees are flower-covered and vine-entwined; — and there are beginning to be signs of the country that the Brazilians call the "Matto," meaning a half-way station between the jungle and the plain. When Belem is reached the traveller is thirty-eight and one half miles from the Federal Capital, and he now turns from the main Brazil Central Railroad to take a branch railway called the Ramal de Paracamby. With every mile of progress henceforth, rural Brazil becomes more and more tangible. The heavy jungle growth on either side of the train, creepers, ferns, shrubs and a hundred para- sitic forms, are the beds of exuberant vegetation and for- estry of which no one knows even the names, all filled with equatorial wonder and the sense of remoteness. A torrential flood of mountain rain is emptied upon you from the overhanging cloud, and you remember that you are in the land where the average yearly rainfall is over 59 inches, and where tropical sunshine, quickly exchanged for tropical showers, makes the provision of rain-clothes a wise provision. Before the car-windows can be closed, torrents pour in upon one seemingly in buckets-full ; very ELECTRICITY TRANSFORMING BRAZIL 165 soon we have passed out of it and find ourselves again beneath sunny skies at the Lages station 42 miles from Rio de Janeiro. Here we take the Company's private railway which carries us in a constant climb for 13i/^ miles through healthy uplands and luxuriant foliage to the big power house, the greatest d>mamo in all Brazil for the conversion of water power into electric currents. Far back in the sixteenth century the hardy and astute Portuguese navigators and explorers seemed to have sur- mised, as they revealed in their thrilling annals of dis- covery, that Brazil was a land of mighty rivers and al- most limitless natural wealth, securely locked away in her mountain fastnesses. Yet they could not be expected to have dreamed even of this twentieth century hydraulic, half -human power station set here in the heart of Bra- zilian rivers, lakes and water-falls, for their subjection and utilisation in the interests of mankind. But, leaving for a time the Power Station, we proceed, still mounting skyward, and this time almost literally, for we are drawn up a steep incline which at its steepest grade is fifty-seven per cent., a quick rise of more than one thousand feet in a car operated by three hundred horse power motor and steel rope — wondering mean- while where we had placed our accident insurance policy. Thus picturesquely we are brought into the midst of the Lages property belonging to that Light and Power Com- pany. During the short span of ten years this Company has developed here among Brazilian mountains and streams, a territory composed of 33,116 acres, situated, for the most part, more than 1,300 feet above the level of the Atlantic Ocean, from which it is utilising daily 1,000,000 cubic metres, or tons, of water to make electric energy for a population dwelling more than fifty miles distant on the fair shores of Guanabara Bay. The history of this development forms a notable chap- 166 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY ter in the romantic story of modern progress in the new Brazil. As has been stated, this enterprise owes its conception to the vision and energy of American engineers. The task of fixing on a site for a big dam which would store up the water power locked within these hills and flowing away in several rivers, was not easy. It required many months of investigation and prospecting. On the 30th of November, 1905, the work was begun, concessions having been obtained from the Government for a considerable territory along the Lages River. During the time the large dam in the river was under construction, a tempo- rary plant was inaugurated, using a water-fall imme- diately below the point where the dam was being built. There was also a steam plant in Rio de Janeiro which was being used to furnish power to run the tramways, while these hydraulic works were being completed. It was a work of no small magnitude, far greater than the construction which had been previously conducted with such success in Sao Paulo. Between fourteen hundred and fifteen hundred men were employed in the construc- tion. When on the fourteenth of February, 1908, the per- manent Lages Station began to furnish the hydraulic power for the City of Rio de Janeiro and its suburbs, a new epoch was marked in the progress of this Metropolis. Dr. F. S. Pearson's dream had become a reality, and al- though his eyes were not destined to see the present accomplishment which is expanding with every passing year, Brazilian history will not fail to award him his de- served meed of praise. It was after this hydraulic development had been pro- viding the sinews of electric force for nine years or more to the new Rio de Janeiro that my visit was made, affording not only the opportunity of studying a section of the greatest private enterj)rise in the country, but also the privilege of seeing a bit of Brazilian rural life which ELECTRICITY TRANSFORMING BRAZIL 1G7 often gives a truer index than the cities to the future of a nation. Subsequent to our arrival at the summit of the steep incline, to which reference has been made, we drove for a mile and a half along roads which seemed to be cut out of the sheer side of the hills, through scenic views of extraordinary beauty. We were now en route to the Company's ''fazenda," the home of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Bevan, the keepers of the light and power at Lages, whose hospitality is as free and openhanded as that for which the Brazilian planter's home has been notable through the years. The "fazenda," or farm, on wiiich the superintendent lives, is an old Brazilian country seat which was made the headquarters of this division of the light and power work at the time the construction activities were begun. The farm house is situated on a hill that overlooks well- kept gardens and is surrounded by trees and flowering shrubbery all of which grow with rich luxuriance in this favoured land. There are long rows of little houses, mak- ing a right angle with the ' ' f azenda, ' ' and which formerly was the slave-quarter of this Brazilian country house, but which are now used for the homes of the employees, and shops and stables accompanying the work of a large estate. For ten years, Lages has afforded labour for hundreds of men who are kept busy in the great pow- er-house, at the reservoirs, and in connection with the important and responsible task of guarding the motive energy which supplies electric facilities to the new Rio de Janeiro. One of the first things to attract the visitor's attention at Lages, are the great pipe lines through which the water is carried from the reservoir first to the valve house and then to the power plant. These vast water-canals that run over hill and valley consist of nine high pressure pipe lines, each 2,198 feet in length, making a total of 168 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY 19,782 feet. The low pressure pipe lines, two in num- ber, are eight feet in diameter; each one is 5,524 feet in leng-th. The total length of the pipe lines between the reservoir and the power house is 7,722 feet, and the total feet of steel canals in use is 30,831 feet, or approximately six miles. The water of the Brazilian lakes is thus poured into the great hydraulic power house through a massive system of high and low pressure pipes, into the construction of which there has gone 15,600,000 pounds of steel. The eight foot pipe line leads to a large receiver in the valve house and from this receiver the high pressure pipe lines are tapped to the individual units. Every pre- caution is taken against possible shut down. There are valves on all pipes which can be operated hydraulically, or by hand, and these can be operated from the power house electrically in case of emergency. The valve sys- tem is such that any line can be shut down for repairs or for inspection without interfering with the general operation of the station. The lines are thoroughly protected against excessive pressure due to surging, which may be caused by short circuits on the transmission line or from other causes, by relief pipes on the hill side, as well as by an automatic relief valve on each unit in the power house. Each unit has a Venturi meter installed which measures the water passing through each pipe. No one can examine this highly expensive and carefully constructed system of water-carrying tubes without being filled with respect for the manner in which almost every conceivable emergency has been anticipated. In fact, the entire hydraulic de- velopment at Lages forms a remarkable example of pro- ficient foresight. This foresight and efficiency are abundantly evident in the Lages power house, a huge steel and concrete build- ing 321 feet long, 95 feet wide and 111 feet in height, ELECTRICITY TRANSFORMING BRAZIL 169 which transmits electric current to Rio de Janeiro through its transformers at 88,000 volts. The visitor finds himself launched in this building into a vast congeries of turbines, generators, regulators, ex- citers, auxiliary pumps, switch boards and transformers — aU of the latest pattern and impressive of the tremen- dous power lying behind them in the distant mountains. The power house is constructed for a capacity of 100,- 000 II. P. The turbines are of the impulse type, mounted on vertical shafts, developing power from jets of water directed tangentially against buckets attached to the rim of a wheel. To the same vertical shaft is attached the generator. There are six 9,000 H. P. Escher Wyss impulse tur- bines, and two 20,000 H. P. Escher Wyss turbines, all of the same type, made in Zurich. There are four exciters of 1,350 H. P. capacity. The distribution system of the power house is divided into four sections connected by a loop bus system. Any one or two sections may be cut out and the others con- nected by a suitable switching system. This makes it almost impossible to shut the station down completely. Every precaution is taken to avoid a shut down, and very few power houses in any part of the world can equal the record of 1916, when power was not off the trans- mission line once during the year. It was interesting to note that all electrical apparatus in the power house was of American make. This is by far the largest and most complete hydraulic power house in South America. From the power house to the Lages reservoir or lake, is a distance by way of pipe lines of 2,353 metres or about 9,000 feet. After a horseback ride of nearly two miles from the power house, one turns around a sharp bend in the road and comes face to face with a great half circle of glistening water, which on the day I visited the 170 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY reservoir was rolling over the dam at 43 centimetres or 17 inches in depth above the spillway. This dam, which is the form of an arch and one of the most remarkable pieces of work at Lages, is 115 feet high, 720 feet in length and is keyed into the solid rock both at the bottom and also at considerable depth on the two hillsides which form the walls of the outlet of the lake. The elevation of the base of the dam above sea level is 370 metres or 1,213 feet ; the elevation of the spillway or high water mark is 404 metres or 1,325 feet ; and the capacity between the elevations is 210,000,000 cubic metres, or 7,415,940,000 cubic feet of water. This dam converts the Lages river into a lake twenty- one and one-half miles in length, a most beautiful sheet of water with a total area of seven and seven-tenths square miles. The reservoir occupies the valleys of Lages, the Pedras, and the Araras rivers, whose waters it commands, as well as the new tunnel which conveys the Pirahy River waters. After a sail in the Company's launch for about twenty miles through the graceful curves of this artificial body of water, we exchanged the launch for horses with which we were to make our way through the valley and over the mountains pierced by the Pirahy tunnel, to the source of this tunnel near the small town of Rio Claro. This is at a point not far from the great notch in the lofty Serra Coast Range through which one passes to enter the State of Sao Paulo. The view from the top of the range of hills, beneath which the Pirahy tunnel has been con- structed, is unforgetable, and is peculiarly impressive of the vast undertaking which has brought waters of the Pirahy and other smaller streams into direct and ready use as a reserve power for the Lages water supply. Shortly before our visit there had been a heavy flood ELECTRICITY TRANSFORMING BRAZIL 171 dne to the heavy summer rains in the mountains. The country roads were buried at frequent intervals beneath the red Brazilian clay which the landslides from the steep hills had brought down, carrying trees, rocks and shrubs with them. In some cases one noted that these slides had been accelerated during the heavy rains by crevices caused by ant runs which perforate the soil and require constant watchfulness in these regions. Work- men were busy all along the way clearing the roads, build- ing new bridges, and resetting the telephone poles in order that constant and ready communication may be kept between every part of these widely extended sta- tions. Those who have not visited these mountain regions can hardly appreciate how quickly the rivers are over- flowed by the sudden deluge that flows down from the loftier ranges. During our visit an hour's rain in one of these parts registered a fall of two and one half inches, and during the rainy season the entire force of men, ex- tending along a range of 50 miles, must be ready to give attention both night and day to the guardianship of the complicated chain of arrangements which serve the Capi- tal city of the Brazils with its all-important light and power. At every hour of the day and night each section of this vast waterway is in direct telephonic communi- cation with the manager's offices in the city of Rio which provides for the instant attention to every possible emer- gency. I was impressed with the sense of responsibility which seemed to rest upon every man along the line. As ^he superintendent of Lages said, ''Eternal vigilance is the price of safety and efficiency when one is dealing with Nature, which in the tropics is so erratic." One has ample opportunity in this horse back trip of 10 miles from the head of the Lages Lake to the begin- ning of the famous Pirahy tunnel, not only to observe the condition of the rural Brazilian countiy side, but also to study the people to whom the company gives land for 172 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY colonisation purposes and for whose welfare it has ex- ercised a beneficent influence. This section for the most part is out of touch with rail- roads and cities and the Brazilians who have built their houses on the company's property and who are support- ing themselves almost entirely by the produce of these lands, are exceedingly primitive. We found steep hills cultivated to their tops and reminding us of the table lands of Peru and the terraced cultivation of the moun- tain sides of Japan. Here one finds hill sides waving with corn and mandioca, which, with the ever present Brazilian beans and rice, furnish the staple food of the people of this section. There is also rice in the bottom lands and coffee grows readily in this fertile soil. The harnessing of the streams seems to be contagious in this region and even the humblest cultivator has built a water wheel fashioned in a crude way to run a small mill which grinds his coffee, corn and mandioca. The houses are made of mud mixed with coarse grass, *'Sape," and palm leaves thatched with the coarse "Sape" grass or occasionally with tiles, and existence is a fairly simple problem in this semitropical section. Within the mud floored homes one finds only the simple necessities, a few chairs and a rough table, and a primi- tive looking stove often with no chimney, while the mem- bers of the family sleep on boards with mattresses placed upon them made from rushes. The man of the house raises a little tobacco, dries it and prepares it himself, and the traveller will see him at evening time sitting outside his little hut, smoking his home-made cigarette, the cover of which is made out of corn husk. This smok- ing concoction would hardly please the taste of the more critical city dweller, but here in the Brazilian ''Matto" where there are no lights or "Movies" for evening re- creation, the native cigarette smoked by a circle of friends outside the doors of the thatched cottages, with ELECTRICITY TRANSFORMING BRAZIL 173 a possible glass of ^^aguardente," the native whiskey made out of cane juice distilled, becomes the main source of pleasure and relaxation. Although this water-coloured native whiskey is far from innocuous if drunk to excess, it must be added that intemperance is not the vice of the Brazilian. Even these out of the way inhabitants prefer to use such money as they can acquire in the purchase of lottery tickets which are brought to their doors by the itinerant lottery man. Happiness, or at least contentment, seems to reign su- preme in these neighbourhoods, although the entire wealth of the inhabitants consists simply of a mud shack and the crops which the Light and Power Company have allowed them to glean from the company's land. They are evidently an unambitious people, these Brazilian mountain dwellers, but why should they work in land where the ever present summer time limits the need of clothing, and where fruits are obtained for the picking, and wild plants whose roots make excellent flour, to- gether with the beloved black beans, which form the staff of life, are grown with slight expenditure of labour? Farm machineiy is still unknown and virtually undesired. The corn is planted on the hillsides by dropping it on the ground and worked into the earth with the toes. Feet were made before machinery in mountain Brazil. It was in the midst of these rural conditions that the Light and Power Company began in 1911 the Pirahy Tunnel, which is one of the longest and the biggest tun- nels for hydraulic purposes in the world. The work on this tunnel was begun Nov. 1st, 1911, and the tunnel was completed Sept. 27th, 1913. The next day, Sept. 28th, 1913, the water was turned in and the water power of the Company was thereby doubled. One needs to travel through this hilly region to realise the magnitude of this undertaking which consisted of boring through the solid granite rock for five and a quar- 174 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY ter miles. The width of tlie tunnel is 12 feet and ten inches, and its height 13 feet and two inches; its height and width are uniform throughout its entire length. A track is laid through it and there is a weir at the outlet for measuring the amount of water flowing from the tunnel. Its full capacity is thirty metres a second. The day in which I visited this tunnel the water was pouring through it at the rate of 1,000 cubic feet a second, and this water supply pours along the bed of a stream for two miles into the Lages Lake. There are gates at the head of the tunnel which can be closed at the time of flood or whenever this additional water supply is not desired in the lower portion of the valley. The seasons vary greatly in Brazil relative to the amount of rainfall. The Lages reservoir usually sup- plies enough water to furnish the required power needed by the Company in its large enterprises of supplying Rio de Janeiro with electrical power for tramways, elec- tric light, telephones, etc., but the Pirahy tunnel provides against possible drouth and assures abundantly the Fed- eral Capital's hydraulic power. The building of this tunnel beneath the high hills of the divide was a stupendous undertaking. Four shafts were sunk at intervals along the course of the tunnel, which with the two mouths gave ten faces upon which ten gangs of men were working at once. The total length of the tunnel is 27,659 feet, and its area is 151.7 square feet; its capacity is 1,194 cubic feet per second and its elevation above sea level at the outlet is 1,378 feet, the elevation of the mountain divide through which the tunnel is driven being 2,379 feet. The history of such enterprises is more than the narra- tion of the tunneling of hills and statistics of pounds of steel. It is the story of human endeavour and in a sense the biography of a few intrepid men. The story of the Light and Power Company at Lages ELECTRICITY TRANSFORMING BRAZIL 175 can not be fully told without mention of the gallant fight which was carried on in 1909, and still continues, against malarial fever. The Company was obliged to combat not simply the malaria bearing mosquito, but also the more or less fatalistic conceptions and traditions of the rural population who had accepted malaria as a part of the ordinary regime of existence. Their fathers and their grandfathers before them had suffered from this disease, and it was no easy task to establish the modern scientific measures by which Lages and vicinity has now become one of the healthiest communities of all Brazil. The cleaning process required much time and expense. All cans and refuse capable of holding water were gath- ered up and even tree trunks and plants which furnished a standing place for stagnant water were destroyed. Eighteen hundred acres of the Lages territory was thus cleaned, and the work lasted for months. The cost to the Company for this particular work was considerable, and certain lands were purchased solely for the pur- pose of ridding them of breeding places for anopheles larvae. The Company offered to pay the owners of property adjoining the Lages territory part of the expense of draining their land, but the people refused, having little or no interest in this life saving propaganda. This initial work of sanitation at Lages changed the entire condition of things; but not content with their success the Company has continued preventive sanitary agencies for the entire seven years which have followed, and they now have seven men, six men and a foreman, who devote their entire time in definite sections of the Lages station to the searching out and the destruction of mosquito larvae. These men bring into the office such larvae as may be occasionally found in their respective territories, and if by chance a stray mosquito is found, 176 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY as one of the men expressed it, "every one at the station gets busy." Every precaution is taken. Fish which eat the mos- quito larvae are procured for the lakes; the latest scien- tific books on the fighting of malaria are studied and the Company keeps in close touch with specialists like Dr. Oswaldo Cruz, the late eminent physician of Rio de Ja- neiro, who drove the yellow fever from the country, and foreign experts along this line. The value of the cam- paign can hardly be overestimated, and the experiences of Lages have not only rendered important services to the country but have contributed to the fight against the malarial mosquito in other parts of the world. Lages is one of the few places in Brazil where we have not found the need of a mosquito net at night, and during my ten days' stay at the hydraulic station, I neither saw nor heard a mosquito. The benefit to the immediate community is evident as one passes from the Company's property into sections where the campaign has not been carried. It was during the systematic campaign carried on in 1909 against ma- larial fever by the Company that the entire countryside began to realise the interest of the Light and Power peo- ple in its welfare. During the time of famine due to malaria, the Company sent its physicians and workers with medicine and food for relief, distributing food and medical assistance not simply to the families of the Com- pany's employees, but amongst the population generally, wherever there was need. The Lages station to-day maintains a resident physician who gives his entire time to the people of the district. It is through such agencies that the Light and Power Company have gained the con- fidence of their workers and have overcome prejudice which so often exists in out-of-the-way communities against modern enterprise. He who examines the inner workings and aims of this ELECTRICITY TRANSFORMING BRAZIL 177 Company which to-day is rendering such far reaching service to Brazil, especially in the two great cities Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, will be inclined to assign one reason for the Company's success to the spirit of co- operative effort existing among its employees. From its President and Vice President to the humblest workmen, one finds a remarkable unanimity — a team play — a desire for efficiency and harmonious action in which a regard and loyalty for one another and success for the work's sake are closely interwoven. The Lages station, which for nearly a decade has been superintended with efficient and devoted ability by Mr. Thomas W. Bevan, who is ably seconded by Mrs. Bevan at the ''Fazenda," reveals clearly this spirit of co-opera- tive endeavour. There is evident here the sense of g-uard- ianship of a great trust — a trust in which the sense of welfare of tens of thousands of people is always present. The Light and Power Company of Rio de Janeiro may impress the casual observer simply as a great and suc- cessful business enterprise. To one who gets behind the scenes, this Company appears more like a large, well- articulated band of congenial workers, a big business family, whose members enjoy working together toward a large and worth-while end. That this end is truly the ever enlarging serviceableness to vast populations, quite as much as money making, is abundantly apparent. Lages is more than a big hydraulic plant ; it is a con- stant object lesson to all Brazil of wide visioned engi- neering and sustained and ever expanding utility. XIII THE RACIAL MELTING POT Successful colonisation requires the combined knowl- edge of at least three things : the character of the people sent to any nation as colonists, the character of the peo- ple to whom they are sent, and the thorough acquaintance of the country which is to support them. During the first centuries of Brazil's colonial history there were numerous influences militating against coloni- sation. Portugal was a small country, and until other nations forced her to colonise to hold her possessions, the arrivals in the new colony were for the purpose of ob- taining metals, precious stones and Brazilian woods, an easier task than tilling the soil and preparing for a strong future civilisation. When later, labour was re- quired, negro slaves were brought from Africa, degrad- ing agriculture in the minds of the people, and taking away the zest for land owning and cultivation on the part of those who could succeed at such effort. The natural inclination of the Latin American toward politics and aristocratic life far removed from industrial and agra- rian pursuits, added to the neglect of the soil. These con- ditions together with the lack of knowledge of their own country, and the absence of a carefully laid and thought- ful nation-wide plan of immigration, have left Brazil with a vast uncultivated continent on her hands, while she cries with one voice — ''Give us people!" The Portuguese early settlers coming to Brazil pre- vious to 1808, when the ports were opened, together with upwards of 900,000 of their countr^nnen who have ar- 178 THE RACIAL MET/riNG POT 179 rived in Brazil since 1820, and their descendants, have formed the backbone of the country's colonisation. A brief review of these people throws light on the vast present day problem of populating the country. "Retro- spective prophecy," to use Huxley's phrase, is needful. A clear view of the fundamental racial strain of colonists is necessaiy to the understanding of the later attempts at mixture. These Portuguese colonists of Brazil were what the Spanish and French would call '' Creoles" (or crioulho), using the word in the scientific meaning, signifying not a ''tainted with black" mixture, but that type of race w^hich has remained entirely Spanish or French or Por- tuguese, although it has altered its habits and view of life under new influences of a new habitat. We have a similar thought in our minds when we say ''Anglo-In- dian," but do not mean by that "Eurasian." Had we kept our American ports closed to immigration for three hundred years after the early settlement, as were the Brazilian ports, we would have a similar racial condition. While new stocks began to flow into the United States at once, Brazil was left for three centuries to colonise largely by means of one racial nationality. According to one of the Brazilian ethnological authori- ties, the early century settlement of Portuguese was of distinctly three types: the adventurous-commercial; the aristocratic-official; and the humanitarian, missionary- monk and teacher. These were virtually ostracised here, at an enormous distance from home, with all communica- tions cut off by law from any other country but Portu- gal. "Money was made easily, but the cost of living was abnormally high, so the temptation was always not to hoard and go home, but to make money and to spend more to make more, leaving the idea of a return to Portugal to be a sort of vague dream." Women were rare here, as they were in other Latin 180 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY American countries, but the subject races, the conquered and converted Indians or African slaves, offered easy miscegenations. The Catholic Church with its doctrine that the soul is born at the moment of conception, did away with infanticide and fostered the legitimation or the adoption of cross-breeds. It should be remembered also that there was no nobility (as in the American colo- nial days) except among officials sent out by the mother- country. The rich planters' dream was to imitate these and possibly to be knighted by the home-country. The whole tendency was toward a feudal-aristocratic state of society, in which the close attention to the development of the land as we knew it among our early settlers, was quite lost sight of. A life of wasteful extravagance arose on the lonely and distant plantations. A broad and al- most royal hospitality existed, which even the landed gen- try of European Portugal were unable to imitate. Sec- ond sons of noble families, ruined aristocrats, adventur- ers of good lineage, and all their ilk, streamed to the new- world colony to "get-rich-quick" and succumbed to the surroundings, keeping state on broad lands in the inac- cessible interior where no public opinion existed to con- trol morality. It was colonialism under absolutely medieval condi- tions. The books of romance picturing the European type of feudal possession do not usually tell the whole story. They do not state how a feudal lord even in Eng- land had proprietary rights over any woman who came his way; if she herself was of noble blood, a small war might result ; if not, nothing was said, and the monastery or nunnery brought up the child until it was adopted by his father. This bar sinister was on many a Latin Ameri- can escutcheon during the first three generations at least in the Brazilian colony; then the marrying drifted back to Portuguese or quasi-Portuguese types, by natural se- lection. It was the lonely life of the fazenda. The land- THE RACIAL MELTING POT 181 holder either reveled, or gambled, or read, according to his temperament, while his children were sent often to the University of Coimba to be educated, and the sons of rich men were frequently knighted or given titles. Revel- er-gambler, literaiy man, unconscious aristocrat — this was the formula on which the earlier colonial breed of the country was made ; it kept however the racial quali- ties of hospitality, courtesy, respect for the family tie and for women, provided they belonged to the ' ' acknowl- edged" families. As time passed and the communications with Europe became easier by reason of steamboat lines, the rich planter (by planter one means here in Brazil not only the owner of a farm, but any one grown rich through *' ex- tractive industries," getting wealth from mines, rivers, forests, etc.) went more frequently to Europe, and there came into being that curious race of rich Latin Ameri- cans who either live abroad as absentee landlords, or make it a rule to go to Europe with regularity every two years and remain for eight or ten months. These are known in Paris as the "rastas" or the "rastaquoueres," and they bear certain likenesses to certain of the Ameri- can old family or nouveau riche class who go abroad to spend money and get pleasure and ''Europeanisation." This condition worked a hardship on the development of native industry of Brazil, since these men and their fami- lies representing the largest spending power of the coun- try, made most of their household and personal purchases while abroad, and spent comparatively nothing when they returned. Hence the dearth of industries for the manu- facture of clothing, furniture and art work, as well as the absence for so long of modern scientific agricultural development requiring intelligent personal interest as well as money. This latter state of affairs is not peculiar to Brazil ; the wealthy classes of Peru, Chili and Argen- tina have been accustomed to forget home development 182 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY for foreign recreation. If Latin Americans complain later that foreigners have annexed industrially their countries through their large enterprises they may gain some satisfaction by burning in effigy the wealthy plant- ers and landed proprietors, who would neither develop their lands nor allow others to do it, but sold out their nation's birthright for extravagant residence in Europe's capitals. It will be seen that the only serious attempts on the part of Brazil for colonisation of races other than Por- tuguese, came in the last half century. There was a start made by King John VI in 1818-1819, when two German villages were inaugurated at Bahia, and also a Swiss set- tlement at Novo Friburgo, in the State of Rio de Janeiro. The Emperor Dom Pedro II made a more far-reaching colonial attempt in 1851, when he founded the German colony of Blumenau, in the State of Santa Catharina, which took root quite largely through the philanthropic services of Herr Blumenau of Brunswick, and now has a population of fifty thousand inhabitants ; it is almost as German in its aspect and industry as a town on the Rhine. About the same time Dom Pedro assisted in the establishing of the Joinville German colony and also plac- ing one at Petropolis. The Joinville nucleus owed its name and much of its early influence and growth to the Prince of Joinville, who married a wealthy Brazilian jDrincess, inheritress of large estates in this part of Santa Catharina. It would have been well if all Brazilian colo- nists had taken as their slogan the motto which I found in this enterprising town of Joinville — '^ Education and work!" In this flourishing centre on the Brazil Railway, I visited schools, churches, lace factories, flour mills, and saw the cosy Teuton homes with vines and roses running over the sides. There was no indication of any desire to ''rise up" and lay heavy hands on Brazil, although the agent of the Standard Oil Company who was in the THE EACIAL MELTING POT 183 party, was not permitted to take the tour of inspection with us through the German mills, because of his English birth. The German language was usually spoken in the town, but I was informed that Portuguese was also used in the schools. Everything was peaceful and prosperous, as were the other German colonist settlements which we visited in South Brazil. One is told however, that the Germans have been carrying on purely an official cam- paign down here, and that 800,000 tons of goods have gone in recent war times to small ports in the United States for German firms. The use of German in official documents of these Teuton colonies, publishing the de- cisions of the local authorities, is considered scarcely proper by certain Brazilians, who believe that the lan- guage of the country should be used in such cases. There are varying estimates as to the number of Germans resid- ing in Brazil at present. The Colonisation Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce, states in its figures then rendered that 116,150 German immigrants had reached Brazil between the years 1820 and 1912 inclusive. According to these Government fig- ures the German immigrants were outnumbered by the Italians who came in this period to the number of 1,327,808; by the Portuguese who had sent 883,351 and also by the Spanish whose immigration since 1820 had amounted to 412,438. Following the Germans in the list were the Russians with 92,413 ; the Austrians with 75,774 ; the Turks and Arabs of whom 39,286 had arrived; the French with 25,748; the English sending 16,396; while fewer numbers of immigrants were sent in this 92-year- period by the Swiss, Swedish, Japanese, Belgian, and various other nationalities. The Portuguese, Spaniards, Turks and many Italians seem to prefer life in the towns or cities or working as servants on the farms, but the majority of other nation- alities coming as inmiigrants have been settled in colonies 184 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY as owners of land. The larger share of the immigration has gone to the southern parts of Brazil where the climate is more nearly that to which the colonists have been ac- customed in Europe. The Federal district and Sao Paulo have the largest percentage of foreigners, there being 25 per cent, of the population foreign in the former, and 23.2 per cent, of the Paulistas of foreign extraction. Immigra- tion is almost negligible in the northern states of the Republic, save in one or two points, Para for example. The proportion of the foreign population to the inhabi- tants of the whole of Brazil is about 8 per cent. In the United States the proportion is around 13 per cent., while in Argentina the foreign element reaches 30 per cent. The Italian settlers in the State of Sao Paulo are said to number 800,000, where large sections of this population are engaged on the coffee estates ; in other parts of Brazil the Italian colonists are calculated as amounting to 400,000. The inhabitants from sunny Italy seem to find in Brazil a favourable home, and these intermarry with Brazilians, speak Portuguese and are readily assimilated. The same may be said of the Poles, Austrians and Rus- sians, of whom there are 80,000 or more in the State of Parana. While Germans are found in all parts of Brazil, at least two-thirds of these are in the South Brazilian States of Sao Paulo, Parana, Santa Catharina, and Rio Grande do Sul. There have been at times immigrants coming in goodly numbers from China and Japan, but most of the colonising ventures with these Far Easterners have been unsuccessful. The Japanese, however, are found in many places in South Brazil ; in 1908 there ar- rived at Santos 787 Nipponese, coming in a Japanese ship. The valleys of the State of Sao Paulo are suitable to the cultivation of rice, tea and silkworms. The Japa- nese Minister who visited this part of the country some time ago was heard to remark, as he looked down a wide sweeping valley: ''What a place for rice fields!" The THE RACIAL MELTING POT 185 coming of 1,500 Japanese in 1913, and the organisation of a Colonisation Company with a capital of half a million dollars having in view the settling of 20,000 Japanese labourers in the Iguape Valley in the State of Sao Paulo, has aroused some adverse comments in the press which has flown warning signals of Asiatic domination of labour. This colonisation venture has added materially to the output of rice culture in South Brazil, but it is still a question whether any considerable Japanese population will eventuate. In Rio Grande do Sul there is a slow but steady prog- ress in the number of colonists as well as in the quality of their work, and also in the solution of difficulties relative to the titles for land, which for a time complicated col- onisation matters. The Erechim Colony constitutes one of the most recent and best located enterprises in this State. It is aimed at opening the large unoccupied ex- panse of land lying to the northwest. The Colony has been in operation for nearly seven years, dating its begin- ning at the time of the opening to traffic of the Sao Paulo- Rio Grande Railway. The Colony has seven small towns with a population of 30,000. As in other states the ten- dency has been to locate along railroad lines for the sake of transportation. The Guarany Colony is now nearly one quarter of a century old, but through lack of railroad communications has not advanced rapidly, having ap- proximately 25,000 inhabitants. These two colonies are the chief ones directly under the supervision of the State. Rio Grande do Sul, which offers such unusual opportuni- ties for cereals and cattle raising particularly, is held in large tracts by families, and at present is given up chiefly to cattle and sheep raising. In the United States, if land is worth more than $15.00 per acre for agricultural pur- poses, the soil is usually thought too good for cattle. Here in Brazil it is estimated that twenty-five acres are necessary to carry one head of cattle, but planting ga- 186 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY bura, which is better than alfalfa, since it does not have the tendency to bloat the cattle, one acre is enough to support a single head of cattle. This State like all of South Brazil is a well watered country, the slope from the Amazon basin assuring not only excellent water sup- ply for the herds and for agriculture, but also being suffi- cient to furnish ample power for manufacture. The Federal Government has been giving practical and scientific aid to colonisation throughout the country since the year 1907 especially. A propaganda service is carried on in Europe and foreign colonies are assisted by both Federal and State Government, as also by railroads and other companies which have been given large territorial concessions. Farming implements, medical attendance free for a year, and in certain cases financial aid to enable the colonists to live until the first harvest, are afforded. Extra concessions are also given to immigrants marrying Brazilians, and in the case of the death of the immigrant the allotment of land goes to his family providing a cer- tain payment has been made. The day of free land is largely past in South Brazil with the exception of the State of Matto Grosso, but the easy conditions make it possible fot" an immigrant landing without money to se- cure sufficient land to become a successful farmer, pay off his indebtedness, and in many cases where agricultural ability and perseverance are present, to become a wealthy and prosperous citizen of the country. In cities like Sao Paulo, some of the most costly residences are said to be owned by Italians who have landed in the country a de- cade or more since, utterly penniless. One third of the inhabitants of Sao Paulo are of Italian blood, and in the year when Brazil received its greatest immigration, 1891, there were 116,000 Italians out of a total of 275,000 im- migrants. Brazil seems to be determined to make up for her long years of lethargy and lack of attention to foreigners by THE RACIAL MELTING POT 187 her present day progressive arrangements to welcome them and secure their proper maintenance. The Federal Government has established a well equipped hostel for immigrants at both Rio de Janeiro and Santos, while several of the states have made similar convenient ar- rangements for these people who have come, strangers into a strange land, to be received and cared for at a mini- mum expense until they are satisfactorily located. The Immigration Department of Brazil offers induce- ments to newcomers who are over twelve and under sixty years of age, as follows: ''Free passage on trans-Atlantic liners from port of shipment in Europe or America to Brazil; free landing for families and baggage, and accommodation at the hos- tel especially devoted to that object ; free transportation to the colonial site selected by the immigrant, and ac- commodation there for the first few days; sale at long credit of a plot of land properly divided and marked out with one portion of it cleared and prepared for prelimi- nary cultivation, and a house erected with the necessary domestic accommodations; gratuitous supply of imple- ments, seeds, animals, and transport vehicles; optional employment, paid by wage or by the piece, on works in their own settlement, for the purpose of assisting those who have no means of subsisting ; gratuitous medical as- sistance; free elementary instruction for children; and facilities for reception and despatch of postal and tele- graphic correspondence." It is important to note also that there are no religious disabilities of any kind, and among these colonists, scat- tered through the different states one finds not only Ro- man Catholics, but also Protestants of nearly every stripe, Jews, Mahommedans, Positlvists, and members of other faiths, pursuing their religious beliefs with utter freedom. Citizenship, rights of property and safety of persons, also legal and police protection, are the same 188 THE BEAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY for immigrant and Brazilian, while the colonist's earn- ings are made quite as secure in Brazil as in the United States. Among the large concerns with which the Government has co-operated in answering this call of the immigrant for an opportunity to build his home and live in content- ment, is the Brazil Railway Company, which is at present one of the preeminent factors in the opening up of South- ern Brazil. French capital is prominent in this company, but American leadership is present. It was my privilege to study the colonisation plans of this company in three of the most important southern states of South Brazil, through the courtesy of the Manager of the road. The things witnessed in connection with the colonisation plans and achievements of this company can be seen on various scales of advancement in at least eight different states of this country. At present the largest number of colonists settled by the Brazil Railway has come from Poland and Austria, the Brazilians coming third in the scale. Among the settlers are also found a considerable number of Ital- ians, Germans, French, Hollandaise and Russians. Following the example of the Governments of the United States and Canada, which granted to the early trans-continental railways large land concessions along the zone of their lines, especially to the Northern Pacific and the Canadian Pacific Railways, the Government of Brazil in 1889 granted the Sao-Paulo-Rio Grande Co., a railway concession through the vast unopened territory lying between Itarare in the State of Sao Paulo, and Santa Maria in the State of Rio Grande do Sul. This grant gave concession to all the public domain for a width of nine kilometers on each side of the track for the entire length. This decree was the last one signed by the Im- perial Government. In 1909 the railway company began to survey lands and attempt active colonisation work. The Polish and Austrian immigrants came first, and the THE RACIAL MELTING POT 189 Holland colonists arrived in 1911. For these early set- tlers the company constructed the necessary buildings, furnishing them with fencing, farm implements, work animals, cattle and pigs, and at the colony of Nova Ga- licia, with living supplies from a general store. These furnishings were all charged to the colonists accounts, but the lack of knowledge on the part of the farmers of Brazilian rural conditions, and often the absence of agri- cultural training, resulted in the colonists becoming heav- ily in debt to the company. Through such experience the railroad became discouraged in its philanthropic efforts to furnish initial supplies to its settlers, and in the open- ing of the Valley of the Rio de Peche, greater care was taken in the selection of colonists of agricultural experi- ence, securing whenever possible those having sufficient capital to make their own improvements and care for themselves. In spite of the fact that no colonists in this valley has received the smallest advancement from the company in the way of building, implements, or stock, one finds these people making marvellous progress, in many cases being able to pay for their entire allotment of land of sixty acres in three years. I have seldom been more impressed with what the ownership and development of a piece of mother earth gives to a man than in this valley, which we traversed on horseback, stopping at the small houses of the colonists. The w^iole family would be marshalled to welcome us and we were taken in a solemn processional from the attempts at a parlour along Euro- pean lines, to the piggery, the flourishing gardens, and the fields of maize. The colonies were started as a rule near the railway stations, and at each station a small area of land was re- served for the colonial village, the village lots being laid out in accordance with the best American practice. An efficient superintendent was in charge and spent his time going from place to place assisting the settlers. The 190 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY colonial lots were surveyed about the villages, and as the colonies grew, the lot surveys were extended to the in- terior. Good roads were constructed radiating from the villages, and I found that these had well constructed bridges and culverts, and were well drained and graded. The colonists are responsible for the conservation of these roads, as Brazilian law exacts that each settler must keep up the roads on the margin of or within his own land. The colonist can secure as many lots as he can arrange to pay for in accordance with the conditions of the company's land contract. Good water is abundant in flowing streams and the virgin soil yields readily to even the primitive implements which are sometimes used. One settler told me that when he arrived he could not afford to buy a plough but began to cultivate his estate by the use of a pickaxe and a spade. This was less than three years ago, and he is now the proud owner of fifty acres of cultivated Brazilian soil. The conditions of sale and contract are as follows : Upon the selection of a lot (colonists may select wherever they wish) the colonist is required to make a first pay- ment of 200 milreis, at present about $50.00, for each section selected, and to sign one of the company's con- tracts. The usual allotment is sixty acres. The colonist has no further payments to make until the end of one year or subsequent to the harvest of his first crop. He is thus enabled to utilise his cash in hand during the first year in the development of his new home. After the first harvest he begins the liquidation of his account with the company by equal semi-annual payments of one tenth of this remainder, thus liquidating his obligation in six, or six and one half years. These liberal terms are made for colonists who are in the poorest of financial condition. Many of the colonists visited had completed the payments of their lots within half of the time at their disposal, THE RACIAL MELTING POT 191 securing a discount of 10 per cent, and are now holding their titles thus gained from the cash coming from the land and the results of their labour. Many of these colonists are also purchasing additional land. The com- pany's contract makes it necessary for the settler to take up his residence and make it permanent within ninety days. He is not allowed to be away without a grant from the company for a period to exceed ninety days each year. He is to keep his land in good condition and to cultivate at least one tenth of the area, paying all taxes imposed upon his land together with the deferred pay- ments upon his property as they fall due. The colonists of this company are free from export and other taxes, and also the tax ''Ciza," or land transfer tax, which amounts frequently to ten or twelve per cent, of the value of the sale. It was interesting to note that the company sets aside land for school and church purposes, construct- ing at its own expense school buildings and houses for instructors. The State furnishes the teachers. Money has also been donated by the railway to several colonists forming strong church organisations, to assist them in the construction of a colonial church. We found also certain fraternal organisations in which the colonists come together for social functions. The settlers are ab- solutely free to follow their chosen religion, but in the schools constructed by the railroad company, the lan- guage of the country, Portuguese, must be taught. The school instructor in addition to his home is given land for whatever planting he wishes to do and for such stock as he may desire to keep. The schools are always located at the most central point within the colony. This new colonisation land consists of beautiful rolling country covered with heavy growth of hard wood timber, which the settlers cut into tirewood and sleepers and sell to the railroads. The soil is a deep red or chocolate colour, loose and fertile. All crops, including cereals. 192 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY garden vegetables, alfalfa, sugar cane, tropical fruits as well as northern fruits, are successfully cultivated. A selection of location is made in accordance to the class of crop which the immigrant desires to produce. The princi- pal colonial crops exported are beans, corn, sugar, po- tatoes, wheat, rye, mandioca flour, butter and cheese. A large number of pigs and cows are being raised, and in the near future, pigs especially will be shipped on a large scale. One of the best authorities upon South Brazil informed me that in his judgment this country would sur- prise the world not simply by its agricultural output, but also through a huge production of cattle, pigs and sheep. An important arrangement to the success of these South Brazil colonists has been provided in the establish- ment in the villages of merchants who purchase the colonial products at good prices. A special department on colonisation has been established by the railway com- pany whose business it is to get the colonists into touch with the larger outside market ; one gains the impression that the alert efficient Americans who have charge of this work are introducing eYery known experience of value to the subject of marketing products, which is one of the most vital points in present day Brazilian colonisation. If one multiplies such examples of the present colonisa- tion of the new Brazil by the forty or more colonisation settlements now in process under Federal authority and quite as many more carried on along various scales by the different states, ranging all the way from Para to Rio Grande do Sul, one has at least the earnest of the great possibilities of future settlement in this land of agricul- tural opportunities. In spite of all that is being done, when one realises that Brazil possesses nine million square kilometers of fertile land still awaiting capital and labour to develop and transform it, one is inclined to say, ^'"VVhat are these beginnings of colonisation among so THE RACIAL MELTING POT 193 many states where the acreage has never been touched by the hand of the cultivator?" The possibilities of fertilisation have hardly yet been attempted ; the vast waterfalls with their magnificent nat- ural potentialities have not yet been utilised ; the mineral and timber wealth is almost as ready of access as are the products of the fields. European colonists are beginning to discover that with proper treatment of the soil and by use of modern machinery, enormous tracts of territory may be made to yield in the diversified climate of Brazil virtually every product known on the planet. But Bra- zilians are not naturally agriculturists and the demand for farmers is growing more insistent every year. The European war stopped the stream of immigration in Brazil as it did for the United States. Although immi- grants are still coming, there will be a tremendous need for labour of all kinds in Brazil during the next quarter of a century. The men needed are workers, colonists, agriculturists, like those who went to our Western Ameri- can prairies fifty years ago to make their homes, and to form a new rural civilisation, ringing with the vibrant note of toil. Brazil can furnish a certain quota of such men and she is already doing it, but Brazilians, who are first of all politically and socially inclined, will doubtless find in the vast industrial and commercial development of their country sufiicient occupation for their talents. Bra- zil, in many respects the richest of all South American States in agricultural as well as in industrial and scien- tific possibilities, is absolutely dependent upon foreign immigration, if she is to advance rapidly in the next gen- eration. Her present great progress in railways, light and power plants, port works, economic and commercial houses on a large scale and great engineering projects, can be traced in a large degree to foreign initiative. It is typical of the progressive spirit of the country that she has welcomed this initiative and that to-day she now 194 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY turns to other nations, calling for volunteers for lier ex- tensive lands, offering them every inducement to assist her in the development of the hidden and potent resources of the soiL XIV IN THE LAND OF THE PAULISTAS There are some compensations for the traveller who secures his first impressions of Brazil from the south, rather than through the magic beauty of the Bay of Rio de Janeiro. From the point of view of richly wooded and verdant mountains, smiling valleys, snatches of vision of vivid blue sea and wonderful sub-tropical uplands, the thirty-five miles of railroad journey from the coffee port of Santos to the city of the Paulistas is rarely surpassed. Coming from the south in September when the air has in it still the tang of November, the southern coast of Brazil, with its soft moist airs, its palm trees and wonderful sunshine, exerts a charm all its own. The usual traveller stops long enough in Santos to investigate the manner in which about three-fourths of the coffee used in the world is shipped, then takes a train on the Santos and Sao Paulo Railway that carries him upwards two thousand or more feet along the edges of the green Serra do Mar, or Sea Range mountains, to the broad tableland upon which the city founded by a Jesuit missionary in 1554 finds its happy location. The railway in question has the honour of being, as one is authoritatively informed, the most expensive piece of engineering in existence. The company is limited in the payment of a dividend beyond a certain point, and the surplus is expended along the line upon trains, stations and roadway. One hears the saying frequently in these parts that the only improvement still possible upon this railway line is the gilding of the tops of the telephone 195 196 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY poles. The road is not only remarkable in itself but the mountain sides along the way with the steep gorges over which one passes, are filled with cemented irrigation* drains to carry the mountain streams away from the bed of the railway. The trains are worked by wire rope haul- age, and each one of the five inclines has its own particu- lar house and plant, while safety is secured both by a locomotive brake on the last car and also by the simul- taneous descent of a train on this double track while your own train is ascending. There are thirteen tunnels along the way affording a perpetual scenic panorama for three hours. One looks down into valleys a thousand feet below richly carpeted with banana and coffee trees. Small chalets are seen here and there, constructed for the most part of corrugated iron, and clinging so precipi- tously to tiny projections of rock that it would seem a heavy wind would dash them bodily into the valleys below. Sao Paulo, the Capital City of the Paulistas, is said to take its name from the fact that the first Mass was cele- brated on this site on the same date (the twenty-fifth of January) that St. Paul was converted. It is situated on a tableland and possesses a climate far more agreeable than is found in the humid and somewhat steamy air of the low land of the littoral. It is the second city in Brazil with a population of over 400,000, three railroads serving it, and boasting of one of the best services of electric traction known to any city in South America. It is a city of most impressive buildings. The Luz station into which the trains from Santos run, covers an area of 7,520 square meters and compares favourably with any such terminal in any part of the world. Its Palace of Industries, its Ipyranga Museum, containing peculiar wonders of Bra- zilian flora and birds, and its Municipal Theatre are peculiarly notable. The latter building constructed at a cost of millions is illuminated by 14,000 electric lights. IN THE LAND OF THE PAULISTAS 197 which are disposed with an artistry significant of a people who have not lost their devotion to beauty in their rapid and remarkable prosperity. The decoration is remindful of France in its Louis Quinze style, while its invisible orchestra of 120 musicians is claimed by the Paulistas to be unexcelled. The population of the city at the opening of the Euro- pean war was increasing at the rate of 40,000 yearly. It is also significant industrially to find here 500 factories with a working capital of $20,000,000, and paying average yearly dividends to their stockliolders of 10 per cent, previous to the European war. We were particularly struck with the attention being given at present to ele- mentary education which is carried on here along modem and scientific lines. In fact one hears in his investigation of schools in Sao Paulo quite as much concerning up to date methods of health, hygiene, medical examination, gymnastics and all kinds of regulations regarding school books, heights of desks, lighting, water supply and play grounds, as is encountered in New York, Paris or London. The inhabitants are also proud to tell you that they pos- sess an army of their owu, and undoubtedly the Paulista Police and military organisation are the best in Brazil. French army officers have greatly assisted in the latter accomplishment. The police boxes are similar to those used in certain American cities, and they seem to be most effectual. There are two key holes, of which one is for public use, every citizen householder of standing being able to hold a numbered key. When this key is inserted in the lock it cannot be withdrawn until the police arrives when it is restored to its owner after the policeman has learned the nature of the call. The policeman's key automati- cally calls up any kind of help wished, police, motor am- bulance, etc. Before the policeman uses the second key he turns a pointer to the words, accident, crime, resis- 198 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY tance to police, or whatever the case may require, gets a telephone connection to the nearest police station without delay, and there you are. One hundred and sixty such alarms are to be found in the city. The military force of the State comprises upwards of seven thousand men and two hundred oflScers. One hears in certain parts of the country that this finely organised army and police department may one day furnish a helpful support and protection to other parts of Brazil, less proficiently supplied with protection. The inhabitants of Sao Paulo are made up of the Bra- zilian mixed races formed by the intermingling of the Portuguese and the Brazilian Indians, together with. a large Italian element composing nearly one-third of the poi^ulation, and a smaller proportion of British, French and American residents. The presence of the negro is also noticeable by the traveller who reaches Brazil from Uruguay and Argentina where the coloured man is rarely seen. In Sao Paulo, however, the negro is comparatively infrequent as compared with the Federal Capital and is usually employed as a labourer. The history of the Paulistas who have taken so large a part in the conquest of modem Brazil is more or less a romantic one. The Indians known as Guayanas origi- nally dominated this part of the country. Joao Ramulho, a Portuguese sailor, married the daughter of the chief Tybiricha and from the mingling of the Portuguese set- tlers and Indians a cross race arose which was first called the Mamelucos, later known as the Paulistas. In 1554, the Jesuits came and for two centuries contested with the Paulistas for day labourers, which were the essential necessities for the development of the country. These labourers were held by both the Jesuits and the Paulistas in a condition closely resembling slavery, the Catholic Church controlling the negroes by a system of semi- communism. As the Paulistas grew and went slave- IN THE LAND OF THE PAULISTAS 199 hunting among the Jesuit missions, the representatives of the Church were gradually overcome and finally driven out. In 1758 the Indian slaves were emancipated. The results have left a conglomerate race made up of diverse elements with no colour line. Sao Paulo, although it is not half the size of Rio de Janeiro, is infinitely richer per capita of its inhabitants. One soon learns that he is in a city where the milreis seem to flow like water. The richly appointed Automobile Club overlooking the new Plaza was one of the first points of vantage from which I was allowed to see and to talk with the progressive Paulistas. To this club come the fazendeiros, the owners of the great coffee plantations. The entrance fee to this club is $750.00, and afterwards there are no dues, since, as one is told, revenues to the club from games of chance and the free use of money in connection with club entertainments, more than pay the necessary expenses. When the coffee is sold one may see the rich planters staking their gold by the thousands of dollars upon a single turn of the wheel. The play begins in the afternoon at three o 'clock and the rules of the game are rigidly followed; no outsider being allowed to play or even watch the game. "Does not this become a menace to the business life of the inhabitants of the city?" we asked of a prominent bank president. ''No," was the reply, "because the men consider their gamesters' losses as a part of the over-head charges of their business, and they rarely go beyond their limit. Furthermore, if they lose to-day, they are quite likely to win to-morrow, and the Latin temperament here in Brazil looks upon the gambling habit much as the Anglo-Saxon considers his out-of-door sports. Gambling furnishes the zest and keen excitement which takes the mind away from business cares, and the partakers in this exercise rarely go to the length of excess common to the Anglo-Saxon 200 THE BEAZILIANS AND THEIE COUNTRY when he indulges in games of chance. Everybody is a bit of a gamester here, from the street urchin to the wealthiest coffee planter and land owner. It is not so bad as it seems to you Northerners. Before judging us, you should first learn our point of view, and also study the results." In answer to the question as to whether the credit of a man was diminished if it was known he was a frequenter of the gaming table, my banker Brazilian friend replied : **If we should limit credit according to this standard, we would have to shut up our bank, the custom is so uni- versal among the native Brazilians. The big bank cus- tomer rarely if ever goes beyond his limit decided before- hand, and I have never had reason to lose confidence in his commercial integrity as far as his relations with our bank is concerned. ' ' The Paulista impresses the foreigner as a buoyant and capable person, partaking somewhat of the confidence of the American who has seen and been a part of large mod- em enterprises. In the course of the rapid development of Sao Paulo State, he has evolved certain individual characteristics. He has the old fighting spirit of his In- dian ancestors, the astute political acumen of the Jesuit, the courtesy and affability of a Frenchman, and much of the twentieth century practicability and business keen- ness of the best European man of affairs or the inhabi- tant of the United States. The Paulista is a daring and original worker, and he has put the coffee fazenda on the map. We had always had the impression that coffee was a stimulant, but we needed to visit Sao Paulo to realise how the small coffee bean possessed potentialities suffi- cient to so exhilarate a semi-tropical state as to make the inhabitants of that state believe that they were really Brazil ; and that Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Pernambuco, the Amazon River and other more or less well-known portions of this country, exist within the land merely by polite IN THE LAND OF THE PAULISTAS 201 suffrance. Furthermore, it often happens that when the lively inhabitants of this favoured state show their north- ern guests over the leagues upon leagues of coffee farms, stretching in well-nigh every direction as far as the eye can reach, the guest imbibes the enthusiasm, becoming himself an animated advertiser for the country where Coffee is King. The Paulistas have learned the system of advertising. They know how to bowl one over by statistics, and it must be admitted that they have surpassed other Brazilian states in their modern progressiveness along this line. Yet the human mind gets more or less water-logged by being asked to conceive of things reaching numerically into the millions. Even an American promoter once con- fessed that when people confronted him with figures be- yond five hundred thousand his imagination stopped working. Imagine then the mental state of mind of the innocent American who has always been wont to think of coffee by the pound at about thirty cents per, when a Paulista calmly informs him that Sao Paulo has 800,000,000 coffee trees in the state, and that these in a single year (1911) produced 8,524,245 sacks of coffee, which being further interpreted to the American's corner- grocery understanding, means 1,131,678,766.20 pounds of this cheering concoction, which would cost him at his normal bourgeoise thirty cent rate, the neat little sum of $339,503,629.86 ! When these cold facts were first hurled at my defenceless head by an ardent Paulista coffee broker, I confess to a feeling similar to that of a quiet home-staying Pennsylvania business man who one day was confronted by a rather vehement foreign missionary. "Do you know, sir," exclaimed the missionary, ''that there are 300,000,000 heathen in India ? What impression does that make upon your mindf" "Well," answered the business man, cautiously, "I think that's too d many heathen." 202 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY When the visitor has been whirled for clays in a high- powered automobile from one great fazenda to another, seeing with his own eyes literally millions of coffee trees in full bloom, he is likely to find the impression of this great industry growing deeper. Seeing coffee in Brazil is more inducive to believing than tons of statistics. In the whole range of South America few things made a deeper impression on me by way of exhaustless extent than these richly rolling coffee fields of the State of Sao Paulo, — their picturesque workers embracing such varied races and nationalities, their chain of old time Portuguese homes with long lines of workmen's cabins — the feudal- like hospitality of these gentlemen planters and the ex- traordinary combination of culture and business foresight — it was all intensely invigorating to one's convictions as to the future of Brazilians and their country. It was my privilege to be introduced to the coffee busi- ness in Brazil through the courtesy of the members of an old and distinguished Portuguese and Brazilian fam- ily, who possess one of the most ancient coffee farms of the country. The month of September is a favourable time to study the Brazilian coffee fields, since it is one of the three months of the year when the plants are in bloom, and the white and green picture that greets the astonished gaze of the visitor reminds of the cotton fields of Lou- isiana. One hears at least two explanations of the way in which coffee was introduced into South America ; as one account has it, the' seeds were brought from Cayenne to Para in 1761, while, according to another version, a Bel- gian Monk introduced coffee plants to Rio de Janeiro in 1774. The point of vital interest lies in the fact that up to the end of the 18th century, coffee was looked upon generally merely as a medical stimulant to the nerves, and it was not until 1835 that the South Americans learned that it was used as a beverage in other countries IN THE LAND OF THE PAULISTAS 203 and began its extensive cultivation. Sao Paulo, of all the Brazilian states, and in fact of all parts of South America, because of its hot, moist, semi-tropical, and well-drained soil, was found to be the proper coffee-garden of the world. I visited a fazenda which has been growing cof- fee for eighty years, and the trees are found to be still hard}^ and fruitful, having been rejuvenated and ferti- lised year by year in accordance with the ever-advancing methods of coffee culture learned in the passage of time. A few hours from Sao Paulo city on the fast express train bring one into the country where, as it seems, noth- ing whatever by way of land culture exists other than the business of caring for the precious berry. One realises the marvellous fertility of this red soil of Brazil, when looking through the car windows the traveller beholds what seems to be interminable jungle, but is told that this great tangled mass of trees, vines and variegated shrubs, represent only a ten years' growth. One also appreciates the amount of toil required to clear the land of this ex- uberant undergrowth in order to make it ready for coffee planting. The colonist, who receives his eighteen cents for each coffee tree planted, and the proceeds of the first crop after four years [which is the necessary time needed for the coffee tree to begin bearing] would not seem to be overpaid for his labour. The owner of these fazendas have the habit, more generally than is witnessed among the landholders of Argentina and Chile, of residing upon their estates. This condition has eventuated to the ad- vantage of the labouring man, as well as to the appear- ance of thrift and general prosperity with which these plantations are environed. In one of the houses visited, which had belonged to the grandfather of the present owner, the pictures, the furni- ture, the great rooms with their high ceilings, giving the appearance of having been built to entertain on a regal scale, set one back in another century amidst conditions 204 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY heretofore only existent for the spectator in books and tales of romance. The dining-room in this house was at least fifty feet in length with a table extending the entire length. ''Every one of those twenty-five chairs," said the present owner, ''were filled by the members of the family in my grandfather's time." My host went on to say: "This house was built, as you may surmise, in a period before the Paulista fazenda proprietors had acquired the habit of spending portions of their winters in Sao Paulo and their holiday vacations in Paris. ' ' As we roamed from room to room through the vast manor house, admiring the quaint, heavy, old-fashioned furniture made years ago in Portugal, each room looking out upon spacious vistas of smiling coffee lands, there began to dawn upon us what it must have meant to have been a pioneer coffee-planter in Brazil. The days of actual slavery are no more in this part of the world, but the atmosphere of the old plantation days still hovers about these ancient landmarks, and the owners speak of their fifty families occupying the cabins on their estate, with the same sense of proprietorship as did their fathers doubtless, a half century before them. Although there is little of the appearance of servility in the attitude of the Brazilian workman on the modern coffee farms, one no- tices the quick obedience to the mere gesture of the hand, and the doffing of the hat as the landowner passes. The majority of the working men on the Paulista coffee es- tates are Italians, though there is a goodly sprinkling of negroes together with even a larger constituency called "caboclos," the Brazilian type resulting from the min- gling of the Indian and the Portuguese. There is of course no adherence to colour line, and the fazendeiros are eager to explain to you their belief that in a few generations the negro will be entirely eliminated in this section through his intermarriage with other races. IN THE LAND OF THE PAULISTAS 205 The workmen give every appearance of being well treated. They are provided with small houses by the proprietor of the estate, and are paid for their labour in a way that seems to them satisfactory. The workman re- ceives six hundred reis, or 15 cents, for picking fifty litres of coffee, and his recompense for cleaning the ground beneath one thousand trees is approximately $22.50 ; this process of ground cleaning is repeated from four to five times a year. If he is simply a day labourer and not a member of one of the families employed on the estate, he receives about sixty-two cents a day. The German employed in one of the hulling factories visited received $26.00 a month and a house, while his son, a boy of sixteen, received $15.00. That the fazendeiro is no slave driver in present day Brazil was intimated by the action of our host who, when showing us his workmen's cottages invariably removed his hat as he entered the door, and by many little cour- tesies and care for his workmen's welfare he proved the change which had swept over Brazil towards Democracy since the days when his father-royalist managed the estate. This respect for the workmen may be influenced at times by the fact that the Government has established a bureau where the colonist or employee may enter com- plaint against any ill treatment by his employer. In all our investigations, however, we failed to find conditions that would lead to the belief that any such state of affairs existed as one may find to-day in Peru, for example, where the Indian resembles more truly a beast of burden than a self-respecting employee. Capital is needed, and that on a large scale, to be a suc- cessful coffee planter in Brazil. Each tree costs per year on an average of ten cents for its regular upkeep, and as some of the fazendeiros possess more than a million trees, the yearly outlay is considerable. On a smaller estate containing, for example, 250,000, requiring at least 206 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY fifty families resident upon the property, the owner in an average year is said to make a profit of approximately $50,000. But it must be remembered that this is usually the result of several generations of careful attention on the part of families who have made the coffee business a specialty. In other words it is apparent that the Ameri- can youth without means who sails south of the Rio Grande to make a fortune, should not be recommended to start in the role of a coffee fazendeiro. As a matter of fact the great coffee estates in this region are owned and controlled almost entirely by old Brazilian families, in competition with whom untrained intruders would be severely handicapped. The owners of these old estates are also under consid- erable expense by reason of the fact that the trees that have been bearing for many years require increasing fertilisation in order to keep up the average of profit. This leads to what is becoming a considerable by-product of the coffee estates represented by large herds of cattle, which are kept largely because of the need of the land for constant fertilisers. On one estate visited I found 400 cattle, and the proprietor has become so much interested in his ''pure bloods" and his ''mixed strains," that he has ahnost forgotten his coffee. We had some difficulty in persuading him to show us his coffee culture, so great was his enthusiasm in displaying his prize $1,000.00 bull and his choice herd of Holsteins for whose welfare he had the most up-to-date stables and modern appliances we have seen in all South America. Even the Argentine breeder could sit at the feet of some of these Brazilian coffee men and learn about cattle raising, although here it is only a side issue. That the coffee business in the State of Sao Paulo is a lucrative one is revealed by the fact that a fazenda, of 50,000 trees, in good condition is worth at present $25,000. These 50,000 plants if properly cultivated IN THE LAND OF THE PAULISTAS 207 should produce 240,000 pounds of coffee yearly. It is possible also to grow crops of vegetables of different kinds between the coffee trees. In the whole of Brazil at the present time there are more than 1,300,000,000 coffee trees, occupying 4,500,000 acres of this enormous Republic. Two million of these acres of coffee are to be found in the Paulista state, and the total amount invested in this area in this state is con- siderably beyond $500,000,000. The process of coffee cultivation is a fascinating one, especially to the visitor from the north. For the most part coffee is grown from the seed which is planted in the ground, except in cases where it is found necessary to replace old trees which have died, when the coffee berries are planted in a nursery and transplanted later on as soon as the plants are about fifteen inches high. The coffee trees are placed from ten to fifteen feet apart, and in some instances (more especially in the northern sec- tions) the trees are covered for protection from cold winds. In other cases shade trees are planted among them to shield the plants from the hot sun. The shrub flowers first in the third year, bearing a small quantity of berries, and in the fourth year the coffee plant begins its average output of fruitage. The length of life of the coffee tree depends upon the manner with which it is cultivated and conserved. Many plantations have profi- table trees seventy or eighty years old. The flower is white and its beauty upon thousands of blooming plants, waving over a rolling country, is quite beyond descrip- tion. The life of the flower is ephemeral, and as soon as it withers and drops to the ground, the green berry begins to form, ripening usually in about seven months, and looking at the end of that period much like a ripe cherry in colour. The Brazilians, unlike the Arabs, do not allow the ber- ries to remain on the tree until they ripen and fall, but 208 THE BBAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY pick them by hand, many women and girls being em- ployed in this process. On some fazendas one finds sheets placed beneath the trees, and men mounting lad- ders or standing on the ground stripping the branches of the berries, which fall on the sheets. The women and girls gather these up, sift them, remove the stems and the leaves, after which the coffee is placed in baskets and conveyed to large tanl^s where it is washed in run- ning water, and then passed through a "pulper" and afterwards into a tank, where the pulps float off leaving the seed. The berries contain normally two seeds, or coffee beans, and each bean is enveloped by a thin delicate skin which in turn is covered by a parchment, and both enclosed in a fleshy pulp, the outer portion of the fruit. All these coverings must be removed to prepare the beans for consumption. After the coffee berry has been stripped of its pulp, it is put through a process of fer- mentation which removes the parchment ; then it is again washed in vats and spread out on large stone or concrete floors for drying. The beans are left there for about four days, while men work them over with long rakes, or draw across them a large wooden drag which turns the coffee over, exposing every berry to the sun. It is then gathered into baskets and loaded in small cars and taken to the factory where the beans are passed through a hulling machine and fanning mill which removes all the dry cov- ering, leaving them ready for sorting and sacking. The coffee is now shipped and needs further only the roasting and grinding to become the famous Brazilian breakfast coffee, known throughout the world. It is a mistake, however, to consider the State of Sao Paulo merely as a great coffee country. As has been hinted already, it is a land of growing industries of many kinds. In addition to a salubrious climate, one finds here a remarkable land of water power. The rivers that course down the western slopes of the Serra do Mar are rich in DRYING COFFEE, S.iO PAULO HYDRO-ELECTRIC PLANT, LAGES. PENSTOCK AND VALUE HOUSE ABOVE; CLUB HOUSE OF OPERATORS BELOW THE STATE OF SSO PAULO IS A LAND OF WATER POWER WHICH THE "SAO PAULO TRAMWAY, LIGHT AND POWER CO., LTD." HAS HARNESSED FOR UTILIZATION IN THE LAND OF THE PAULISTAS 209 great waterfalls. Two of these in close conjunction are said to furnish in combination as much water as Niagara, and are capable of making 1,000,000 horse-power of en- ergy, many times the amount now utilised in the entire state. Wherever one goes in the Paulista country, there seems to be a notable ' ' falls, ' ' which the inhabitants are proud to show the visitor. The effective utilisation of this water supply, for tram- ways, electric lighting, and motor energy of various kinds, began on a large scale in 1900, and the credit of a far- reaching and highly beneficial undertaking is due to the Sao Paulo Tramway Light and Power Company, Limited. This company, carried on largely by Canadian capital, and Brazilians doing the actual work, is accomplishing for the State and City of Sao Paulo what the Rio de Janeiro Tramway Light and Power Company, Ltd. has been achieving for the Federal District and the State in the midst of which it exists. Both companies indeed had a common inception as far as the man-leadership was concerned, the American engineer, Dr. Frederick Stark Pearson, with his colleagues, laying the foundations of the Sao Paulo enterprise before the one at Rio de Janerio was undertaken. The results in utility and beautification of the City of the Paulistas are immediately apparent to the visitor. The company has aided in the making of the State Capi- tal a city of light by installing 332,392 incandescent lamps and 497 public arc lamps, and furnishing besides 40,491 H. P. motors. There are here 28,757 consumers of elec- tric light and 1,494 customers for the power which this company has brought down from the mountains in its great transmission lines. The tramways also are at once noticeable for their comfort and the dexterity of their control and general management. They seem to run nearly everywhere and to be used by every one. This company owns and operates 451 cars, 359 being passen- 210 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY ger cars' and the remainder used for postal service, for truck, baggage and meat cars. There are more than 150 miles of track and the tramways run upwards of 10,000,000 miles yearly in conveying their tens of thou- sands of passengers. The same care and politeness on the part of employees are seen here as in the Federal Capital, and there are also similar unique advantages in special trips to famous buildings, gardens and scenic splendours. The company obtains its power from two of its several sources, one known as the Sao Paulo Electric Co., Ltd., a subsidiary company of the Brazilian Traction Company, Ltd., whose plant is located near the City of Soracaba, the other on the Tiete River near the village of Parna- hyba, about twenty miles below the City of Sao Paulo. The company's power plant at the latter place is served by a dam across the Tiete River, 160 feet in length; to conserve the flood water for use in dry times, another dam one mile long with a centre height of about 60 feet, has been constructed across the Guarapiranga River, which is one of the principal branches of the Tiete. The reser- voir formed by the latter reserve dam has a storage ca- pacity of 195,000,000 cubic metres and a surface area of 34 square kilometres. Contingencies are thus amply an- ticipated. The carrying of this energy in two transmis- sion lines, one fourteen miles in length from Parnahyba, and the other fifty miles from the Sao Paulo Electric Company's plant, is a most impressive engineering work. The main terminal station, the sub-stations, and the re- serve steam plant compare favourably with those at Rio de Janeiro, and the entire enterprise is worthy of the present progress and the future possibilities of a State which is becoming increasingly known for its industries along technical and commercial lines, as well as for its agricultural prowess. From whatever anofle the traveller from other lands IN THE LAND OF THE PAULISTAS 211 views this colonial, yet modern, city and state of the Paulistas, the vision is stimulating. It is highly cos- mopolitan and its population is increasing rapidly, its Capital having grown from 50,000 inhabitants in the year 1890, to its present size, not far from half a million. Its statecraft has given to Brazil her presidents and many of her foremost men in public affairs. Its love of liberty and independence is as pronounced to-day as when the sturdy and brave Portuguese explorers and colonists fought for their rights three centuries ago, or as when the young Dom Pedro I proclaimed Brazilian independ- ence on that notable September day in 1822, on the Paul- ista ground now crowned by the Ypiranga Museum. The Paulista enterprise in converting Santos from a fever- stricken city, worse than Eastern Port Said, into one of the most healthy business towns in South America, was also notably distinctive of the State's ambition and energy. In education leading the country, and in techni- cal and scientific institutions, of which Dr. Vidal Brazil's Pasteur-like Instituto for the cure of snake bites is but one notable example, Sao Paulo measures her progress by the advance of the world 's learning and science. Fur- thermore, if any one believes Brazilians incapable of business acumen and practical initiative, he will find his dreams and theories shattered here ; in business the Paul- istas are called not inaccurately ''the Yankees of Brazil. '» We have already wandered over her vast coffee fields, where there is cultivated and produced about three times as much coffee as in all the other states of the country taken together. We have also seen that the temperate climate of the State, on her tablelands 2,400 feet above the Atlantic, has in itself marked off these people for leadership in agricultural Brazilian history. Undoubt- edly, the proud and efficient Paulistas are soon to have keen competitors for state preeminence among a half 212 THE BKAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY dozen other commonwealths, where the currents of twen- tieth century progress are sweeping in upon vast natural resources. Brazil is now aroused, and from Para to Porto Alegre, as from the rubber-land of Acre to the sugar land of Pernambuco, she is seeing the dawn of de- sire and destiny. Still it must be admitted that this fair Paulista land was the first Brazilian section to really feel and respond vigourously to the throb of modernity. If one is to believe her men, she is still only mounting the wave that is to carry her farther out into a greater sea of progress and prosperity. XV THE AWAKENING OF SOUTHERN BRAZIL It was not so many years ago that South Brazil, beyond the confines of a few -coastal cities, was as wild and 'Svoolly" as was our Far West a half century or seven- ty years back. Savage Indians shot poisoned arrows through blow-pipes, transfixing fatally the daring settler or hunter who invaded the more or less howling wilder- ness that stretched from the narrow inhabited littoral for hundreds of miles through the vast reaches of Rio Grande do Sul, Parana, parts of the States of Sao Paulo and Minas Geraes, and still inward through Goyaz, and the gigantic and formerly almost unknown Matto Grosso. A lumberman told me of a distressing experience which beset his men less than a decade since, when they were building a saw-mill on the edges of one of these southern states near the Matto Grosso border. Several of his men venturing into the edge of the forest, where the foot of the Avhite man had rarely sounded, were mysteriously killed, pierced through with the immense arrows that only the red man knows how to hurl from the great bows ; yet no Indian or trace of enemy bushman was ever seen. It was only when the manager himself boldly took his place on the forest side of the new enterprise, that the work- men were persuaded to return to the building of the mill. The stealth and cunning of the Brazilian Indian was not surpassed by our North American red man in his fighting days. A member of the Roosevelt Expedition through the Amazon country informed me that in all the long and wearying weeks of marches through wilderness and jun- 213 214 THE BKAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY gle, they never once caught sight of the Indian of the Brazilian forests, though frequently they found the re- mains of recent camp-fires, and once or twice surmised that they heard echoes of the retreat of these aboriginal inhabitants. One cannot fully appreciate the accomplishments of the colonising and agricultural pioneers in this part of Brazil, who fails to realise that the only roads of any kind, until in comparatively recent years, in the interior portions of these southern states, now becoming so prosperous, were the w^ater-ways of rivers. The region was not only un- settled but unexplored in many cases, and the Brazilians were as ignorant as North Americans of the extent and grandeur of their future wealth. As the traveller of to-day rides across thousands of miles of rolling plains, through luxuriously rich wood-lands which are already echoing to the axe of the settler, and the crashing, whirl- ing wheels of modem saw-plants ; as he sweeps through fine up-to-date cities, provided with the devices of twen- tieth century progress and comfort; as he watches the vast herds of cattle, the waving corn-fields, or the new factories and mills — all or most of them the product of the past two decades, he can but stand at attention and salute the astute foreign and Brazilian makers of this new world empire. Mr. J. C. Oakenfull, who in his ex- cellent and concise hand-book of this country, after show- ing how Brazil had recruited her slender forces of popu- lation during the years from 1820, by bringing to her fair domain and incorporating in her life nearly three and a half millions of foreign born, representing thirteen or more diverse nationalities, remarks: *'Eead, mark, learn and inwardly digest, and treat with the contemptuous scorn it merits any attempt to discredit such a countiy as Brazil." He who takes a leisurely journey through the progres- sive States of Sao Paulo, Parana, Santa Catharina and AWAKENING OF SOUTHERN BRAZIL 215 Rio Grande do Sul, finds noble commonwealths possessing rich futures in wheat, corn, rice, lumber, mate, coffee, live stock and an endless variety of sub-tropical and temperate-zone fruits and vegetables. Manufactures also are found with no mean beginnings. I visited glass- factories and timber plants in Parana, flour mills, stock- ing mills and weaving enterprises in Santa Catharina, and woollen mills, railway shops, frozen meat plants and mate factories in Rio Grande do Sul, of which any coun- try could be justly proud. The State of Sao Paulo with its area of 112,300 square miles is larger than all the New England States and Pennsylvania combined. It has a coast line of 372 miles and its breadth in some places from north to south is 546 miles, and from east to west, 643 miles. This state has quadrupled in population since 1870, and now has 3,400,000 inhabitants, about 30 per cent, of whom are foreigners. Here in the cool and delightful climate of the Sao Paulo tablelands I found, in addition to the progres- sive Paulistas, many Italians, Germans, Portuguese, Spaniards, Russians, Austrians and an ever increa.sing number of Americans, the latter engaged in foreign trade, engineering and in connection with the conduct of some of the most significant enterprises, like those of the re- organisation of the Brazil Railway which has in South Brazil more than 5,000 miles of road, and the National City Bank of New York which has flourishing branches both at Sao Paulo and at Santos. "While education of the elementary sort is one of the crying needs of present day Brazil, the State of Sao Paulo is somewhat exceptional in this regard. The present budget of the State Government includes for education $4,600,000, and in localities containing 25 children of school age, the state builds a separate school house. The 1916 reports show 1,414 separate schools and 158 groups. The people are interested in education and point the vis- 216 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY itor with pride to their higher instruction which in addi- tion to the schools for elementary grades noted above, consist of an agricultural school, a polytechnic school, four normal schools, three preparatory schools or gj^m- nasiums, a Faculty of Law and Medicine and three pro- fessional schools. Mackenzie College in the city of Sao Paulo, in its engineering and English departments, will bear comparison with schools of its kind anywhere. The effect of this emphasis upon education is evident in the high grade of intelligence seen in the middle and lower classes. While throughout Brazil the percentage of il- literacy is said to be 70 per cent, of the entire population, in the State of Sao Paulo it is only 23 per cent. The pub- lic instruction is absolutely free in this State. It is worthy of note that the State of Sao Paulo pos- sesses a well organised Meteorological Department, or- ganised in 1886: we were told that this department re- ceived daily by wire 200 messages from different parts of the State. Large public w^orks for water supply, sewerage, and drainage of stagnant waters, have been constructed at a cost of $40,000 which have helped in making this State one of the most charming places for residence in the country. Although one hardly expects to find manufacturing in- dustries in Brazil, this advanced State has $50,000,000 invested in 190 of its counties in establishments for the production of cotton, woollen, and jute textiles, hats, shoes, umbrellas, together with flour mills, match fac- tories and various other industries. The shipping from Santos forms a distinct enterprise in itself. In the year 1915, 1,396 ships entered this port and 1,397 departed, carrying cargoes amounting to 6,349,404 gross tons ; this large shipping business was even greater previous to the European war. The Light and Power Companies have found the nat- AWAKENING OF SOUTHERN BRAZIL 217 ural waterfalls of the state easily productive of large electric plants wliicli furnish one hundred and fifty cities in different localities as well as the chief fazendas and manufacturing industries. It is estimated that the hy- draulic power of this state is 3,000,000 H. P. and that 250,000 of this horse power has been developed for in- dustrial purposes. There is diversity in agriculture in all South Brazil, and Sao Paulo is no exception. Here one finds sixty per cent, of the total area of the State under cultivation, the high plateaus, 2,000 feet above the sea, furnishing favour- able climate for the great plantations of coffee, cotton, cereals and fruit trees, while the lowlands along the coast produce easily tropical products, such as cocoa, bananas, cocoanuts, vanilla, rice and sugar cane. The returns of the year 1914-15 show that the State possessed 60,500 farms, with an area of 55,000 square miles, or 41,500,000 acres ; 65 per cent, of these or 27,000,000 acres being de- voted to coffee farms and 35 per cent, or 14,500,000 acres being given to the cultivation of cotton, corn, rice, cane, etc. As one rides over these vast fazendas, and some of them consist of many thousands of acres, he begins to realise the huge wealth of this Southland of Brazil, for Sao Paulo is only chronologically ahead of the four or five other rich States of this country. These Paulista farms alone are valued at $900,000,000, and their pro- prietors would furnish a cosmopolitan register of na- tionalities including at least ten different nations. Cof- fee is only one of the many important products, for 58,000,000 bushels of corn w^ere harvested in Sao Paulo last year, 9,820,000 bushels of beans, and 8,172,000 bushels of rice — these in addition to the 12,194,000 bags of coffee, which is virtually 60 per cent, of the coffee consumed in the world. In this State there are 750,000,000 coffee trees, valued 218 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY at $1.00 eacli. Throughout this southern section of Brazil one hears to-day more often of the coming of the big f rigorificos and the new sources of riches in frozen meat, than of any other one industry at present. Sao Paulo has two of these plants, one at Asasco, ten miles from the capital city, owned and managed by American capital, and another at Barretos, which is at the terminus of the Paulista Railway, 330 miles from the city of Sao Paulo. This latter plant is owned by Brazilian capital. Al- though foreigners have taken the lead in establishing many of the industries of the State, the Brazilians have not been slow to follow the example, and their intelligence and adaptability are at present making them worthy com- petitors in the rapidly awakening life of these southern countries. As the traveller passes into the State of Parana he finds quite a different condition ; a dozen rapidly advanc- ing cities and towns, and a vast and at times almost un- explored interior. In the higher sections there are enor- mous pine forests, while in the southern littoral the lands and woods resemble semi-tropical regions. The State of Parana has been brought into recent at- tention because of the contested territory lying between this State and that of Santa Catharina, about which con- siderable fighting and some bloodshed has occurred within the past few years. This ''contestado" matter has now received the mutual attention of the Presidents of the two States involved, and not long ago an agreement was concluded with the aid of the President of the Republic as to these lands fiercely contested between the men of the *'bush." The borders are now quiet. It is not easy, however, in these wooded, isolated regions to convince the population that land boundaries and rights can be settled by means other than through the appeal to arms. The inhabitants of the Brazilian bush remind one of the mountain whites in the North American southland — a AWAKENING OF SOUTHERN BRAZIL 219 race with laws unto themselves, and not to be tampered with thoughtlessly. Parana is a mingled memory of graceful pine trees, lifting their luxuriant heads on every horizon, resembling inverted umbrellas resting gracefully upon the lofty tops of high, straight columns. These have made Parana famous, and in their shadow have come the lumber men who in considerable numbers are now forcing their way farther and farther into the semi-tropical pine forests. The Parana pine, especially adapted for interior wood- work in house construction, is finding a ready market not only in Brazil, but in the Latin American Republics to the south. A visit made to one of the largest saw mills and lumber camps of the country, ' ' The Southern Brazil Lumber and Colonisation Co.," at Tres Barras, Parana, is clear in my memory. This company, under the general control of the Brazil Railway, is conducted by American lumbermen who have utilised modern machinery of the latest type, and have built up a colony of four hundred men and their families around the lumber plant. I found in responsible positions twenty-three Americans, and the remainder of the workmen divided in nationality between Brazilians, Italians, Poles, Germans and Hollandaise. A territory comprising forty-five thousand acres of pine forests was being worked and the mills cut 110,000 feet of lumber daily — a log a minute being the rate, and some of these massive pine logs weigh each no less than two and a half tons. One of the great self-propelling log-rolling ma- chines in use has the capacity of bringing in from distant parts of the forest 150 logs daily, dragging them from four directions. To watch these great trees crashing through the jungle, breaking do^vn the smaller forestry that chances to rise in the path, and being finally depos- ited without the aid of manual strength on the long flat cars that carry them to the saw mill, is a fascinating 220 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY experience. Tlie big steam loaders bring in the timbers by means of heavy wire cables with hooks attached to the ends of the logs, and no obstacle great or small questions seriously the progress of the pine monsters when the throttles of these forest engines are opened. This lumber enterprise in Brazil is a railroad business as well as one of timber manufacture. This particular company builds fifty kilometres of railroad yearly, and men are constantly at work laying new lines into the for- ests primeval. The railroad clears the land a kilometre in width as it advances, and when the forests go the col- onisation begins, carried on also by the same company, whose concessions along its lines are extensive. There are company stores where the men buy their provisions and necessities at about cost; a hospital and workmen's houses are furnished by the organisation. In addition to the sawing of the Parana pine and Brazilian hard wood called "imbuia," the project of using the waste lumber for making paper pulp is now under consideration by certain of the lumber companies, a matter of no small moment at present to Brazil, as to other parts of the world. The manager informed me that he had at present sixteen thousand logs on skids; that he was cutting six hundred logs a day ; and that the demand was constantly increasing, especially from the South American Repub- lics, which in many instances have nearly every other national resource except lumber-producing forests. Nine hundred acres of new forest land had recently been pur- chased to meet the advancing trade, and ten car loads of lumber are being shipped daily from this camp. Such business is not a matter of chance, even in this new and rich land of plenty. Until a short time ago the lumber trade in this mill was a failure. The market had to be prepared, and agents were sent forth to make Parana pine famous. The men in positions of leadership were chosen with care from specialists in the lumber AWAKENING OF SOUTHERN BRAZIL 221 business from our own Far West. The right economic proportion between foreign and native workers had to be determined by experience; new men had to be trained; machinery, most of it made in the United States, had to be decided upon, transported and installed at great cost. ''What chance or need is there at present for Ameri- cans in this lumber business in Brazil?" was asked the manager. "There are openings for good men who know the lum- ber business," answered the director, ''and there are op- portunities, as in other lines in Brazil for men with capi- tal and brains who are not of the get-rich-quick variety. This business does not offer much inducement for the American workman or colonist who is absolutely without money. These would hardly be happy here, while the European from Italy or Poland or Germany is more nearly adapted to the early stages of development in these lumber and colonisation sections." While this Parana pine, together with mate, are now among the chief industries, the trade which centres in the flourishing modern capital of Curityba with its forty thousand inhabitants, and in half a dozen other smaller cities and towns of the State, there are also found many other elements of industrial and municipal progress. There are modern tramways, electric light plants, fac- tories and industries on a growing scale. There are libraries and schools, clubs and public buildings. Ger- mans and Poles are the leading foreign inhabitants, the former owning and controlling many of the large business houses, and the latter furnishing much of the labour for mate and agriculture. In an interview with the President of the State of Par- ana, Dr. Affonso Alves Camargo, I was impressed with the way in which business and the development of a new country seemed to be bringing out characteristics quite different than those found among the politicians of the 222 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY Federal District. To these Federal politicians Dr. Ca- margo paid his somewhat scant respect by saying, ' ' Here in Parana we need leaders ; in Rio de Janeiro every one is a leader or tries to be, but nobody follows, so the political leaders don't count." It was learned that within this State composed of 800,000 people the first need was for population, the Pol- ish and Italian immigration having entirely stopped since the beginning of the European war. The President showed that he was prou(i of the fact that they had very few negroes, saying that they were not particularly de- sired. ''The Germans," said he, ''make good colonists here, but unless they marry Brazilian wives, they do not mix easily with the people of the country, keeping their own language and schools, and carrying on their lives almost as though they were still in Germany. ' ' For the most part, however, the sentiment in the section seemed to be that the German colonists should be credited with having developed the country they had settled, mak- ing towns prosperous, pointing the way to Brazilian set- tlers, and on the whole being peaceable and efficient farm- ers, business men and manufacturers. Yet now and then one hears a fear expressed that the settling in isolated sections of 100,000 or more Germans in South Brazil, "each man a trained soldier," furnishes if not a menace, at least an opportunity for misunderstanding arising be- tween these vigorous settlers and the Government, rela- tive to lands and law. I found the Parana President deeply interested in the 6,000,000 coffee trees of his State, and also in the new and prolonged highroad contemplated to the frontier of Matto Grosso upon which cattle can be driven into the State of Parana, thus saving the long, round-about journey through Sao Paulo. As to the contested territory between Parana and her neighbour state Santa Catha- rina, the President who had rendered an historic service AWAKENING OF SOUTHERN BRAZIL 223 to the cause said that this ''gentlemen's" agreement re- cently consmmnated, tends to equalise the two States in size giving to Santa Catharina a goodly strip of land formerly held by his own State. He was not sure that all trouble over this vexed boundary section had ceased, as the bushmen affected are a lawless element, and the thick forests of this region still afford shelter for dark deeds. The State of Santa Catharina contains even more German colonists than the State of Parana, at least 20 per cent, of the whole population, its principal industries being agriculture, lumber and cattle raising. Certain coal mines are being exploited, but as yet Brazil has not given evidence of being a great coal country, partly be- cause through its ports, it has been able previous to the war to import coal cheaper than it could be mined under difficult transportation conditions. Santa Catharina is a State of great agricultural promise. An equable climate and a fertile soil, a good port in the capital city of Flor- inopolis, situated on a small island south of the State, and the development by the Brazil Railway of the excel- lent old port of Sao Francisco, as a big railway terminus and shipping port, are all encouraging enticements in- tended to bring to Santa Catharina ever enlarging popu- lation and progress. Of all the coming States of South Brazil, Rio Grande do Sul gives the visitor distinct and amazing impressions. Here is the vast horse and cattle ranching land, an almost boundless stretch of rolling plains, capable under proper cultivation of raising well-nigh every product of the tem- perate zone. The State situated well out of the tropics has seasons well defined, a healthy and often cold winter, with a dry and hot summer. Virtually all crops and in- dustries common to the prairies of North America can be reproduced here. The streams of colonists from Europe already have been large in this great free and favoured land of the pioneer. It is our Far West as we knew it 224 THE BEAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY fifty years ago. The gaueho with his flowing robes and distinctive habits, weird customs and consummate skill with horse and cattle is here; the sheep, the horses and the tens of thousands of cows and steers range the un- fenced spaces. The towns and cities are filled with farm- ers, colonists, and sun-browned cattle men, buying their provisions, their musical instruments, and their gay sad- dlery. The stations are surrounded as the trains arrive with wagon loads of passengers and produce, and with motley crowds ; great bunches of horses saddled and tied in rows — all speaking plainly of the status and character of the civilisation. Until recently these hill prairies have been the uncontested home of the cattle ranges, and even to-day the trains startle great herds with wide, heavy horns and powerful shoulders, which gallop away in fright at the sharp whistle of the engine. Over all this animal world is the sway of the race of gauchos, or cowboys, the Brazilian horsemen living in the saddle, many of them still unlettered, and breathing the air of their ruder ancestry. Along the prairie stretches there are now growing up everywhere the homes of colonists, and agricultural progress and the inception of great modern beef industries are becoming known. There is a sense in which the pastoral life and the modern land and industrial progress, growing up side by side, have richer possibilities in Rio Grande do Sul than in any section of which we know. Seldom save in rural France has agriculture flourished alongside of stock rais- ing. The cattle lands have been the rule first and these have made way, as in Argentina, for the plough of the farmer. This great State, however, promises to provide the example of agricultural and cattle enterprise develop- ing hand in hand. "Brazil is forming races of her own, both men and cattle," was the summary of conditions which the sturdy President of the State of Rio Grande do Sul presented. THE HOME OF CATTLE IN SOUTH BRAZIL, THE COMING CATTLE COUNTRY OF THE WORLD |E1 W " VKl If fm liBUisy »\1 ^W-# ^■•''.J ^'^ .-»^i^-^^'t\; .'^ :>* r-;' '^^^-w3^--'fe. , ^4i S^lKS^^aKl^iiH \ /' / AGRICULTURE, SLOW BUT SURE THE "SOUTHERN BRAZIL LUMBER AND COLONIZATION COMPANY" LOAD- ING PINE LOGS AT TRES BARRAS, PARANA •THE PARANAQUA RAILWAY FAIRLY FLINGS ONE INTO THE BOSOM OF THESE VIRGIN WOODS" AWAKENING OF SOUTHERN BRAZIL 225 We had been travelling for days across the vast undulat- ing ranges of hills, plains and rivers, vi^hich form the basis of the most natural cattle country to be found in the world to-day. Unlike the flat lands of Argentina, where droughts menace cattle and crop, one finds here a smiling land of hills and lakes, and a campo dotted by farm houses set loftily upon hill tops, shaded and enhanced by luxuri- ant trees and flower gardens. Why, one asks, are there but a million and a half in- habitants in this great free and fertile commonwealth! Why have the fifteen or twenty million head of cattle estimated to exist in this section of Brazil not been dis- covered before by the Swifts and Armours of the world 1 Judging from the rich fields of wheat, barley, rye and corn which I saw in numerous sections, this Brazilian southland is capable of almost anything, agriculturally speaking. Why have the lights of its varied resources been hid during these generations, when the outside world has thought of Brazil chiefly as the land of rubber and coffee! In answer to such queries put to the officials and landowners in Porto Alegre, Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul, and other enterprising towns of this new but old country, the answer usually ran as follows : *'We have needed population. Roads have been want- ing until comparatively recently. A method of utilising our cattle, such as the big frigorificos have furnished in Argentina, which would stimulate our people to the care and higher breeding of the herds, have only just begun to appear here. Then, too, Brazil has had such limitless riches ; it has been so easy to live here in the land of fruits and sunshine ; there has not been the need or the inclina- tion towards scientific industry by a people who have lived readily on coffee booms and mate booms and ready loans from Europe." For such reasons Brazil now finds herself on the thresh- old of one of the greatest developments that has yet 226 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY marked her picturesque progress. She believes, and with good right to the belief, that she is to become the great cattle country of the earth ; that Rio Grande do Sul will lead and that Matto Grosso and other inland states will follow in this development. Already five big freezing plants are establishing themselves in south Brazil, several of them making arrangements to use one thousand head of cattle per day, and leading in an industry that promises to eclipse anything that Australia, Argentina or the United States have yet accomplished in this business of feeding the world. The day of Southern Brazil is just dawning. There is a spirit of getting-ready throughout these immense do- mains. In Rio Grande do Sul we found great woollen and cotton mills, where ponchos and various kinds of cotton and woollen goods were being manufactured on a large scale from Brazilian products. One sees here what Euro- pean thrifty peasants are capable of doing in a new coun- try. One finds land holders who do not feel it beneath them, or injurious to their dignity as gentlemen, to spend a large portion of their time on their estates, galloping across their broad lands, dressed in the flowing ponchos of their own cowboys. It is this open life of the plainsman that seems to suit best these South Brazilians. These men are not by nature book-keepers and shop-keepers. They are lovers of horses and lands ; a strain of romance is always coming to the surface; they dislike details. These feudal-like landowners form a race distinctive, more typically Brazilian in a sense than the coffee plant- ers of Sao Paulo, or the inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro. One of the Presidents of a Southern Brazilian State said, ''I am not a politician, I am a cattle-man," and he looked it. Even in the State House, I found him dressed in vicuna cloth and high gaucho boots doing his official work seemingly with some regret, and anxious for the hour to arrive when he could mount his horse and ride AWAKENING OF SOUTHERN BRAZIL 227 away to his large estate. Here lie was studying with much enthusiasm the business of cattle raising and was crossing his herds with East Indian zebus, which animals he had imported in large numbers, finding them particu- larly fitted for subsistence and profit on the southern campo. The people were making extensive plans for the great Cattle Congress to be held the following May, the first formidable gathering of its kind known to Brazil. The National Society of Agriculture is supporting and con- ducting it. Even the Federal politicians have overcome their conser\"atism and are joining heartily in the plans. The preparations include a re-census of Brazilian cattle, and men from all parts of the country interested in land and stock will attend lectures and discuss new and vital problems. The congress marks a long step in advance in a land where the cattle business has been carried on in a more or less primitive and feudal fashion. An o\\Tier of tens of thousands of big cattle told me of the old customs still in vogue by which his ''vaquero" or cowboy cared for a certain number of cattle, taking every fourth calf in payment, branding it with his own name. Should a cowboy be found dishonest he would be driven out of the country, in accordance with traditional custom. Unwritten laws are strict here in these fenceless lands. Should a wandering cow join a strange herd, her calves are cared for and branded with the name of the old owner, save every fourth calf which is marked with the name of the gaucho or cattleman into whose herd she has strayed. When the original owner appears, his cattle are turned over to liim, and he usually follows the custom of giving several cattle of the herd to the cowboy as a re- ward of honesty and fidelity. There is an evident feeling in Brazil that Argentina has been giving somewhat inordinate attention to the breed- ing of fancy cattle, that such attention is inclined to make 228 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY cattle-raising too much of a fad, and also that less ex- pensive cattle are quite as useful for the purposes of freezing plants. In the Cattle Congress considerable at- tention is to be given to the ways and roads for bringing cattle to the seacoast from the inland states. The build- ing of cattle drove-roads to the nearest points of contact with shipping facilities is a matter of particular moment. The Brazil Railway is projecting lines into the interior with this in mind. The congress of cattle men will give special attention to considering Government responsibility in this new and strategic development, as well as to matters concern- ing dairying, cattle diseases, sanitary conditions, seeds, grasses, and patent foods for stock. Dr. Eduardo Cotrin, President of the Executive Commission of the First Na- tional Cattle Congress of Brazil, outlines the cattle con- dition and the aims of this meeting: ''On the upper Rio Branco, as on the island of Marajo, as in the prairie lands of the central plateau, in the rich fields of the south of Matto Grosso, cattle reproduce and herds increase almost without any care; so that Brazil offers a vast field which at no distant future time will in- vite enormous capital into creating for it a systematized cattle industry. The competition of the future will de- pend entirely upon our being able to offer products at low prices. The abundance of practically unoccupied land in Brazil gives the country an enormous advantage in the way of being able to meet this coming competitive strug- gle. There is no country at present devoted to cattle rais- ing where land is not dearer than in Brazil. Even in the Argentine and the United States, the possibilities of rais- ing cattle cheaply are every day becoming less and less, and not only the exploitation of vast wheat and corn fields, but the enormous influx of homesteaders, inevitably tend to raise the value of land and to do away with the possibilities of a cattle industry. In Brazil on the other AWAKENING OF SOUTHERN BRAZIL 229 hand, our extent of pasture land is so enormous that it mil be doubtless a half-century before the homesteader and agriculturist — who have besides, plenty of Brazilian woodland to select from for farming — ^begin to intrude upon the range." It is Avith such things in mind that the cattle breeders from all parts of Brazil will come to- gether to make a policy that should have sweeping results in the business now to the front. The United States will have a share in the Congress. Three American concerns have offered to give silver cups for competitive prizes, and calves were fed with American cattle food from January 1st, 1917, to the time of the exposition, for the purpose of exhibition and experiment. This food, of which cotton seed oil is the basis, was handled by an American, and the interest of North Amer- ican breeders and cattlemen in these developments is meaningful. It should signify for the United States a larger meat supply and a new market, as well as the rejuvenation of the Brazilian herds by the introduction of American blooded cattle. There are few indications of progress in the new Brazil more fascinating to the American with the inheritance of plains and wide western distances in his veins, than this open life in the Brazilian cattle land. At a small station in the State of Rio Grande do Sul, I left the train and visited a large fazenda situated on a lofty hill-top overlooking wide ranges of rolling country. Many square leagues of cattle estates stretched out before the eye in all directions. There was a striking contrast with the flat cheerless sandy plans, and the often unprepossessing buildings found on the Argentine pampa. We entered the fazenda through luxuriant gardens in which vegetables and fruits and flowers belonging to both temperate and sub-tropical zones, were growing in abundance. Through a grape vine arboured walk one could see in the distance part of a red farm house, Portuguese in appearance, with 230 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY brown-tiled roof and roses and hibiscus climbing over it. There was a wealth of foliage, all colours in plants, white, red, yellow, blue, and flowers everywhere. Palm trees waved their high heads above the other trees. The voices of children playing, and a snatch of a Brazilian folk song and the strumming of a guitar reached our ears. There was a large, well-kept lawn, and in the corner of the yard that lay before the farm house was a rose arbour, hung across with a hammock, and seats built about it, revealing the presence of something more than a hum-drum work- a-day world. Two men, wearing wide cowboy trousers and home- made shirts, high topped boots and broad sombreros, came out to greet us. They pointed out the "buena vista," lying below and beyond on every side; the undu- lating lands sloping away in rising tiers of foot-hills to a distant blue ridge of mountains. Here and there on strategic hill-tops stood other thick bunches of trees and heavy vegetation, through which the red roofs of other big fazendas glistened in the sun. Brown coloured cattle were feeding in assembled herds of fifties or hundreds on different portions of the wide acres. A dozen or more gauchos were driving a large herd of horses into a corral in the depths of a valley beneath us ; we were informed that these horses could be bought for one hundred milreis each, which is about $25.00. One could pick out corn- fields in many of the spaces between the green hills, but it was evident that the main business of these people was that of cattle-rangers. The hospitality of all Brazilian plainsmen was at once evident. The host, despite the fact that we were utter strangers to him, bid us hearty welcome, and clapping his hands to call servants, a stout, happy-looking ''mammy" as black as night appeared out of a row of servant quarters, which might have been at home on a Southern slavery-days plantation. Brazilian coffee was AWAKENING OF SOUTHERN BRAZIL 231 soon served in the summer house, and we almost forgot we were in the midst of the real gauchos in the great future cattle country of the world. It was all quite pic- turesque and suited to the kind of romantic environment with which the Brazilian is inclined to surround his every day life. One is told here tliat Matto Grosso is to be one day even a greater cattle country than Rio Grande do Sul; but when that day arrives, this most southern of Brazilian states will have entered the competitive markets of the world with her waving grain fields, her vineyards and her industries already beginning in no mean way. There are comparatively few of the North Americans who know much about such thriving cities as Santa Maria, Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul, or of the active and prosperous Capi- tal City of this large southern commonwealth, Porto Alegre. But there is coming a day, and it is not so far distant, when the eyes of the world will be turning toward this section, great with the greatness of the land. South Brazil has a future too large and promising to fully predict. XVI TRADE AND TRANSPORTATION Mr. James A. Fareell, President of the United States Steel Corporation, has stated that as a rule it is not as difficult to sell goods to foreign countries as it is to trans- port them. The truth of this fact as far as trading with South America is concerned has been brought home with emphasis to business men since the opening of the great war. As one man of affairs said of Brazil, ' ' You can sell anything under the light of the stars down here providing you can deliver it." The impressive element in the above statement by the experienced steel exporter lies in the fact that he believed so thoroughly in the necessity of having steamship facili- ties that in 1913 he inaugurated the United States and Brazil Steamship Line, which has the distinction of being the first line of its kind during the past twenty years to become an unqualified success as a transportation agent between the two big Republics. Trade conferences and discussions are helpful. A certain amount of ex- perience is needed in getting orientation in a foreign land. Theories and trade papers help. But the crying need just now in connection with cementing a firmer trade relation between the United States and Brazil is for men of Mr. Farrell's stripe, who get through talking and begin to act. An ounce of attempt and accomplishment is worth tons of conference or newspaper talk about what should or might be done, especially at this moment, in its effect upon Latin Americans. 232 TRADE AND TRANSPORTATION 233 "A right good thing is prudence, And they are useful friends Who never make beginnings Until they see the ends. But give me now and then a man And I will make him king, Just to take the consequences, And just to do the thing." The prime solution of trade between North and South America does not exist in spending an overplus of time and legal talent in discussing shipping combinations (as happened in the year 1913) but rather in going directly to the root of the need, as the United States Steel Cor- poration has showed the path, furnishing beyond cavil the answer to the first requirement for trade between na- tions — adequate shipping facilities. One important ele- ment relative to trade competition is distance. In this regard the United States possesses a favourable advan- tage for Brazilian commerce. The distance between New York and Rio de Janeiro is 4,770 sea miles, shorter than that between this Brazilian chief city and any one of the following European ports of special importance, to which Brazilian exports have been sent in large quantities and European manufactures returned. Hamburg is 5,500 miles distant from Rio de Janeiro ; Liverpool, 5,265 miles ; Barcelona, 4,808 miles ; Genoa, the same distance as Bar- celona, and Southampton is 4,985 miles from the prin- cipal port of Brazil. With this geographical advantage, given a frequency of steamings and a class of ships ade- quately fitted for freight and passenger accommodations equal to those plying between Brazil and Europe, there would seem to be no reason for despair over American trade with Brazil. The advantage of frequent sailings on the part of a nation competing mth a nation of infre- quent service is apparent. The interest charges are les- sened, a smaller investment is required for a large ' ' turn- 234 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY over" of commodities, and the risk of losses is reduced to a minimum. Foreign trade with Brazil means, morever, what the word signifies — trade; buying as well as selling. It im- plies reciprocity of products. It involves getting a mar- ket for our goods, and also affording a market for Brazil- ian goods. Its good business as well as good psychology to keep in mind the "other fellow." Commerce does not signify merely selling to Latin America; it also means buying from Latin America. Steamship lines need car- goes both ways, and the fact that they have their holds full on the return voyage is a big foreign trade asset, as well as necessary steamship statesmanship. The answer of Mr. William Lowry, the efficient manager of the United States and Brazil Steamship Lines in Rio de Janeiro, to my question as to the reason for the success of the Amer- ican attempt to found trade upon good transportation, conditions, is significant in this connection : ' ' The United States and Brazil Steamship Line has carried from Brazil to the United States 260,300 tons of manganese iron be- tween the dates of January 1st, 1916, and August 31st, 1916. This is one of the reasons for the success of the line, since a steamship service between New York and Brazil must have return cargo or die. There is not enough coffee cargo for all. The steel companies need manganese ore for the manufacture of ferro-manganese, an essential alloy in the manufacture of steel. There is an adequate tonnage of manganese from Brazil to supply return cargoes for monthly steamers. Hence, the pur- chase of manganese under contract and the manufacture of ferro-manganese by the United States Steel Corpora- tion on an increased scale. The return voyage in ballast, — that economic waste which had sapped the vitality from every effort of establishing an American controlled line, from 1893 to 1913, — ^was eliminated." A statement con- taining multum in parvo and rich in meaning as regards TRADE AND TRANSPORTATION 235 the establishment of steam communications directly owned and administered by the country trying to promote foreign trade. Every European nation engaged in any considerable trade mth South America has long since realised the im- possibility of building up permanent and effective com- merce without its own ships, and also without keeping its service in advance of its needs. There is little use or jus- tice in complaining of the treatment rendered American shipping by European steamship service. It is quite nat- ural to expect that a European nation, while quite willing to accept shipments from other nations that give a fair prospect of immediate return, will have in view primarily the inauguration of a direct trade betv/een the foreign country and that of the home-flag nation, rather than giv- ing its first attention to indirect trade between two for- eign countries. This is especially true when one of these countries is an actual or potential competitor with the nation whose flag flies over the steamship line. In these days when the United States is perforce en- larging its international vision, this matter of ship com- munication may be taken up on a large scale more easily than at any other period perhaps during the last century. The investment in, and the promotion of, direct steamship service for both passenger and freight between the United States and countries like Brazil, partakes of a large spir- ited national and international service. Like the railroad engineers and the promoting managers of the new lines of interior conmaunication that have done so much to open the inaccessible sections of the South American Republics to civilisation and industrial progress, the steamship men are the pioneers of world advance in a peculiar way. "With them as with all great enterprises the small and selfish microscopic policy is doomed to fail. The steamship manager and ''those who go down to the sea in ships" must necessarily look beyond the immediate present. 236 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY There are some things which do not seem to pay from the point of view of the narrow utilitarian, but which in the larger vision of statesman-like policy, embracing the future, yield for the nation and the individual an abun- dant multiplication of investment. It is this farsighted- ness of steamship construction and administration, the happy mixture of utilitarianism with national patriot- ism, that has brought England and Germany so far for- ward into the heart of South American commerce during the last twenty-five years. Again quoting from the ex- perience and knowledge of Mr. Lowry, who speaks of the European steamers as the advance harbingers of trade: ''The superior passenger accommodation of these European steamers as well as their more rapid voyages, induced the heads of European firms to offer to their pas- sengers, as relaxation from a luxurious sea voyage, an investigation of the commercial possibilities of the coun- tries with which they had business relations. Such com- mercial possibilities began to be exhaustively developed as a result of personal investigation— ythe homely adage that 'seeing is believing' was verified. Mutual needs and the national idiosyncrasies of the foreigner became bet- ter understood by the man who really counted, and as a result of this understanding, a degree of commercial con- fidence was reached which it will be impossible to de- velop between the merchants of the United States and those of Brazil until like shipping conditions make paral- lel results possible." With this notable exception the ships of Uncle Sam, comparable in any way with the strong European lines plying between England, Italy, Germany, France, Scan- dinavia and many other foreign ports and Brazil, are conspicuously absent. It is not only a bit shattering to American pride to find the Stars and Stripes confined entirely, in most South American ports, to an occasional tramp steamer or to an ancient-looking sailing vessel TRADE AND TRANSPORTATION 237 carrying oil or lumber, but it also makes one wonder that the United States of all the great nations of the world has failed to recognize the tremendous future importance, as well as the present open door for a strong merchant ma- rine service with these growing countries. From Panama to Patagonia, and from Patagonia to Para, the traveller hears to-day one universal moan relative to the lack of ships or the necessary delays in business by reason of slow and uncertain sailings. I found agents of large foreigii concerns in many port cities of South America, sitting practically idle in their offices, refusing even to solicit orders or to accept orders that came to them for goods. ' * What is the use ? ' ' they said, *'it is impossible to fill our orders. There are no boats, and we see no prospect of getting any for at least a year, and then everything is uncertain. ' ' To be sure, war-times have added greatly to the South American commercial dilemma, but the prospect for suffi- cient sea-carriers after the war is over for years to come is not bright, as far as Europe is concerned. The United States has the opportunity even yet, not only to serve her- self but also to do for European nations what they have been doing for her these last twenty-five years or more, as they have made their triangle shipping voyages from the shores of France, Germany and England to South America, thence homeward by the way of North Ameri- can ports. If the United States had possessed a series of steamship lines plying between our northern cities and Latin America at the opening of the war, the lines could not only have paid for themselves during the past three years, but they would have saved many of the South American business reverses and afforded at the present time an inestimable resource for our allies. Re- grets, however, are useless unless they become our teach- ers. It is as clear as daylight to any man who has given time and thought to these questions in South 238 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY American investigations, that South American trade is not going to be won in the next quarter century of rapid development of these Republics, by Monroe Doc- trines, pleasant writing or visiting commissions. This trade will go to the country or countries which are far- sighted enough to invest large capital in transporta- tion enterprises of all kinds intended to open and main- tain a broad channel through which these nations' rich natural treasures may flow out easily in recompense for things they want in return. In other words, crude as it may seem, the country that has the money and is willing to spend it in a big way for such things as steam- ship lines, railroads and dock works in order to give business to, and to get business from, Brazil and every other Latin American nation, will be ''simpatico" in Latin America, and its material reward will be "beyond the dreams of avarice." The coastwise shipping in Brazil is carried on by a dozen or more lines of Brazilian boats, the largest being the Lloyd Brasileiro with 72 ships. This line is said to receive a government subsidy of 187,000 pounds per annum, and it connects Rio de Janeiro with all parts of the coast, north and south, by both express and slow serv- ice. A tri-monthly freight and passenger service is also carried on with New Nork by the Brazilian Lloyd boats, and this fact has meant much to the line as also to Bra- zilian shippers during the war, when these steamers have been a main resource among neutral carriers. It is said that this excellent fleet of 70 or more ships has not been a paying concern in the past, but with such unique oppor- tunities as have been offered it of late, and with reorgan- ised management, the Government should realise large revenues from the ' ' New Brazilian Lloyd. ' ' According to Brazilian law, coastal navigation for the transport of merchandise is only possible in duly regis- tered Brazilian vessels. Except under exceptional cir- TRADE AND TRANSPORTATION 239 cumstances, foreign ships are prohibited to engage in coastal trade, though utter freedom is given such ves- sels for the transport of passengers ''of all classes and origins" from one port of the Republic to another. River and internal navigation is permitted to all nations, con- formably to the laws of the Commonwealth, and ships intended for navigation in the Amazon Valley are exempt from import duties. In addition to the steamship coastal service of the country, there are fleets of fishing boats and numerous smaller craft engaged in regular or occasional trade. The main passenger and freight service between Brazil and Europe and North America has been admin- istered by four English companies (The Royal Mail and the Lamport Holt being the largest lines) ; three French companies serving aU the chief Brazilian ports ; two Ger- man lines, the North German Lloyd and the Hamburg- American and the Hamburg-South American Lines com- bined; eight Italian companies between Genoa and Brazil, together with other national steamings from Aus- trian, Dutch, Scandinavian, Spanish and Portuguese ports. There are few countries where water transportation is more intimately and vitally connected with the growth of trade. The thousands of miles of shore line pierced by extraordinary harbour facilities, with new port works be- ing constructed at great cost along modern lines ; the ex- ceptional opportunities for commerce along the numerous rivers — the Amazon River and its tributaries alone fur- nishing a network of water ways forty thousand miles in extent — all call for ships. The spirit of the old Portu- guese navigators is still in the veins of their Brazilian descendants, who have been in the forefront of national commercial navigation. Their ports were made wherever possible, as the only means of communication for many, many years in Colonial days, between the widely scat- tered settlements, was by sea. In short the ports were the 240 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY centres of colonies and have since become the capitals of states. In front the sea, immediately behind usually for- est-covered mountain ranges, and inland vast plateaus and the fertile Matta or the sweeping wastes of the Sertao. The rivers were the railroads, and they seemed to run nearly everywhere. The area of the Amazon River Valley is estimated at 2,000,000 square miles. Although much of this lies outside of Brazil, the main course of the great river as well that of its numerous tributaries is in Brazilian territory. The valley of Central Brazil's vast river, the Paraguay, shared by several states, is also enormous, and its hundreds of square miles of water mea- dows form some of the finest pastoral land of the country. South Brazil seems to be almost independent of roads by reason of its many rivers. The Uruguay and the Pa- rana with their long flowing, mighty waters, take the con- tributions of a cluster of Brazilian streams. Such tribu- taries of the Parana, as the Pamahyba, the Tiete, the Rio Grande and the Pardo would stand out as notable in any country that was not so richly blessed with large nav- igable streams. A full list of Brazilian rivers would make a history of the country in themselves, if they could tell their story. Many are short tumultuous currents known only to the Indian with his canoe, while others flow windingly through upland valleys, and pierce mountain gorges on their journeys to the sea. Most of the latter are served by lines of steamers, and in some cases these still are the only means of communication of vast sections of Brazil with the outside world. There are said to be more than 120 river steamers plying on the Amazon and its tributaries. It is due in part to the fact that Brazil has used so easily and naturally the river courses, the traditional highways of mankind, that her national railroads, traction companies and rural highways have been so long in com- TRADE AND TRANSPORTATION 241 ing, and are even now in the beginning stages in many regions. Railroading in Brazil has been no easy task. The engi- neer has had no level or compact country with which to deal, as for example in Argentina, or in the United States where the roads of iron found comparatively ready access through the configurations of the Mississippi valley or otherwise through many natural slits in mountains. The foreign railway engineer who was called upon to con- struct the first lines a half century ago, was confronted at the outset with the formidable Brazilian coastal barrier of mountains stretching along the thousands of miles of waterfront, dividing the Atlantic and the only large set- tlements from the uplands of the interior, and affording easy entrance through only a few narrow passes. Build- ing railroads was costly as well as a difficult enterprise. The first large tunnel built in Brazil, 2,445 yards in length, required seven years to build and was the cause of bank- ruptcy of the Central Railway of Brazil. Incidentally, this natural obstacle has made railway travel in this country more grandly picturesque than in any other South American State, with the possible exception of Peru, where the foothills of the Andes shut off in similar manner the sea from the inland areas. Another obstacle to railway construction is what Baron D'Anthouard warns the Brazilians to guard against, — * ' the intoxicating influence of space. ' ' Brazil was too big to tackle all at once, and the first attempts were along the lines of least resistance, connecting the points where traffic was most promising, and this was nearest the coastal towns. The result was a series of disconnected lines, having little relation to each other, and a lack of railway cohesion generally. Like Topsy, since the first Brazilian railway was constructed in the year 1854, the roads of the country have ' ' just growed. ' ' It was natural enough that a country with 3,329,365 square miles of ex- 242 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY tent, and 5,000 miles of coast-line, with the major portion of its 24,000,000 of population living on or near the sea coast, should build its railroads to accommodate its in- habitants. Perhaps it is useless to lament that Brazil did not have her Harriman or Hill to see in farsighted rail- way visions her need one day of transcontinental and affiliated lines binding her far-flung empire in one. Cer- tain it is that Brazil's foreign railway concerns, which built her railroads in many cases at a prescribed price per kilometre, were thinking of the number of kilometres they could build rather than the co-ordinating of systems. Furthermore these foreign concessionaries who received large guarantees proceeded in not a few cases to build roads quite regardless of the prospect of future business of the section or sections through which they ran, and evidently were not actuated by the mathematical princi- ple that a straight line is the shortest distance between two given points. On some Brazilian roads the traveller is sometimes puzzled to know whether he is coming or going, so multitudinous are the curves. I travelled on one short railroad built by the early pioneers, covering 98 kilometres between its starting point and destination, which was rebuilt recently by an American engineer in 43 kilometres. In other words, railway constructors in the beginning of Brazilian transportation, did not heed the maxim I once heard stated by an expert railway man: ''You are operating a railroad at all times; you are build- ing a road but once." These conditions have left Brazil of the present with the outstanding railway problem of co-ordination. The country is politically one in her federated States ; she can be commercially unified only by a proper interweaving of her railways and water ways in such systematic fashion that her interior body, now beginning to thrill with quick- ened life, may be able to communicate readily and quickly with her members scattered widely along her shore line. TEADE AND TRANSPORTATION 243 That the countiy is now awakening to the needs is pat- ent. One hears to-day of a ''Canadian Pacific of the South," wliose project has become in part performance, to join Brazilian and Bolivian lines, thus uniting by iron tracks of commerce the Atlantic and the Pacific. There are other plans in mind to bring together Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil in speedy communication as does not now exist, and also to link up the rich interior (still railroad-less) with coastal lines in something approxi- mating a co-operative harmonised railway whole. A prominent railroad man in Brazil told me, in reply to the question as to the investment of capital by Americans in Brazilian railway construction, that providing the company selected some of the newly-developing central territory, and had sufficient capital to use, this business furnished one of the very greatest opportunities open to foreigners in the country. A study of railways existent in Brazil, which consist of something like 20,000 miles of road in operation and many more in projection, shows various kinds of hold- ings. Some are administered by the Federal Government, others by the State Governments, while others are owned by these powers and leased. Another important class have been built by corporations under a guarantee of in- terest on the capital invested, while still a fifth class of roads have been constructed without a guarantee, but in return for grants of land, or other inducements. The inhabitants of the United States, in ready com- munication with one another through more than 250,000 miles of railways, can scarcely appreciate the rapid changes railway construction has brought to Brazil in comparatively recent years. The Brazilians have doubled their railway mileage since 1900. Their agriculture and their immigration have followed the new roads, laid at enormous outlay of both national and foreign capital be- tween the points of her largest and most productive sec- 244 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY tions. Business and trade of many kinds have been re- animated, and the old, easy commercial days of the Em- pire have been quickened into new and more vigorous life by these greatest of all industrial benefactors — the railway pioneers. In this development, the characteristics of the people of the country have been manifest. Brazil has been called the land of extravagance, and the spoiled child of Europe. She has been able to get money from the Old World for the asking, and the natural riches of the country are so great that she has thought that if resources ran low in one direction there were many other treasure houses of wealth in her untouched domains, and spending has been as nat- ural as breathing with these favoured people. Success has not meant to make money, but to spend it. Nothing is more repugnant to the Latin of South America than economy, and as long as the first land fortunes of these countries continue to exist, Brazil, like her Spanish Amer- ican neighbours, will not soil her hands overmuch in the more trying pursuits of manufacturing development. There is also here the ''lingering perfume of monarchial institutions," and an attitude toward work in commercial realms not directly conducive to national industrial ad- vance. Latin America has not had her Benjamin Frank- lin to give her by example the dignity with which he sur- rounded manual labour. One can imagine the thoughts of almost any South American, could he have seen the author of Poor Richard's Almanac, the honoured Ambas- sador to Europe and one of the writers of the Declaration of Independence, in his earlier days wheeling his paper for his printing press through the streets of Philadelphia, lest people would think him too proud in his growing newspaper business and assembling honours. That our Brazilian friends will be finding it necessary to employ greater individual initiative and application to industrial pursuits in the future, is thought to be certain by many TRADE AND TRANSPORTATION 245 of the most astute business men who believe that the purse strings of Europe will not be as ready of access after the war as they have been in the past, and that this will be also to the ultimate advantage of Brazil's indigen- ous life and progress. Regarding this question one man's guess is as good as another, and the suppositions as to what Europe will do after the war are far too numerous and vague to permit of certified forecasting. It is true that during the early railway projections in this Republic, money was spent lavishly. Brazil's bor- rowings were great. The cash was forthcoming and streams of immigrants followed the newly-laid road, and the European settlers bivouacked in advance along the freshly-surveyed lines, staking their claims in a fashion resembling the pioneer railroad days in the Far West of the United States. Concessions for new railways flooded Brazil shortly after the formation of the Republic in 1889. Railway companies were guaranteed interest on their investment, and in some cases premiums were paid for each kilometre of road built. Engineers came ; scientists came. Brazil became conscious suddenly that her future as a nation de- pended upon her economic development, and railroads comprised the primal element of this new order. This was not the only avenue into which the new Re- public poured her borrowed riches from England, Bel- gium, and France. There were vast construction schemes, including harbours, dockage, city beautifying, electric traction enterprises, and great sanitation projects in the larger centres of population. It was a shining period of industrial renaissance in the early nineties in this new- est of American Republics. Brazil was the most extrava- gant world customer, and no one seemed to think of an inevitable day of reckoning. That this day came we all know, and it brought a financial darkness upon the people equal to that which has at times reigned in our own Re- 246 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY public in the earlier days. But the railways came also, and the street tramways, and to-day one hears the Bra- zilian talking with no uncertain pride of his twenty thou- sand miles of railroads, modern in their every accessory, and piercing through mountains and tropical jungle, sweeping over the lofty table lands of the interior, letting in the light of the civilised and commercial day to the remote corners of this varied and dowered land. Of these carriers, the largest government railroad is the Central Railroad of Brazil which was opened in 1858, and built in its different projections at great expense. Its longest extension is north along the River Sao Fran- cisco, a twenty-six-hour run, while its contemplated ex- tension to Para, an additional distance of 2,200 miles, three and one half days' journey, reveals something of the railway ideas of the Government. This road was the early result of a law passed in 1852 conceding the privi- lege to railroads with a guarantee of five per cent, interest on the capital used in enterprises which would connect Rio de Janeiro to the provinces of Minas Geraes and Sao Paulo. This line, originally known as the Dom Pedro II Railway, connects Sao Paulo with Rio de Janeiro, a dis- tance of 324 miles, which is made in nine hours and rep- resents perhaps the most important passenger traffic in the country. One is advised to take the journey in the day time in order to enjoy the remarkable scenery to be viewed along elevations, at times reaching two thousand feet. The entrance to Rio de Janeiro is hardly less im- pressive through the narrow channel of its beautiful Bay than from the tortuous windings of this railway down the mountains, giving panoramic glimpses at different angles of the beautiful and historic city. One day, when Thomas Cook and his followers become aware of Brazil, the railway journeys of this land will be among the most fascinating itineraries of world jaunts. A railroad with such marvellous facilities should be an ever-increasing TRADE AND TRANSPORTATION 247 asset to its backers, but, like the government railroads of Chile, richness of territory, heavy traffic and wonder- ful scenery have not always guaranteed successful rail- road administration, from the point of view of dividends to Brazilian government-controlled roads. The Brazil Railway Company, which cari-ies at least 50,000,000 pounds sterling of foreign capital, and serves virtually all of South Brazil with its branching lines, is one of the greatest enterprises, from the point of foreign capital involved, in the country. The road was begun in 1906, and it now manages 3,128 miles of lines and is busy in the construction of at least 2,000 more miles, being also associated with neighbouring roads which possess 1,712 miles. This is the largest railway system in Brazil and has set a new pace in such matters as the revising of tariffs and unifying scattered units. It has imported new rolling stock and is doing much to encourage the cattle industry, colony founding and the opening up of lumber regions. The road has attempted railway exploitation in a far-sighted manner in accordance with modern ideas and experience, and the debt which Brazil owes these men of vision and practical abilities is considerable. The Brazil Railway Company traces its corporation to the laws of the State of Maine, U. S. A., and the moving spirit in many of the earlier projects has been Mr. Perci- val Farquhar, of New York. In the large directorate are found men of American, Canadian, French, British and Brazilian nationalities, and the road has offices in Lon- don, Paris, New York, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. An indication of the interest of this company in wider rail- way plans is revealed in the Madeira-Mamore Railway Company, opened in 1912 with 226 miles of road, fur- nishing the outlet for Bolivia on the Atlantic side. The goods traffic on this road reports 38 per cent, of rubber and there are sixty-two miles of road into Bolivia now in construction, which involves the measuring and mark- 248 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY ing out of 6,000,000 acres of land. The Brazil Railway Company owns 50 per cent, of the stock in this road. It was with no little pleasure and interest that I trav- elled over several thousand miles of this remarkable rail- way development in four of the states of South Brazil, remarking the signs of rehabilitation and progress which have come to the road and the country it traverses since 1914, when the Honourable W. Cameron Forbes, ex-Gov- ernor General of the Philippine Islands, was appointed Receiver of the Brazil Railway Company. The present manager of these railways who is acting as agent of the Receiver, is Mr. William T. Nolting, formerly in charge of the Postal and Telegraph service in the Philippines, and to whose excellent business sense and efficiency these great railway lines are at present rapidly responding. The Sorocabana Railway is a line of 1,514 kilometres in length and traverses the most fertile part of the State of Sao Paulo. Its chief articles of transportation are coffee, cereals, cattle and timber. The extension which is now being built to the Parana River will open up a re- markable coffee district, which will shortly add to the richness of this already rich state. One learns that the problem already upon these southern Brazil lines is to build or obtain sufficient cars to meet the demand for increased agricultural products which are being sent to the coast ports and there reshipped not only to Europe and the United States, but also to Uruguay, Argentina and Chile. The Rede Viacao Parana-Santa Catharina road passes through the States of Parana and Santa Catharina and forms a connecting link between the States of Sao Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul — a line of 1,732 kilometres. The Compagnie Auxiliare de Chemin de Fer au Bresil fur- nishes railroad facilities to all parts of the great and in- creasingly flourishing State of Rio Grande do Sul, and all along its 2,172 kilometres is situated the country which TRADE AND TRANSPORTATION 249 is now experiencing a big cattle ^'boom" and one day later on will be the great Middle West of Brazil in agri- cultural enterprises upon a large scale. The railroad line Dona Thereza Christina is in the State of Santa Catharina, where some of the largest Ger- man settlements are located with their flourishing insti- tutions and commercial enterprises, and the road runs from the port of Imbatuba westward to the town of Lauro Muller, a distance of 118 kilometres. This particular line was built for the purpose of furnishing an outlet for the coal mines in this district. In spite of the fact that as yet Brazil has not been looked upon as a coal producer in large extent, the coal mines which the traveller visits in South Brazil reveal the latent possibilities of large results. The Brazil Railway Company, with its diversified in- terests, is doing much along lines indirectly associated with its work for the development of trade throughout the country. The Compagnie do port de Rio de Janeiro operates the Port of Rio de Janeiro. The Empreza de Armazens Frigorificos, also a part of the Brazil Rail- way's enterprise, is a cold storage plant in the Federal Capital, which is now freezing and storing 5,000 tons of meat per month, which is exported to Europe. This new business for Brazil bids fair to be the cold storage deposit for the perishable products reaching Rio de Janeiro from the interior and is of vital moment to the larger produc- tion and shipment of Brazil's peculiar climatic riches along this line. The State of Rio Grande do Sul, for example, has a capacity for raising fruits ranging from the temperate to the sub-tropical zone and has needed only a cold storage deposit in some such port as Rio de Janeiro for the rapid development of its industry. No one visits the extreme southern city of the country, Rio Grande do Sul, who does not hear very soon from the in- habitants concerning the Campagnie Frangaise do Port, 250 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY wliich lias been constructed by expending enormous capi- tal, making the port a first-class harbour with facilities capable of meeting a large future expansion which is confidently expected. I was interested in this connection to be told that one of the first engineers in this project was Mr. E. L. Corthell, an American. I had the privilege also of speaking with Mr. Murdo Mackenzie, a well-known man throughout the United States in connection with the cattle industry, who after twenty-seven years of successful management of ranges at home, was called to Brazil to take charge of the Brazil Land, Cattle and Packing Company, which own large ranges in the States of Matto Grosso and Minas Geraes. Pure-blooded Hereford and Short-Horn cattle were im- ported from the United States and the improvement al- ready made in the herds of native cattle is a monument to Mr. Mackenzie's ability. The Southern Brazil Lumber and Colonisation Com- pany is also the product of the organisation of the Brazil Railways, for the purpose of developing the lumber in- dustry in Parana and Santa Catharina, which has al- ready received mention, as has also this company's De- partment of Lands and Colonisation. In addition to these many enterprising projects, this railroad has organised the Campagnie do Grandes Hoteis de Sao Paulo for the purpose of furnishing first-class hotel accommodations at the summer resort of Guaruja, near Santos, which is one of the best known pleasure places of Southern Brazil. Mention might also be made of the Rio de Janeiro Hotel Company, which the Brazil Railway has organised, pur- chasing a site near the Municipal Theatre in Rio de Janeiro, where a large modem hotel is contemplated. No one can view such diverse and successful plans of de- velopment without realising not only the field that Brazil offers for foreign investment, but also the readiness with which Brazilians themselves, who in the case of the Brazil TRADE AND TRANSPORTATION 251 Railway Company, as with tliat other large Brazilian en- terprise, and Rio de Janeiro and the Sao Paulo Tramway Light and Power Companies, have readily co-operated, furnishing in both cases the large proportion of the men who are conducting these far-reaching lines of national development. The picture of transportation in Brazil would be in- complete without mention of the Leopoldina Railway, named from the Princess of the Imperial family of Brazil, and now owned and controlled by British capital. During the last fifteen years more than 6,000,000 pounds of Eng- lish money have been invested in this road, which now possesses a system embracing 1,701 miles of railways, reaching outward fan-like from Rio de Janeiro as a handle. There are connecting branch lines at the outer end and the area served is 200,000 square miles, a terri- tory larger than France. This road carries 4,000,000 passengers yearly, in addition to the staple products of the country like coffee, timber, sugar, maize and live stock. The Leopoldina has been one of the most costly railroads to build in Brazil, piercing into the very centre of the country, and winding sinuously about the moun- tains. One gets the impression in riding on this railroad that the roadbed is made up largely of curves, but there are few more wonderful railway journeys than that which this line affords between Rio de Janeiro and Victoria, an eighteen-hours ' ride, through a picturesqueness of scen- ery in which Brazil is uniquely endowed. There are all the signs of modernity in the way of sleeping and dining cars. The gradient in the road reaches frequently two and one-half per cent., and at the Victoria end in the Guyamor Pass a height of 786 metres is attained. This railway serves also Petropolis, the mountain resi- dence of Brazil's Diplomatic and fashionable world, which some one has styled "the pocket show piece of Rio." Al- though the journey is thirty-nine miles and takes but one 252 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY and one-half hours to accomplish, the trip upwards through the mountains, especially at Raiz da Serra, where the road rises on the rack system for a distance of three and three-fourths miles, amid scenery of almost unparal- leled beauty, the final vantage point is quite unforgettable in the glimpse of Rio and its Bay lying miles away in the sunlight, 2,000 feet below. Many of the Federal Capi- tal's foreign and wealthy inhabitants, as well as Brazil- ians, live the year around in Petropolis, commuting sev- eral times during the week. In a recent year the gross receipts of the Leopoldina Railway were 1,688,926 pounds, the net receipts amount- ing to 602,269 pounds — again revealing the fact that effi- cient railroading is not necessarily carried on at a loss in Brazil, even amid the most stupendous difficulties of construction in a mountainous region. North Brazil, from the point of view of railroad sys- tems, is not so well served. There are a goodly number of disconnected links of road between the towns and the sea, but for generations it has been the habit of Brazilians to travel by water between such cities as Bahia, Pernam- buco and Para. River facilities have also competed suc- cessfully with the railways, and although one hears of new and long systems contemplated in this section, for the most part thus far the North Brazilian roads are com- paratively short ones. The Great Western Company con- trols twelve of these railways, which for the most part are conducted under the leasing system from the Government, which system was instituted in 1911. It is interesting in connection with northern Brazilian transportation to note that there are 26,000 miles of navigable rivers in North and Central Brazil, the longest stretches of navi- gable waterways in the world, one-half of which, at least, are now being used for traffic. The Amazon Steam Navi- gation Company, with its headquarters at Para, alone controls a fleet of more than forty river steamers repre- TRADE AND TRANSPORTATION 253 senting a total tonnage of 20,000. The boats of this company provide regular services on the Amazon and its most important branches, covering over a quarter of a million miles yearly. The Republic of Brazil is now aroused to the immense opportunities and needs of transportation. She desires help of foreign capital and foreign leadership providing these can be afforded in consistency with her laws and her growing needs. Undoubtedly some of the most important transportation developments, both by sea and land, of the next quarter of a century will be forthcoming in this land of areas and natural resources. Brazil's future trade is limited in extent only by her transportation facili- ties. XVII OUTDOOR SPORTS AND LOTTERIES EvEKY one has heard of Santos Dumont, but few know that not long since another intrepid Brazilian sailed in his aeroplane over the lofty mountain range that divides Rio de Janeiro from the progressive city of the Brazilian southland, Sao Paulo. During my stay in the Federal Capital of the Brazils, I lived for the most part in Nicthe- roy, the old palm-covered city across the Bay, which now serves as a summer residential abiding place for Cario- cans, who especially love the swimming and the boating which have their popular centre there. Among our diver- sions not the least interesting was the watching of the aeroplanes and water planes as they skimmed the blue waters of Rio's Bay, and like sea birds, at times rested on the waters or ran races with the yachts and motor boats. Here also are the boat clubs and on Sundays the small arms of the Guanabara Bay resemble a miniature Henley. Rowing is one of the most popular of the Flumenenses' sports and when the big regattas occur, all society, with the Republic's President and the Government officials, are in attendance and the scene is gala in the extreme. Certain Europeans call the rowing of the young fine-look- ing Brazilians a bit amateurish, but the earnest manner in which these youth train for the ''events," together with the high standards they have set for this sport, would cause one to predict that the descendants of those who began rowing and yachting on Guanabara Bay in 1846, will one of these years be sending challenges to Oxford and Yale. There are at present a dozen or more 254 OUTDOOR SPORTS AND LOTTERIES 255 rowing clubs about the bay, and this sport is adding new votaries constantly from the youth of Rio de Janeiro. A few years ago a prominent newspaper of the Federal Capital took a census to discover what outdoor sport held the largest place in the popularity of Cariocans, as the inhabitants of Rio are called. Association foot-ball had the first place in the replies, with rowing, horse-rac- ing following, and lawn tennis a poor fourth. It must be remembered that there are unsurmountable obstacles in certain parts of Brazil for open air games such as kindle the hearts of American boys and girls, and the chil- dren of larger growth in temperate zones. Until in com- paratively recent years Brazilians, living under the hot shadow of the equator, thought the grateful shade of a mango tree more inspiring than violent strivings after pigskin balls in the blazing sun of the tropics. But the English and the Americans have come with their love for out-of-door games, and the young Brazilian, passing by cricket, golf, polo and tennis, has chosen foot-ball as the sport in which he is rapidly equipping himself to com- pete in international athletic rivalries. Already inter- state games are common and not long ago there was a hotly contested game with Argentina and another with the Corinthian *s team from London. That the seasoned Londoners were too much for the Brazilians seems only to have increased the ambition of the Southerners to work for the triumphant day which they believe is coming for their national foot-ball. The American baseball does not seem to be more suc- cessful than English cricket in attracting the young men of this country. There have been enthusiastic attempts by our countrymen in laying out fields and donning their old American ''togs," hoping to lure the youth of the land towards the great American game. Thus far the diffi- culty has seemed to be that not enough Brazilian youth to form a nine could be induced to get on the field and 256 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY expose themselves to the weird throwing of American ex- porters, dentists and Singer Sewing Machine men. One gentle youth, fresh from his law books, after watching the somewhat wild hurlings and hurtlings of what would be called in the *' States" a *' scrub team," confided to a friend of mine that in view of his prospective career in politics he did not think it expedient to engage in a game ' ' evidently attended with so great danger. ' ' As for golf, the only way to have a course about Rio de Janeiro would be to use the top of Sugar Loaf Moun- tain for a tee and try to drive across the Bay, and no one but Mr. Rockefeller would enjoy a golf game of such lofty and solitary monotony. But when it comes to horse-racing we find indeed a "horse of another colour," as far as the Brazilian apti- tude is concerned. Some say that the man of Latin temper in these regions takes to horse-racing not merely because of the open air recreation, but also because it is attended by all the gaiety of life, prizes and, more especially, the chance of transferring through the French pari mutuel system of bookmaking the money of his neighbour into his own pocket. The two big horse and racing clubs of Rio, the Jockey and the Derby Clubs, call out from 10,000 to 15,000 Cariocans for their classic races, and incident- ally have made money enough to build two of the finest club houses in the Southern Hemisphere on the Avenida Rio Branco. Other clubs with similar success are doing good business in Sao Paulo, and the States of Parana, and Rio Grande do Sul. The races are held on Sundays, and like those of the larger Jockey Club in Buenos Aires are attended by the elite and fashionable, as well as by the other extremity of society, each in its section defined by the sovereign milreis. English horses of valued breed have been imported, but Brazilian stock for racing has already been notable on the courses. Prizes range from $500 to $5,000, and in this OUTDOOR SPORTS AND LOTTERIES 257 matter the Brazilians, according to type, have not been niggardly of their wealth. As for college and school athletics, these are in the early stages at present. The new gymnasiums and the athletic pioneering of a few institutions, notably Mackenzie Col- lege of Sao Paulo, give promise of an evolution in open air games, similar to that which started in the United States thirty years ago, with the erection of the large college and school gymnasiums and the laying out of ath- letic fields. Of motoring much might be written, for no finer cars and no more entrancing drives and boulevards on which to use them exist anywhere than in many parts of Brazil in the proximity of the cities and towns. Automobiling fits the Brazilian feminine 's idea of open air '* exercise," and it may be because her charming presence has not graced many of the other forms of out-of-door sports, as, has the pretty feminine of the North, that these athletic activities have lingered somewhat in their dawning popu- larity. But I am coming now to a form of sport, not necessarily in the open air, but which in doors or out, never finds the Brazilian lukewarm. The lure of the lottery and the grip of the gaming table are probably paramount to any diversion yet known in Brazil. One who knew well the inhabitants of Brazil said that whatever the Brazilians may lack in other ways, they are good gamblers and in the end will succeed. Although reference was made to the spirit of risk and love of adven- ture which these people inherited from their Portuguese ancestors, one might also as truly refer to the spirit of the nation regarding games of chance. Latin Americans as a whole take to gambling as readily and spontaneously as North Americans take to baseball. It seems to be a strain of blood. To call it a vice in the sense that it works out that way in northern climates would be too sweeping. 258 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY for when a thing gets as common as gambling is in Latin America, its regular familiarity saves the participants from some of the feverish and abandoned recklessness often associated with worshippers at the Temple of For- tune in the United States. In Brazil one is told that gambling is frequently in- dulged in for amusement quite as much as for the money that may be won. While some of the older Brazil- ians are beginning to shake their heads and question the nation-wide influence of the various forms of lotteries and the gaming spirit amongst the people, the majority of the Brazilians are inclined to the opinion that gambling is a kind of sui generis exercise which men in this land with their traditions crave as a recreative measure. Certain it is that Brazil goes other Latin American Republics one better in her daily lottery (Argentina seems satisfied with a weekly lottery) occasional State lotteries, private lotteries and the special joy of the whole populace, the daily Jogo do Bicho. To say that the native club life and much of the amusement hall life of the larger cities centres about the gaming table, with its *'57" or more varieties of games of chance, would not be far from the truth. The Capital City, Rio de Janeiro, is the na- tional centre of this form of amusement, as it is the guide and gauge of so many other things Brazilian. The main streets in the Federal city are provided with lottery- vendors' counters, and on the main thoroughfares, he who would invest his milreis on a turn of the wheel, or the winning numbers, will find tickets at his hand in cigar stores, small book stalls, and in the outstretched hands of newsboys, beggars, and even small children. Some- times the seller may have but a single piece of crumpled bluish paper which he proffers you for a small sum, — but there is always the chance that it may carry the tri- umphant arrangement of figures when the afternoon an- nouncement is made. OUTDOOR SPORTS AND LOTTERIES 259 It is at least gambling in the open. There is no hypoc- risy about it, no subterfuges, no sneaking away behind barred doors. It is too universal with high and low to be associated with any suspicion of disgrace. It is a remark commonly heard in Rio that "ever^^body buys a lottery ticket, if not daily, at least occasionally," and even the foreigners do not seem to be immune but fall more or less generally into the national habit, especially at the times of the special and Christmas lottery drawings. When the day of ''muck-raking" and reform movements strikes Brazil, if it ever does, when pestiferous committees of ''investigation" follow as they have here in the United States, their members being paid salaries to unearth evils rather than try to build up the good, the lotteries and the gambling habits will probably be the last and the toughest proposition they will tackle. One prominent Brazilian told me that if the police tried to close up gambling there would be a popular revolution. Here again one sees striking contrasts with conditions in the North. The National Lottery is a Government affair, and as much of a Brazilian institution as the Na- tional Library or the Brazilian Chamber of Commerce. A Federal concession is given to the Companhia Loterias Nacionaes do Brazil for drawing lotteries throughout the Republic. This company takes pride in the fact that it conducts its business with strict regard to honesty and the elimination of fraud; [whatever this proud boast may mean to the losing participants who find that there are many chances to one against them in the matter of ever beating the "machine," may be conjectured]. Yet in a country where it is maintained by many that lotteries are a necessity for the people, it is an advantage to have them conducted decently and in order and under the inspection of the Government. The customers rarely find fault with the lottery companies no matter how hard the results may go against them, which would seem to 260 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY argue that the enterprise is conducted in a mechanically correct fashion. The daily National lotteries are carried on according to various schemes, all of which are submitted for the approval of the Ministry a month in advance. According to law each scheme must provide for fifty prizes. There is a public drawing, when many spectators are present. The method is by the wheel system, the wheels corresponding to the decimal number of the total number of tickets, and these are set in motion by young girls of ten or twelve years of age; the winning number is the one formed on the wheels when they come to a stop. The National lottery is said to be limited to a total of $15,000,000 per year, and no ticket can cost less than 600 reis, which at the present exchange is about 15 cents. The company is required to pay a tax of 3i/^ per cent, on its issued capital, as well as 10 per cent, on the value of all tickets placed before the public for sale. There is also a tax of 5 per cent, on the value of all prizes over $1,000, or about $50. The company places "caution" money with the Government to the amount of approxi- mately $150,000, and the amount devoted to prizes must be 60 per cent, of the capital issue. Charities benefit largely by the lottery. Asylums, schools and charitable houses of various kinds all over the country are beneficiaries, since, apart from the prizes distributed daily, the company is obliged by law to con- tribute yearly somewhat more than half a million dollars to charities which the Government selects, plus 5 per cent, of the prizes exceeding in amount 200 milreis. There is a strict Government inspection and supervision, and the lottery company is evidently in a most prosperous condi- tion, its shares standing high in the market. The direc- tors are chosen from among the prominent men in the nation, the names of Ex-Ministers of Government and members of the leading Commercial Associations of the OUTDOOR SPORTS AND LOTTERIES 261 land being found upon the company's board of gover- nors. It is thus apparent that Brazil does not ''tolerate" the lottery; she originates, governs and promotes it, and in a fashion complimentary at least to the Brazilian's business ability in organisation. The Brazilian or foreigner who draws the first prize in the Government Lottery receives a comfortable sum, ranging from 16 contos ($4,000) to 500 contos ($125,000). The wheel of chance turns often toward the clerk, the small shop-keeper, or sometimes to the head of a very poor family in the rural sections, where the tickets are sold almost as generally as in the cities. There are also compensations for many who fail of the first prize, since each daily list contains many prizes, and the drawer gets back the value of his ticket, if he draws only the last digit of the chief winning number. On any afternoon in the Federal Capital of Rio de Janeiro, one who is on the watch will witness a Sister of Mercy trailing a number of young orphan children along the Avenida Rio Branco toward the Lottery Company's offices, where the drawings are made at about three o'clock. At the time of drawings, a small Brazilian maiden is posted at each of the six or seven or ten wheels, as the size of the day's lottery requires, and each small miss twists her wheel in unison with the others at the given command. When the wheels stop the spectators look with that peculiar intentness known to the devotee of the whirligig of fortune, to see the total figure made by the combined twists of the wheels. This is the first prize number. Now a blase gentleman with a bored and apa- thetic expression, calls out impassively ''Cem contos de reis" or "Ducentos milreis," as chance may have it. It is at this highly interesting and thrilling moment of the Brazilian day that thousands of little red signals begin to bob up all at once in the distracted eyes of the telephone girls in the exchanges, and from the rich coffee **fa- 262 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY zenda" in the rural sections to the suburban residence of the Capital's Copacabana district, they are asking the same thing — the winning number — after hearing this, things go on as usual, and the next day the same thrill is repeated. But popular as is the National Lottery, the little ani- mal known as the ''Bicho" — this word means in Portu- guese, insect, animal or thing — and which represents the form of gambling which is the particular joy of the com- mon people as well as those higher up, holds the front of the stage in Fortune's show. The Jogo do Bicho is ''illegal," but despite this fact it is just now the uni- versal favourite among Brazilian games of chance, and the authorities make only spasmodic and false-alarm at- tempts to check its merry career. This form of gambling which is based on the numbers that come out in the Na- tional Lottery, affects more directly the pockets of the working people and Brazil's poor, for which reason it is undoubtedly a pleasure with a sting to it. I asked the superintendent of the municipal lodging house in Rio de Janeiro what brought the majority of the one thousand men there nightly, and he answered, "the Bicho." In the United States the reply under similar circumstances would probably be "drink," but liquor is not the na- tional vice in Brazil. The weakness of the lower class man in this Republic runs in the direction of the gaming table or the too excessive attention to the game of love and women. The emotional romantic temperament is not confined to the poets and the statesmen ; it runs a continu- ous thread through the entire national fabric of life. The same traits seek for expression in the fish-man who brings you the daily fish, and in the rich planter; it would be difficult to find a waiter, a ditch-digger, a stevedore on the great docks, or a policeman who lifts his hat ob- sequiously at your question, who does not take his more or less regular fling at these small magic "bichos," the OUTDOOR SPORTS AND LOTTERIES 263 midget animals that swim in silver seas before the eyes of those who live labourious days in the great tropical Republic. A gentleman f azendeiro with whom I talked concerning the attitude of his workmen to the Bicho said, **Many of them work only because they want money to play the Bicho." This game is not easy to explain to the uninitiated, though it is like A, B, C to the Brazilian. For the benefit of those who are interested to know how the Brazilian of all castes of society seems most willing to spend his milreis, I am giving a description of this game of chance by one who was more familiar than the writer with its devious conditions: *' Roughly the last two digits of the figure of the first prize of the National Lottery are for the purposes of the Bicho, divided into 25 groups of four numbers each, as 00 to 99 may be divided. The groups bear the names of animals, such as the dog, the cat, the bull, the lion, and so on for 25 groups. If you play one milreis on group 14, for instance, which is the cock, and comprises 49, 50, 51, and 52, and one of these four terminals ends the first national lottery prize of the day, you receive 24 milreis for your one. If you have a milreis on the actual winning decena, or tens, you receive 90 milreis (about $25) ; if on the winning centena, or last three figures, you receive 900 milreis ; if on the last thousand, most Bicho houses, I believe, give you eight contos, or about $2,000, for your nimble milreis. There are besides all sorts of variations of the game, such as Moderno, Rio, Salteado, etc., which you may amuse yourself by learning from your hotel waiter, if you so desire. This is the illegal and popular Jogo do Bicho. I have noticed as a rule, the Bicho plun- gers always buy the regular lottery tickets also, as a sort of hedging. Do not be surprised if, when walking in any part of Rio, you hear the following salutations as two 264 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY men meet : * * Como passou I " ( ' ' How goes it I " ) B. — Qualfoi? (Wliichwasit?) A.— *'0 Gato" (The Cat). There is no little superstition connected with the play- ing of the Bicho. If for example a Brazilian should have bad dreams and dream of being chased by a lion, he would forthwith think that it was foreordained from the foundation of the world that the lion would be the lucky animal that day and he would hasten to put his milreis on that particular beast. There are all kinds of "systems" advertised and it is said that many make it their ex- clusive business to teach desirous gamblers how they can get the best of the seductive wheel of chance. The news- papers give space to the announcements of the lottery games and some have "tip" columns in which the writer makes suggestion to readers regarding the most likely chances, much as certain papers in Argentina have col- umns predicting beforehand the horses that have the best show to win the next day's derby. Few visitors to Rio come away without witnessing the free course of the spirit of gaming in the famous gam- bling clubs. These are unique, and, as far as we know, have no counterparts in other parts of Latin America. These have little resemblance to our men's social clubs in the United States, but are combinations of our cabaret restaurants and a mild Monte Carlo. Both men and women are in attendance, but the feminine contingent is exclusively of the demi-monde, whose native land is usu- ally not Brazil but France. The clubs are furnished with various kinds of the old game, roulette, baccarat, etc., and for those who desire, dancing and refreshments are pro- vided. Like all other things Brazilian these clubs are conducted with decorum, despite the exhilaration of wine, women and song, and also gambling; the tourists who sometimes take their parties to see this phase of pleasure life in the big easy-going city of the South, find these pal- aces of joy-making to compare favourably as far as con- OUTDOOR SPORTS AND LOTTERIES 265 duct is concerned, with the average roof-garden dancing restaurant in New York or Chicago — save of course the absence of women of ''respectability." It is in connection with all this attention to the pleas- urable that here in Brazil, as throughout South America, the inhabitant of the United States finds contrasts that, on the surface, seem bewildering to his native standards and morahties. One attends bull fights for charity in Peru and horse races for charity in Argentina. Many of the great vineyards on the West Coast are owned by the priests and the Church, which, among other influences favouring the use of wine drinking, seem to make the regime of *'Dry States" in Latin America a dream of the distant future. "Saints Days" are hailed in many sections as occasions for general hilarity, in which feast- ing and drinking play a prominent part, while Sundays are decidedly Continental in character, being the day for public amusements, theatres, horse racing, picnics, re- gattas, bull-fighting and football. It must be noted, how- ever, that the Spanish bull fights are losing esteem in South America, some of the more progressive States pro- hibiting them entirely, while in others the exhibitions would be called tame affairs by the Spaniard from Madrid. The American moral psychologist would probably have his hands full for a time in his effort to adjust himself to the Latin American way of treating ideas and ideals that have been imbedded in his New England conscience. No doubt he would get something of a shock when, for exam- ple, the Christmas lottery ticket which is thrust into his hands on the streets is found to bear a picture of the Holy Family, in which Joseph is standing at the back of the seated Virgin Mary in whose lap is the infant Christ- Child holding out bags of gold to the fortunate winner of the lottery prize. There is so much in latitude and longitude as also in 266 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY racial and national inheritance to be considered, that only the most daring bigot feels free to call all people irreverent and immoral save his own. The test is per- haps best measured in the results to a people as a whole. A wholesale gambling passion in the United States re- sembling that in Brazil would doubtless mark speedily a downward movement both in trustworthiness and in morals. Our northern excessive way of doing things would not allow any such degree of complacency as seems to exist in Brazil over regular losses and gains at the temple Fortuna. That the losses as well as the constant drain upon time are reflecting their baneful shadows upon the home life of labouring men especially, in Brazil, seems to the student of these matters quite clear. That these pleasure-loving seekers of exciting past-time will give up gambling in the near future, is beyond the ex- pectations of those who know them: but that they will temper and reduce it, modifying its ill effects upon those to whom it now renders pleasure a hardship, is the belief of those who appreciate the good sense of the Brazilians. XVIII BIO DE JANEIRO— THE CITY OF ENCHANTMENT Go rolling down to Rio, Roll down, roll down to Rio. I'd like to roll to Rio Some day before I'm old. RuDYARD Kipling. There is one man whom I truly envy — Ferdinand Magellan — I envy him not because of his pioneer voyage around the ''Stormy Cape," but for those fourteen days in the year 1519, when, according to his own testimony, he was held spell-bound in the Bay of Rio de Janeiro. It is certain enough that the honour of the discovery of Brazil as well as the western hemisphere south of the equator, goes to Vincent Yanez Pinzon, a companion of Columbus, who sighted the green promontory just south of Pernambuco now known as Cape Augustine, in Janu- ary, 1500 ; and also that Cabral the Portuguese navigator, with whose name many are wont to connect the first land- ing on Brazilian soil, disembarked at about the same spot, claiming the territory for his monarch ninety days later in the same year. Yet there is an art of seeing as well as of discovering, and Magellan seems to have seen and felt the unadorned, naked loveliness, the finaUty of Beauty and Majesty, which Nature, unobstructed by human adornment, un- rolled there to his wondering eyes four centuries ago. Many since have gazed enchanted upon this panorama of mingled mountain, island and sea shining in tropical sunlight, and those who have possessed "seeing" eyes, 267 268 THE BEAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY have felt, upon drawing away, like the French writer who said *'Partir — c'est mourir un peu" — (''To depart — it is to die a little"). I have remained not fourteen but 120 days in the en- vironment of this "jewel of the Atlantic," where the his- toric story of sixteenth century mariners is interwoven with a romance no less remarkable by the twentieth cen- tury Brazilians who have added all the modern arts of beautification ; and now as my eyes are turning north- ward, I am thinking of the old proverb that runs, ''he who travels long, comes home with rich eyes." No one as yet has been able to visualise Rio de Janeiro in words. Taken with its rich pageantry of colour be- neath the dazzling sky of the tropics, with its shining sea, its red-tiled roofs amidst the palms, and its en- circling border of evergreen hills, the place moves upon one's spirit like the unreality of dreams. It has been called by some one the "home of dreams." It haunts one's memory, like the sound of a Japanese temple bell. There is a witchery of beauty about Guanabara Bay which is one of the most baffling things one can try to analyse. It amounts almost to personality. A great traveller said to me in advising regarding South Amer- ica : " Go to Rio last ; remain only a short time at first for one's power of receptivity of physical charm is lim- ited; then after a while return and try to think through it." I followed my friend's advice, and now as I write, the Brazilian Lloyd steamer is moving slowly out of the Bay. On our left is ancient Nictheroy ("Hidden Water," the old Tamoyo Indians called it), and I see the tiny curve of Icarahy beach, all white with surf, and rising abruptly above it the ridge of mango-covered hills that screen it from the open sea. I can just make out with my glasses a small vari-coloured house, very Brazilian-looking as inTTA • ^CH ^TLI EIO DE JANEIRO— CITY OF ENCHANTMENT 269 though the top had been neatly cut off, richly ornamented with figures across the stucco work, and all about it the waving branches of banana and palm trees. It was our home for nearly four months, the place from which we saw Rio and her Bay through rain and mist and dancing sunlight by day, and at night followed the track of the moon upon the waters until it blended with the reflection of the city's myriad lights, which came out half way to meet it on the waves. My wife stood by me, and she was looking that way, too, but she couldn't see it; her eyes were too full of tears. I have travelled the world about considerably; one is apt to get a bit hardened to physical impressions of beauty. But I have not yet known anything so much like the parting with a dear friend, as was the retreating view of Guanabara Bay on that January afternoon. When I looked back to the right to get the last vision of that old city of all the Brazils, which Mem da Sa raised into being above the wattled Indian huts far away in 1560, the thirteen hundred feet of barren rock of Pao d'Assucar was shutting from our view the city with its embowered villas and time-stained walls, which the moun- tain forests seem ever trying to push down her green hillsides to the sea. Directly behind us the lofty barrier range of Organ Mountains, miles away at the extreme foot of the Bay, so called because their spire- like pinnacles resembled the pipes of some vast organ, were beginning to put on their sunset robes. We were at the mouth of the Narrows rounding which Magellan and Cabral, De Solis, De Souza and the early band of French Huguenots must have seen, four hundred years ago, the amphitheatre of Nature which we were seeing — the cir- cling sublimity of Corcovado, Tijuca, and the upward pointing mountain, the ''Finger of God." As Shelley might say: 270 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY "A vast cathedral, boundless as our wonder, Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply, Whose choir, the winds, Whose organ, thunder, Whose dome, the sky." We are now in the South Atlantic, turning northward, and the long curving stretches of Ipanema beach upon which we know a thundering line of ocean surf is break- ing, seems but a white thin thread drawn about the feet of the Serras. Visible Rio has passed. I shall try to think what remains as a part of unfading memory from these months spent on the banks of the Bay of Guana- bara. At first thought it appears as an amazing phantasma- goria with many things reminding one of the Orient. There is a jumble of colour in both architecture and vege- tation; happy crowds of smiling men and dark-eyed women; gleaming boulevards and thousands of blazing electric lights by night; the weird minor calls of street- vendors; ferry-boats filled with workmen, black, brown, octoroon and mulatto; jewelry shops with the dazzling Brazilian gems such as once drew Portuguese adventur- ers across the seas ; white-bodied motor-cars from France whirling along the Beira Mar; parks filled with birds of brilliant plumage ; pretty senhoritas leaning out of win- dows; flaring ''movie" announcements and the flutter of blue lottery tickets in your face ; flowers and green foliage everywhere; all strung upon a golden thread of old feudal romance. My first vivid impression of Rio de Janeiro was from the window of a taxi-cab as we were driven from the station on one warm September evening after a day's railroad journey from Sao Paulo. I thought first of Al- giers, then of Calcutta, and the palm trees and a certain tropical humidity in the atmosphere recalled nights in Singapore. But it was only a hint at likeness; Rio was RIO DE JANEIRO— CITY OF ENCHANTMENT 271 different ; the Cariocans sitting, Paris-like, on the broad sidewalks of the Avenida Rio Branco, drinking Brazilian coffee and punctuating their fluent conversation with many gestures, was a hint of a part of Latin Europe transplanted in the tropics. Then there was the luxury of lights, electric lights in generous clusters, and ever- moving crowds of men and women passing slowly up and dowm the Capital's matchless central avenue, where the whole city seems to come at night to watch itself. The sidewalks are always noticeable by travellers visiting this southern city for the first time. They are flowered pavements made in mosaic with winding designs of small white stones, brought from Portugal. One hears of the American sailor who, losing his bibulous way in Rio, summoned up his whole stock of Portuguese to enquire of the policeman for "that street with pretty flowers on the sidewalk." There is a sense in which the works of man's hands are subordinate in this region to the commanding natural features all about one. As some one once said of Naples, *'the magnificent lines and sweeps of the landscape eat up the city itself. ' ' Nevertheless, there are no people in Latin America who have taken more justifiable pride in latter years in making a modem city fit to match its superb environment. The Avenida Rio Branco and the sea-boulevards of Beira Mar, the taste and elegance dis- played in buildings and the tropical luxuriance of park- ways, will compare favourably with Fifth Avenue above Twenty-third Street, or the Champs Elysees in Paris. The city's Botanical Gardens have long been the wonder of foreign naturalists, and the Praca da Republica, wdth its 60,000 species of plants, its lagoons and its artistic bridges, is said to have the distinction of being the largest garden in the heart of any metropolis. All this, save for the organic life which in this equa- torial latitude must have been always irrepressibly beau- 272 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY tiful, is a work of very recent modernity. Many a Bra- zilian, past the meridian of life, recalls tlie days not so long distant when the Emperor with his momited escorts and his cavalcade of troops, swept through these drive- ways when the streets were so narrow and congested that all traffic must needs come to a halt until the royal party had passed. *'The first time that I saw the Emperor," writes one, ''he was in citizen's dress, accompanied by the Empress. They were in a coach-and-six, preceded and followed by horse-guards. He likes a rapid move- ment, and whether on horseback or in a carriage, his chamberlains and guards are kept at a pace contrary to the usual manifestations of activity among the Bra- zilians. Two of the dragoons precede the coach at full gallop, and at the blast of their bugles the street is cleared of every encumbrance in the shape of promenaders and vehicles. It has, however, occurred to me that the neck- muscles of their Majesties must be exceedingly fatigued after their frequent city and suburban rides, for the hum- blest subject who salutes them is reciprocated in his at- tention. Their usual afternoon-drive is through the Cattete and Botafogo to the Botanical Garden." The Avenida Rio Branco is an example of the amazing present-day rejuvenation. It was built in 1904, com- pleted in six months, and its wide 650 foot way was cut straight through the densest part of the old city for a mile and a half from sea to sea. The construction of this splendid thoroughfare was attended by true Brazilian extravagance, six hundred buildings being demolished to make way for the Federal Capital's famous prome- nade. The avenue is crossed by eleven streets, upon some of which tramways are permitted to cross, but the Avenida is tram-less, kept free for the endless stream of automobiles which are constantly pouring up and dowTi its shining asphalt. It seems that everybody in the EIO DE JANEIRO— CITY OF ENCHANTMENT 273 metropolis gets to the Avenida sometime during every day. I do not remember a street or avenue in any world city wliicli represents more entirely the city itself than the Avenida Rio Branco, named in memory of the most il- lustrious Minister of Foreign Affairs Brazil has known. The name of Baron Rio Branco is a sort of fetich here in Rio de Janeiro, as well as throughout the land. He was a distinct personality. He not only was the chief settler of complicated and vexed questions with neigh- bouring states, but he was an harmonious factor working with the late Emperor in paving the waj' for the emanci- pation of the blacks, and in many vital acts assisted in the bringing in of the modern State. The avenue bearing this honoured name of Baron Rio Branco contains many things of interest and importance. It is lined with new and expensive buildings, many of them more ornate than those to be found in American cities. While there are few ''skyscrapers," from the New York or Chicago point of view, the business houses and the public edifices are sufficiently lofty to make the ordinary flat, small houses in the more modest sections of the city seem increasingly demure. The street had the advantage of a recent and unified artistic plan, and in the renovated broad highway the Brazilians have re- vealed the sentiment common in this country, that utili- tarianism should not necessarily be disassociated with good taste and artistic symmetry. At the head of the avenue stands the Monroe Palace, w^hich in the brilliant lights of the Rio de Janeiro eve- nings, resembles a beautiful white bonbon box enlarged to fairy proportions, and set with a charming circle of gardens and flowers on the one side, while sea-ward, a half arc of electricity along the boulevard of Beira Mar com- pletes its impression of grace and charm. Here the Chamber of Deputies sits, and, according to report, de- 274 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY bates with zeal many weighty questions of State. The building is a replica of the Brazilian structure at the Ex- position held at St. Louis, and its name and the uses which it serves, would suggest a hospitable sentiment to- ward the famous Doctrine, whose merits and demerits are argued so diversely in various parts of the world. Proceeding down the Avenida from the Monroe Pal- ace, one finds many dignified and impressive structures on either side of the way. There is the justly admired Municipal Theatre, said to be one of the costliest, as per- haps the most architecturally perfect, buildings in all Latin America. In general appearance it is modelled after the Opera House in Paris, and its cost of $10,000,- 000 is a sign of the regard of the people for the haunts of pleasure. Through some oversight difficult to under- stand, this gorgeous playhouse, which seats less than 2,000 people, is inadequate to accommodate more than half the Brazilians who flock hither in the season to listen to the operatic ''stars" from Europe. Beneath the thea- tre is the ornate and Orientally adorned Assyria Restau- rant, where gay and sombre Rio, alike, go to enjoy them- selves each in his desired manner after the opera. If one would see the Cariocans at play, he should visit this restaurant on New Year's Eve, or on Carnival nights, in February, when the usual pent-up spirits of this reserved and punctilious folk are given free rein in a wild saturna- lia of fun-making. At such times Brazilian democracy puts on her freest garments. Lines of race, position, colour and morals are blotted out. Aristocracy, royalist, planter, Parisian rastaquoeres, statesmen, members of the diplomatic corps, beautiful women belonging both to the grande monde and the demi-monde, all are there in a marvel of merry-making confusion. One's memory of one of those evenings, filled with a composite picture of confetti-throwing and inundations of perfumery, of gay music and dancing and the glitter of Brazilian diamonds RIO DE JANEIEO— CITY OF ENCHANTMENT 275 on fair ladies with laughing faces, is quite well worth preserving. Nearly opposite the Municipal Theatre is the fine building housing Brazilian fine arts. Here the penchant for the artistic sides of life is worthy of careful attention. The battle paintings, Avhose canvasses cover at times half the side of one of the exhibition rooms, depicting the his- tory of Brazil's military successes, are particularly note- worthy. Here also is the celebrated and peculiar work of art by which an eminent artist of the country has shown the stages of national and political evolution on a single canvas. A neighbour of the Academy of Fine Arts is the Na- tional Library, a staid and entirely dignified piece of architecture, under whose roof 400,000 volumes in many languages (50,000 in English) await the free use of the public. The distinguished librarian speaks English, as do many of the prominent Brazilians, and the writer can personally vouch for the courtesy and painstaking atten- tion given to those who go book-seeking or bent on re- search, to this thoroughly up-to-date library. The traveller must go to his guide books for direction to the many notable structures along this and other streets of note in the Capital City. Hardly a building along the whole stretch of the Aveuida can be disre- garded. The expensive and really exquisite buildings of the Jockey and Derby Clubs ; the unusual million dol- lar building used for Arts and Crafts, w4th its floods of night-school students; the Hotel Avenida Central around which circles a never ceasing whirl of tramw^ays; big newspaper buildings alive with metropolitan business activity and crowds of newsboys thronging their por- tals; together with the Chamber of Commerce building and a score of structures devoted to industry and busi- ness — these and many more reveal the new and progres- 276 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY sive life that throbs through this main artery of the new- city beautiful. Along the way, sandwiched in between business, art, press, politics, are the omnipresent and irrepressible moving picture theatres, which here in Rio de Janeiro, as in every South American city and town from the top of the Andes to Patagonian Punta Arenas, give evidence by their number and popularity of the picture age in which we live. In the National Capital of the Brazils, as in the northern cities, the "Movies" are always crowded. The admission price of a milreis (about 24 cents at pres- ent) admits one for an hour's entertainment when films from the Broadway theatres or the Parisian or Italian houses are shown. During our stay in Rio de Janeiro among the films that packed the playhouses was the "De- struction of New York, ' ' when the works of pacifists and unpreparedness for war, with the consequent cruelties of an offensive but nameless foe, made a strong sensational impression upon the Brazilian audiences. The people of the country, the Cariocans especially, are getting ex- pert with the moving picture camera, and more and more purely national subjects, having to do with the plains- men's life or description or romances laid in the interior of the big Republic, are finding their popular following. If a notability from another Republic, a Minister of State, or some distinguished visitor from Europe, visits the Capital, the theatres announce in showy headlines, that his every step is to be seen, unerringly caught by some enterprising Brazilian photographer. Let no one get the impression that the Brazilians can- not be successful in business and industry. The famous Rua Ouvidor (Auditor Street — ^named from the Royal Portuguese auditor who in other days had his residence here) is a graphic contradiction to such an idea, as are the large Brazilian business firms in Rio de Janeiro, the steamship lines, the great dock works, the railways, and EIO DE JANEIRO— CITY OF ENCHANTMENT 277 tlie export bouses wliicli find their central offices here. But the Ouvidor is sui generis; its nearest counterpart on the Western Continent is probably Florida Street of Buenos Aires. It is so narrow that one can step across it in three paces, and its surface is polished, not by traffic of vehicles which are forbidden, but by the countless steps of the city's million of men and women, who find here a delightful combination of shopping district and an open air club. During certain parts of the day, if you fail to find a man in his business office, you go to the Ouvidor, and after some strolling and bumping about amid the crowds that pack this narrow defile for six or eight city blocks, the object of your search will usually be discovered. He may be found talking with a cluster of friends on the corner of the Avenida, or taking his coffee at one of the many corner coffee cafes, or (and this is not absolutely improbable) he may be following the eyes of his other sterner-sex-companions towards a float- ing be\^ of femininity which is taking its perfumed, pow- dered way before the shop windows filled with Paris go^vns and the latest mode in Brussels or Venetian lace. I do not wish to take unfair advantage of my country- men resident in Rio, who are too far away to talk back, but I gained the impression that this latter habit was be- coming readily assimilated by them. This note is not added so much by way of censure as by reason of sym- pathy; for if any city of Latin America offers more par- donable temptation for sidelong glances at finely gowned feminine loveliness than Rio de Janeiro — well, some might say it was Santiago, Chile, — ^but hold, the subject is becoming highly invidious, if not bordering upon dan- ger to international relations. If one can read national character through the kind of shops the people frequent, the historic Street of the Auditor is an unveiling; with its windows filled with flashing gems, diamonds home-grown, tourmalines and 278 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY tlie like; with its rich silks and satins from the finest looms of France and Italy; with its book-shops where the tables groan with their weight of literary lore in classic Portuguese, and the latest French romances as well; and we can never forget the flower stores — who said, *'If I had two loaves of bread, I would sell one to buy hyacinths to feed my soul ' ' 1 But we must not spend our entire time on the two famous and fashionable streets of the tropical city. It may be allowable to say in passing that these evidences of marked prosperity and progressiveness are to be laid at the door of a lively and intelligent population who were willing to spend $60,000,000 and more to usher in this new city, and that among the factors in the renais- sance were a remarkable corps of Brazilian engineers and far-sighted Government officials, headed by such men as Paulo Frontin, Dr. Pareira Passos and Dr. Lauro Miiller, who in 1906, when the reconstruction was started, was Minister of Public Works. Nor is it to be forgotten that Dr. Oswaldo Cruz, the '^ mosquito killer," played a stupendous role, while one foreign company known here as ''The Light" not only furnished the electric energy with which the renewed metropolis shines and moves and telephones, but also employs 6,000 Brazilians to make this possible. None the less interesting, though less rapid in its movement, is the Old Rio, its winding streets, its mist- stained buildings, with an old church, an erstwhile palace whose half decay betokens another century, or an ancient aqueduct and perhaps a drinking fountain, rich with the marks of time; if only these could be induced to speak, what stories might they tell of chivalric days and feudal lords, of Imperial hussars and Portuguese dragoons, of tramping troops and slave-markets, of midnight intrigue or broad-day romance! It is a pity that all the cities of the modern world, when they begin to modernise them- KIO DE JANEIRO— CITY OF ENCHANTMENT 279 selves, have to do it in the same way, becoming thereby so uninterestingly alike, and often losing the flavour and sentiment of old landmarks saturated with history and suggestion. I suppose it is vain to protest in this age of progress against the iconoclasm that sells old churches with discoloured walls and clanging belfries in order that the re-constructionist's engines may demolish what the reverence of centuries was loath to molest. We censure when this is done in the name of war, but commend as ''progressive" when we note upon the front of some an- cient pile of masonry — fashioned through years of labor- ious artistry by hands that are long since still — the sign with letters a foot high, "This Property Occupied Sept. 1st, 1917, by Graham, Goldberg & Co. — Automobiles." It forms one of the attractions of the Capital City of the Brazils that she has not yet broken utterly with the Past. By a few steps from the glittering fresh Avenida, one can find conditions still stamped sixteenth century, where life on the old, rounded, palm-crowned hills goes on seemingly with little change since the days when Rio was the to^vni of St. Sebastian. Here live the city's poor, and in other sections the nearest that one finds to a mid- dle class, in small varicoloured box-like houses, sheltered amid the leaves of banana and tamarind trees, and en- joying a peace and simplicity as perfect as that in our o\\Ti northern Arcadia, when as Longfellow sang, "the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in abundance." Here the bread-man brings to the inhabitants their day's supply in a little green-roofed, reed-built house that he carries on his head, and he will be dressed doubt- less in a salmon-coloured shirt and wide-striped trou- sers. The sweetmeat seller marches along majestically, also with his small stand of cakes and candies (of which the Brazilians are inordinately fond), balanced aloft, crying aloud his wares in a sing-song monotone that would be at home in the native city of Cairo. The poultry 280 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY man wears on his head a great wicker basket as large across as an umbrella, with the heads and necks of his domestic menagerie protruding at the sides, while the charcoal and the banana merchants, the orange men and the wood-sellers, weave in and out along the narrow streets, bringing their merchandise on the backs of small donkeys or dun-coloured mules, with jingling bells on their bridles to warn pedestrians from the path. There is a distinct strain of the changeless East about it all. One feels it is just as it was always — Old Rio of the tropics — and you forget for a moment that the tide of advance is slowly creeping up these vine-clad hills, only conscious with Thomas Watson, that "Not rough, nor barren, are the winding ways Of dear antiquity, but strewn with flowers." Still, whether in the closer confines of the old, or breathing the air of the new city, filled as it is with recent forms of improvements, one never gets far away from the almost overwhelming sense of tropical profusion and the luxury of natural beauty, thrown about one in this fair city of seductive charm. The sensations of the emi- nent French statesman, Clemenceau, in this environment have often been duplicated in the experiences of many visitors here who have been incapable of expressing themselves so clearly: ''The astounding forms of foliage, the bold growth of ancient tree and young shoot, the inimitably dense pro- fusion of every form of vegetable life, recalling what must have been the earliest stages of the life of our planet, reduced me to a state of speechless surprise." Everywhere, in the numerous parks, along the entire length of the ocean speedways, around the pretty homes that cling like hanging gardens to the sides of the hills, there is a wealth of flowering beauty. Then the virgin RIO DE JANEIRO— CITY OF ENCHANTMENT 281 forest and the mountain paths of Tijuca, vocal with waterfalls and hung with tangled jungle-growths, are within driving or walking distance. A famous traveller said: ''There are three things that I wish to do again before I die ; one is to lie at my tent door in the moonlight on the Sahara; another is to sail again through the Inland sea of Japan ; and the last and best is to once more take the drive around Tijuca." The top of Corcovada at sunset was to me quite as im- pressive — Guanabara Bay, and the city lying in sunliglit on the feet of the hills ; the dull thunder of the sea rolling in from the South Atlantic ; a light tropical wind blowing about you without sensible chill ; the fading day and the electric lamps of Rio coming out to form as you wait a diamond bracelet encircling slowly the entire city, as a mother's arms might draw protectingly about her child ; while far above, the green Serras watch and wait alway. When other "visions splendid" of land and sea with their human settings are forgotten, I shall recall that panorama from Corcovada, as one who dreams. XIX BAHIA— OLD AND BIZARRE An old city is always fascinating, especially here on the American continent where nothing is very old, com- paratively speaking. It is noticeable that cities, like many people in this new Western World, do not relish particularly being called *'old." Both North and South American fashion is to be new and modem. The old order changeth and is contemned. A friend of mine made himself quite unpopular recently in a town of Uruguay by remarking that some of the ancient-looking buildings reminded him of Pompeii. He should have said ^'Chicago," and every one w^ould have been quite happy. To the inhabitant of the United States, how- ever, whose eyes get at times a bit weary with universal steel and concrete up-to-dateness, the sixteenth century parts of Brazil, and the still more ancient Inca civilisa- tion traced on the Peruvian Andes, carry an interest and charm, not unlike the feelings produced amid the ruined walls of an old English abbey, or among the pylons of Kamak. This magic enticement of a past, which one stumbles upon here and there throughout Brazil, a past utterly different from anything known elsewhere on this conti- nent, is alluring and thought-producing. It is the record not only of a colonial imperialism, but also of the inter- woven ambitions of many diverse nationalities. More than any other American country, Brazil furnished the rich prize of conquest for nearly every European race during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Holland 282 BAHIA— OLD AND BIZARRE 283 and France, England, Spain and Portugal, were all in- terlocked in contest again and again, both on land and along the coasts in early sea fighting, struggling for a foothold in the Brazils. For two hundred years this spacious realm was anybody's land. For a time it looked as though it would be a New World empire of the Dutch. At another period, Spain seemed to have swallowed it up, along with the original claimant, Portugal. A vigorous aborigines stock was leagued against them all, resisting every approach, contending for their own rightful do- main. These things gave historic importance to that eventful day in 1503 when Amerigo Vespucci, sailing un- der the patronage of the Portugal King, Dom Manuel, landed in All Saints Bay, remained there with his little band of followers for five months on friendly terms with the Indians, leaving behind him on his return to Lisbon twenty-four men, who formed the first settlement in Brazil at Bahia. Thus, a hundred years before the Pil- grim Fathers made their landing at Plymouth, the Portu- guese had begun to lay the foundations of empire in their Brazilian world. There was still much struggle ahead for this first capi- tal of Portug-uese America, called in these days Sao Salvador, or Bahia de Todos os Santos (San Salvador, the Bay of All Saints). The town was sacked by the Dutch in 1624, and it was not until 1661 that the Hol- landers were finally expelled from Brazil and gave up the fight for this fair realm. Here to-day, as in many a to"s\Ti of the north Brazilian coast, one finds the Dutch tiling on the houses, and numerous marks of the indus- trious people who sought to make the low lands of this tropical country the New American-Holland. The bent towards careful agriculture which this land-loving people gave to northern Brazil during their years of control, still persists. It is interesting to remember that when the Dutch were finally driven out of the country, some 284 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY of their clergymen came to New Amsterdam, one of them being the first pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church, founded at Flatbush, Long Island. The official glory of establishing Portuguese su- premacy in Bahia was given to Thome de Souza, the first Governor-General, who in 1549 landed amid military ceremonies, and began the erection of the Cathedral and Government buildings. It was, however, Diogo Alvares, the shipwrecked Portuguese sea-captain, a kind of Bra- zilian John Brown, who paved the way for Portugal in these parts, by his pacification of and friendship with the Tupinamba Indians. It is not without reason that many an old Bahian family traces with pride its ancestry to this Portuguese-Indian stock, for Diogo possessed the abilities and the courage of which hero-pioneers are made. "Wlien his ship was wrecked on the Brazilian coast, all his companions were massacred by the Indians, he alone being saved, it is related, because he helped save some articles from the wreck. He was able at least to rescue a musket, and some barrels of" powder and am- munition, and one of his first acts of diplomacy was to shoot a bird in the presence of a most astonished and awestruck circle of Indian spectators. That bird-shot was the inaugural of Brazil's first peace treaty with the Indians, not less effective and far-reaching because there was no writing and smoking of peace-pipes. Soon after, Diogo appears on the battlefield of the Redskins with his musket on the side of the Tupinambas against a neigh- bouring tribe with whom they were at war. One discharge of Caramuru's musket (Diogo was named Caramuru by the Indians, the term meaning ''the man of fire") gave him the sole possession of the field; the Indian adver- saries, according to one graphic account, did not stop running until they reached the Amazon River. Diogo became a semi-god among his superstitious aborigines, who not only gave him their supreme devotion but also BAHIA— OLD AND BIZARRE 285 offered their daughters to him in marriage. He chose Paraguassu, daughter of the head-chief Itaparica, whose name is brought down to Brazilian posterity in the large island lying in front of the city of Bahia, while the euphonius name of the Indian princess is still attached to one of the rivers flowing into the bay. The first aboriginal Indian bride, some years later, together with her Portuguese husband, was feted in Paris, and at her baptism Paraguassu was christened Catharine Alvares, after the Queen Catharine de Medicis. King Henry II, attended by his royal spouse, officiated at this ceremony as sponsor and godfather. Diogo Alvares not only built the small town which he named Sao Salvador, the fore- runner of the picturesque and historic Bahia, but he also helped later, as an old man, to conclude a treaty of peace with the Indians under the reign of the first Portuguese Governor-General. When one day among her numerous poets Brazil evolves her Longfellow, he will doubtless give her a Brazilian edition of "Hiawatha," having Caramuru, with blazing musket in place of snowshoes, wandering with his dark-eyed ''Laughing Water" — Paraguassu — through the paths of Brazilian forests. It is in this ancient Bahia, third city in size of the Brazilian Republic, in some senses more interesting as to the lineage of the people and their conservative ideas, than any other city of the land, that one gets a good point of view from which to understand the colonial life as it was in the nineteenth century. Here the capital of Brazil was first located, and it remained at Bahia for more than 200 years, until 1763, when it was transferred to Rio de Janeiro. To Bahia, the first slaves were brought from the coast of Africa, and it was upon this city and State that the emancipation of the Brazilian slaves in 1888 fell with the most startling results. In this section, directly opposite the African Coast, and a large centre for the slave-trade, the idea of buying and owning slaves t)ar- 286 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY took somewhat of philanthropy. As one writer ex- pressed it: "What a worthy enterprise to send vessels to ransom those poor pagan captives and bring them where they could be Christianised by baptism, and at the same time lend a helping hand to those who had been so kind as to purchase them out of heathen bondage and bring them to a Christian country!" During the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries, the buying and selling of negroes in these parts was blandly called the "com- merce for the ransom of slaves." Bahia remained faithful to Portugal longer than any other Brazilian state. It was here that the army of the mother-country made its last stand, nearly a year after the independence of the Empire had been declared in 1822, and it was here in 1837 that one of the most fright- ful rebellions the land has witnessed occurred. The first episcopal see was established here, and Bahia still is the seat of Brazil's Archbishop. A city of the true tropics, situated less than thirteen degrees below the Equator, at least two-thirds of the population consisting of ne- groes ; a city of tinkling church-bells and of convents, of aristocratic old-time families wedded to land and to poli- tics; a city of vari-coloured houses and narrow streets, hanging rich in tropical grandeur on the edge of her white cliffs, where the cocoa-nut palms sing in the trade winds far above the spray of the sea ; Bahia is both old and everlastingly new, grave of historic mien but gay and colourful in surroundings, in spirit as gay and as light- some as the sparkling sunlight that plays on the rolling waves at her feet. Few, if any, of the charming cities of Brazil so interest and captivate the foreigner as does this old and bizarre Bahia. It was here on the high crest of the upper city, with the almost matchless panorama of blue waters and verdant islands lying far below, that Henry Martyn, who saw Bahia on his way to India more than a century ago, sighed and sang: BAHIA— OLD AND BIZAEKE 287 "Look, my soul ; be still, and gaze." The sail from Rio de Janeiro to Bahia, a distance of 742 miles, takes about three days with the average coast steamer; the distance from Pemambuco, the next large northern port, is 400 miles, taking usually about thirty hours. The Brazilian Lloyd steamer upon which I made the trip from the south, was already loaded with 22,000 bags of coffee from Santos, together with a large con- signment of hides from Rio Grande do Sul and other gen- eral shipments from Rio de Janeiro. At Bahia the ships stop for cacao, as this state is the centre of the cacao trade, exporting last year 800,000 bags of cacao, and planning to furnish the United States and Europe next year with 1,000,000 bags. At present the United States is the chief consumer of Bahian cacao. It is also of inter- est to note that the large state, having an area of 427,000 square kilometres, with only 390,000 population, could produce five times the amount of cacao now being ex- ported, providing labour could be secured. That Bahia is desirous of developing this industry is proved by the fact that the Government stands ready to grant a con- cession for a railway line which would open the richest districts of the interior, giving a suitable subsidy for each kilometre of road built. Swamps are w^aiting to be drained and the State cries for workers. There is vir- tually no immigration to this cacao country and living is so easy in this tropical land, that steady w^ages become of slight inducement to the Brazilian negro. The cacao plant is native to Brazil, but to-day it is cultivated as far south as Sao Paulo and southern Matto Grosso. South Bahia is particularly adapted to its growth, especially at a distance of four or five miles from the sea, before the elevated regions are reached. The plant thrives best at a temperature of about eighty de- grees Fahrenheit. 288 THE BEAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY Cacao, in contrast to cotton, requires a humid climate ; shade is necessary for its best development; the trees are planted about twelve feet apart, allowing about three hundred to the acre. The cacao tree produces fruit in the third year after planting and the trees are fruitful for twenty or thirty years. Some of the Bahia cacao trees reach a height of thirty-five feet and have trunks nine inches in diameter. Frequently there are two crops gathered in a year. The expense of planting cacao is not more than sixty per cent, of that attended with coffee cultivation, and the supply usually being less than the demand, there is always a ready market. Each cacao tree produces on an average of 200 pods, and one person can take care of one thousand trees. One visits some plantations in Bahia which yield as high as twenty pounds of beans per tree, which would mean an income of $4,000 for 1,000 trees. The cost per tree is about seventy-five cents, and there are reckoned to be considerably over 8,000,000 cacao trees in Bahia at pres- ent, this state furnishing over eighty per cent, of the en- tire Brazilian crop. The area of Bahia land suitable for the cultivation of cacao is almost unlimited, and the future of this product is in itself capable of making Bahia one of the wealthiest states of Brazil. It is significant of the way in which the European war has affected almost every export of South America to notice that cacao which, previous to the war, could be shipped to Europe for $10 a ton, now carries a freight charge of $80 a ton ; the price of the commodity has risen to such an extent that, in spite of the heavy freight charges the cacao planter is still able to make good profits. In addition to this chief export, Bahia for many years has been famous for her export of tobacco, cotton and sugar; she is known the world over for her especially fine oranges. The cultivation of tobacco in Brazil goes BAHIA— OLD AND BIZARRE 289 back to the prediscovery of the country, the first voy- agers narrating that they found the Indians using this plant. In 1500 the European conquerors commenced a systematic planting of tobacco, first in the State of Bahia, and to-day this state is the centre of the tobacco trade, a large part of which is in the hands of the Gei-mans. Shortly before the war, there was being shipped from Bahia to Hamburg and Bremen upwards of 15,000 metric tons of tobacco, worth more than $2,000,000. The tobacco trade in Brazil not only suffers from a lack of systematic and sufficient labourers, but it is also the prey of speculators who advance money on the crops, exacting exorbitant interest. There is also said to be considerable dishonesty in the weight of packages which are handed over to middlemen, the native planters not dealing directly with the exporting houses. Coffee is also a product of Bahia and the ancient capi- tal city is filled with the usual coffee cafes seen through- out Brazil. Although Bahia does not rank with Pernambuco in sugar export, cane can be grown readily in almost all parts of the state. The abolition of slavery marked the decided decrease of sugar raising here, for, as the in- habitant remarks, ''No one but a slave will cut sugar cane in this climate." Yet the general climate of Bahia is fairly equable throughout the year, the thermometer seldom falling be- low sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit in the coldest day in winter. During my visit in the month of January, which is mid-summer in Bahia, the average daily temperature was eighty degrees, but there was usually a good breeze blowing from off the sea, and one could hardly wish for a more delightfully clear atmosphere. One must not forget, however, that he is in the tropics here, and the least exertion in the middle of the day under the blazing sun, makes one sympathetic with the attitude of the 290 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY Bahian negro which seems to be, ''Nothing is right but loafing." To the visitor from northern latitudes, Bahia holds a series of charming and picturesque surprises, and the general impression of this old town, straggling along an extended range of hills, loftily overlooking on one side a wonderful bay and from another prospect viewing the broad expanse of the South Atlantic, reminds one of Algiers on the Mediterranean. Bahia 's harbour seems to have been made for a vast sea port. It is forty miles long and in places nearly as many miles wide. Not until very recently has modern enterprise broken the still air of medieval and Oriental life which for centuries has per- vaded this old city. Now the extensive port works, built by the French at the cost of upwards of $20,000,000, have extended the narrow strip of shore beneath the high cliffs upon which the older city is built, and these together* with a long break-water make it possible for the steam- ers to come alongside of the docks. In sailing into this spacious harbour Bahia seems to consist of miles of red tiled, vari-coloured houses, fring- ing the lofty precipice which rises abruptly from the port. This sky line is broken constantly by church towers, and the ringing of bells from a hundred steeples reminds you that Bahia is known as "The City of Churches." One is told that there is a church for every Saint in the Calendar, which would be equivalent to saying that there is a church for every day in the year. Although this is an exaggeration, we do not recall hav- ing visited any city where there seemed to be so many churches in proportion to the inhabitants. Although modern industrial progress of late years has begun to compete with the medievalism of the established religion, one can hardly turn into one of these old cathedrals at any point in the city without finding a goodly number of worshippers, the majority of whom are negroes. BAHIA— OLD AND BIZARRE 291 **Are the Baliian negroes religious!" we asked of an old resident: "I should rather say they are supersti- tious," was the reply. Undoubtedly one of the strong influences of the Cath- olic Church over the Bahian negro is due to its emphasis upon highly ornate interior decorations of the churches, which are far more elaborate than in many parts of South America. Gold leaf is used lavishly and gaudy paper flowers fairly cover the figures in the side chapels. Many of these Bahia churches are extremely impressive, and some of them, the Church of Sao Francisco for example, contain very rare and old Dutch tiles and mosaics. In structure, Bahia is composed of two more or less distinctly divided sections, the upper and the lower city, the latter being the chief centre of commercial and busi- ness activity, while the upper city is given over to resi- dences, churches, theatres, hotels and retail shops. The high embankment which divides the two parts of the town, is scaled by elevators, which in a few moments bring one to the upper level from whence is seen an un- forgettable panorama of a harbour filled with ships, dis- tant headlands crowned with palms, and immediately be- low a picturesque market that might be in Colombo or Old Biskra, as far as the colour of the people or the na- ture of the wares sold is concerned. Bahia is indeed the home of a bizarre and picturesque people. Here the mulatress especially is at her best. The narrow streets are filled with these erect, well-built negresses, their bodies clothed in the gaudy colours dear to the negro, gold chains about their necks, their brown arms covered with bracelets, great hoops in their ears, and bearing upon their turbaned heads a varied assort- ment of burdens, from the laundry being carried home to a patron to the complete outfit of a sweetmeat seller. The Bahian negress wears a very full print skirt which sways gracefully as she walks with free and unshod feet ; 292 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY a low-necked, short-sleeved blouse ; and a highly coloured shawl, with red or pink predominating, is thrown cross- wise over one shoulder, and on her head is knotted a gaily coloured handkerchief. Here one sees some of the black- est faces to be found anywhere on the face of the earth, and this shade tapers off to the type in which one would hardly recognise the negro blood save for the full lips, the large black eyes and the wavy hair. Bahia is also the paradise of children. Little black babies, and brown babies and tan babies, clothed in na- ture's original garment, or possibly in one abbreviated shirt, fill the streets, the doorways and the open windows, the picture of happiness and care-free contentment which seems only possible of existence in the negro world of the tropics. There certainly is no race suicide here, al- though if one asks for the population of Bahia, the cen- sus official will look at his records and tell you that the death rate exceeds the birth rate. He will usually add, with a smile, that this is not true, because as a matter of fact every Bahian must take out a burial permit before he can bury a member of his family, but it costs five milreis to register the birth of a child, and although all Bahians are supposed to meet this requirement, the ne- groes especially do not see any reason why they should so rapidly waste their small income. Coming out of the narrow and unsanitary streets, where the negroes hive together, to the modern part of the city, one finds not only electric cars, banks, public buildings, schools, and a general air of prosperity, but also well-dressed Brazilians who live in beautiful homes along the new Avenida which has recently been con- structed overlooking the sea. It seems at first sight strange that a city and a state having had more than four centuries for development and growth should show in parts to-day such a primitive and medieval face. But the same reason for the lack of BAHIA— OLD AND BIZARRE 293 progress, especially in the first two centuries of Baliia's history, as must be given for the conditions found in countries like Peru, related to the policy and the object of the explorers and early European colonists. Those who came to Bahia, like the Spanish Conquistadores, came to enrich themselves or the King of Portugal at the expense of the colonies, rather than to construct and build firmly for the future welfare of the State. If one asks to-day why this State, so limitless in resources, should not be the equal at least of any state in Brazil in progressive modernity, he will quite certainly hear in answer the one word — ''politics." There is no doubt but that with the coming of the new port works, the building of new railways into the in- terior, and the increased opportunity for shipping which the future must hold for this port with its unrivalled har- bour, Bahia, old and bizarre, stands at the threshold of a new era. The large foreign interests which have al- ready taken footing upon her soil will demand in politics, as in other relationships, a new and a stricter integrity. The Bahians themselves, rapidly becoming stronger and more efficient in their business and industrial enterprises, are determined to keep up with Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo in the contest for successful Brazilian modernity and prestige. Bahia 's handicap is no doubt her large negro population, which is possessed with the somnoles- cence of the tropics and which lacks the virility and in- dustry found in the labourers of the South Brazilian States. Give Bahia a new and vigorous tide of immigra- tion, and an officialdom with ideals as high as those of many of the present-day Bahian business men, and the world will see this erstwhile capital of all the Brazils again coming to its own. PARANAGUA The love of mountains is the first of the cardinal virtues. Leslie Stephen. Mountains and thick forests and sparkling sea — here and there a small hamlet, an occasional large town some- times called a city, whose red sun-drenched roofs of tile add colour contrasts with the surrounding green of na- ture, — homely touches of country life, easy-going, half somnolent beneath sub-tropical skies — if you love these, southwestern Brazil, between the high shoulders of the Serra do Mar and the South Atlantic, offers you supreme satisfaction. He who would discover Brazil must needs spend at least one long wander year apart from the dozen or less fairly sizable cities, losing himself in the rural dis- tricts, where the major part of the nation abides. Minas Geraes, for instance, with the largest population of any Brazilian state, 3,960,000, possesses no city of any size, no seaports, no large industries. Like so many other sections in this great and varied country, the population is characteristically rural and not urban. The busy world's ''unceasing noises" are too far away to be heard or to distract. Life flows along with the slow and con- tented rhythm to which it was tuned centuries ago. The primeval loveliness of Nature's handiwork is still un- marred by the hand of modern utilities. The forests are still vocal with bird-songs. The mountains are still wrapped in a robe of living luscious green. The rivers 294 A SEQUESTERED SPOT IN RURAL BRAZIL, WHERE "THE BUSY WORLD'S 'UN- CEASING NOISES' ARE TOO FAR AWAY TO BE HEARD OR TO DISTRACT" o < o PARANAGUA 295 still run gently and free through fronds and overhanging flowers to the sea. Such and not otherwise is Paranagua, sitting historic and picturesque on the feet of her verdant hills, and reaching out glistening white hands of her many river- mouths in greeting to southern seas. Although the chief port town through which the State of Parana exports her timber, her herva mate and her rice, this town with its 15,000 inhabitants still wears an ancient face. The vestigial structures of older days and sixteenth century customs seem here to have fallen asleep. Commerce has hewn through her quiet precincts a busy path, lined by modern wholesale houses, and her beaches are dotted here and there with big piles of lumber await- ing shipment, but neither these nor the deep-toned whis- tles of steamships weaving carefully through her island- strewn harbours, have robbed Paranagua of the air of colonial days which one finds in so many of the isolated parts of present-day Brazil. Towns, like persons, are made up of parts of all they have met. Here in Parana- gua 's beautiful bay one is led to recall the Portuguese explorers landed in 1560, who sent exploring parties into the interior to disturb the wooded fastnesses hitherto only known to the Brazilian Red Men. Here the first discovery of Brazilian gold was made, and here also one of the large foundries and smelters for preparing the King's Fifth of gold was located. In Paranagua later there was found one of the most celebrated rendezvous for freebooters and scoundrels of all nations engaged in the traffic in slaves. These now peaceful inlets have more than once resounded to the boom of ship's cannon. "When the British Government, a few years ago," according to a narrator, writing in the fifties, *' ordered its cruisers to make a vigorous demonstration on the Brazilian coast, the Cormorant, of the Royal Navy, steamed up these sinuosities, entered the harbour and cut 296 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY out a whole nest of slavers. The fort was well situated near the bar, and E. B. M. Cormorant must pass that point. After a slight resistance, before yielding their vessels, the pirate captains and crews ran around by land to the fort and manned the guns, anxiously awaiting the Cormorant, as she should proceed to sea dragging her trophies after her." The account relates the skill of the British Man-of-War as she bombarded the fort, scut- tled the slave boats, and gained safely the open sea. It would seem that this port was intended for large commercial destiny. Its harbour partakes in part of the natural advantages of that of Rio de Janeiro, Bahia and Para. It is formed of the bays of the numerous mouths of several rivers which flow down from the mountains, emptying into the sea. A long lagoon stretching 30 miles from east to west in front of the quaint old town; an island at the entrance — Mel, or Honey Island — dividing the bay into two canals, each of which is sufficiently deep to provide passage for ships drawing five or six feet of water; a sinuous, puzzling maze of windings, half river and half ocean, and on the islands of the lagoons as on the banks of the river mouths, "Sunny spots of greenery." Several lines of coastal steamers make the port, while the Austrian Lloyd Company's boats bring this seques- tered port, strangely enough, into touch with Europe seemingly as near as Brazil itself. Yet there is an old-time sleepiness hanging over the Xjlace that marks a characteristic of many of the half- wakened rural spots of the Brazil of to-day. In the shal- low harbour a German interned freighter was slowly go- ing to pieces, its broad sides streaked with rust. One-half of its listless crew stays aboard, while the other half wanders off into the country to look for work. After PARANAGUA 297 four to six months they return and the other portion of the crew goes out. Although only about forty miles dis- tant from the flourishing State Capital of Curytiba, with its 50,000 inhabitants, Paranagua might be a thousand miles from nowhere in its general appearance and atmos- phere. There came to me suggestions of Aden, and sev- eral sun-stricken towns along the Nile, which modernisa- tion had only touched in spots. The tramway consists of a mule car drawn on a narrow gauge track running from the town about a mile to the custom house and the lum- ber and shipping wharv^es on the edge of the harbour. The ' ' line ' ' is owned by a German merchant, and the cars run apparently in accordance with a schedule known only to the mule and its languid driver. It seems antede- luvian, but a like street conveyance was used in the Fed- eral Capital less than fifteen years ago. The Brazilian two-wheeled mule carts are omnipresent, also mosquitoes and malaria. One finds an Indian look in many faces in this section. "The" hotel of the place is kept by a Ger- man; there is an attempt at a miniature garden with tables in front, where exiled foreigners and a variety of racially motley folk sit beneath the mangos and tama- rinds after the noon-day repast to drink their coffee, and mix their cigarette smoke with the idle gossip of the port — also with Egyptian suggestiveness. The sun was beating down with straight and almost East Indian radiance, as we wandered out of the little hotel and crossed the narrow street to the plaza, with- out which no Brazilian town is complete. The foliage was as rich as only the tropics can make it, and I found a shaded seat beneath a low palm. The ancient town, once the important appanage of Portuguese kings, was wrapped in the sleepy silence of the Brazilian siesta. The mid-day heat was almost blazing. The pleasant square where the town would be sauntering at nightfall was now utterly deserted, as were the streets. Here and there a 298 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY coolie-like individual in abbreviated clothing with a bur- den of some kind on his head passed ; otherwise the place seemed to have lost consciousness. There was the omi- nous pressure of summer heat felt at times on the edge of the desert, sending a momentary fear through the veins as does a bolt of unexpected lightning or a slight jiggle of the earth in a South Sea volcanic island. No sound of traffic, no sound of voices or hands at work. The shutters of the houses were tightly closed to exclude the sun and the heat. One could easily imagine himself in some sleepy town of Southern Italy in the heart of sum- mer. Even the birds, which in Brazil seem to have their original and rightful home, so beautiful and melo- dious are they, seemed to be enjoying the silence of siesta-time, hesitating to wake the stillness. A kind of prehistoric emptiness filled the place. Even the children seemed too listless to play. The dogs, with heavy eyes, slept in the sun. It was one of those tropical moments which one occasionally finds in Brazil when even Nature seems to be only half aware of herself, slumbering pas- sively in a ** flagrant stagnacy of sun and heat." Still, Brazil in her most thermal moments and places, does not have that finality of tropics found in many parts of the Orient. Her heat is not so hot or deadly as in India; her humidity is not so heavily humid as in Singapore ; nor is the lethargy of her equatorial climate so enervating as in Egypt. The temperate and sub- tropical zones seem to blend constantly and contagiously with the torrid sections, and the ever-present Trade winds are refreshingly kind. The people also who may sleep for a mid-day hour behind those closed shutters are soon again awake, and the business of the wholesale merchants in sugar and cacao, in hides and coffee, and the dealers in mate and lumber, and a score of other Parana products, begins again, and we take the mule-car down to the docks to inspect the shipping. PARANAGUA 299 The loading of mate for Uruguay, Argentina and Chile, whither most of this product is exported, interested me as I had just visited a large Parana mate factory in the city of Curytiba. Of the 34 mate factories of Brazil, 21 are in the State of Parana. This beverage, known in some parts of the world as ** Paraguay Tea," is drunk quite largely in the country in Brazil, as coffee is drunk in the city. It is not limited to the country, however, and it is estimated that ten million people drink mate daily in South America. As a sustaining food as well as drink this ''tea" of the Brazilians is worthy of more attention than it has received by other countries. Scientific studies of its properties and effects by physicians in various parts of the earth have proved conclusively its beneficial qualities as a food beverage, a gentle stimulant, a purifier of water and a corrective for many stomach, liver and kidney troubles. It is the great drink of the South American gauchos, or cowboys, who eat huge quantities of meat, washed down with mate. In the State of Parana, the annual consumption is about ten pounds for each member of the population. The State is particularly adapted to the mate plant, which requires a temperate region at an elevation of from 1,500 to 3,000 feet above sea level. The mate bushes, which grow usually from 12 to 25 feet in height, seem to delight to keep company with the graceful Parana pine, and the cultivation is simple, the chief requirement being the clearing away of other obstructing growths in the immediate vicinity. The leaves are either ground into a powder and served with boiling water poured over them in a cuia, or gourd, being drunk with a kind of silver straw, or prepared somewhat like tea in leaves which, w^ith hot water, is served in cups. The manager of one of the factories vis- ited had on his desk a mate gourd and bombilla, through w^hich he partook of the cheering concoction many times a day. Mate seems to have some of the results of the coco 300 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY leaves for the Peruvian Indians, not only assuaging thirst but hunger as well. One is informed that during the Paraguayan War, the Brazilian soldiers marched and battled day after day, subsisting entirely upon mate. There are fourteen ports in Brazil through which this product is exported, but more than half of the entire output passes through the Parana ports of Paranagua and Antonina. Although mate comes near the head of the list in quantity among the "nine principal articles" of Brazilian export, about 75,000 tons being produced and sent out in an average year, the industry does not seem to be growing as rapidly as one would expect. Among its other good qualities, this beverage is said to possess peculiar efficacy as a cure for alcoholism. When the whole world goes "dry," as it seems to be doing now in large spots, perhaps the magic Brazilian herva mate will come to its own, and then Paranagua, lying drowsily on its flat island-strewn littoral, will be the best known rather than a little known seaport city. A flourishing glass factory, the busy wharves of the custom house, and other enterprising shipping concerns may be seen here on the water's edge of the old city where Portuguese pirates and freebooters of all nations cast anchor in bygone days. Not the least noteworthy was the 2,700,000 feet of Parana lumber which I saw in the sheds of the Brazil Railway Company, awaiting ship- ment. Eighty per cent, of the 400 cars of lumber shipped monthly from Parana passes this way, en route mainly to Argentina and Uruguay. The manager in charge was a young man whose home was in Kingston, N. Y., one of the three somewhat lonely Americans in Paranagua. An- other member of this small American colony was an itinerant piano tuner who performed on various occa- sions for the wondering inhabitants, playing a mandolin, harmonica and divers other musical instruments simul- taneously. Another American owns a large banana plan- PARANAGUA 301 tation, where he serves peanuts, sugar-cane and choice bananas ad libitum to his visiting countrymen. The land lying all about these fine river-valleys is rich and fertile, capable of bearing two crops of corn yearly, and like other parts of this great country, endowed so gra- ciously by nature, awaits in patience beneath the sub- tropical sunshine for those agricultural pioneers who will one day cross the ranges, go down and occupy. It was from the mountain railway zigzagging down the steep slopes of the Brazilian Coast Range from the bust- ling Capital of Curytiba to the ancient city of Parana- gua, dropping 2,700 feet through primeval forests, glanc- ing water-falls and deep abysses of green, that I gained one of the most thrilling and distinct memories brought away from Brazil. The manager of the railway hos- pitably suggested that we go down on one of his hand- cars, from which the gradients of the curves and also the grandeur of the scenery would be respectively more terrifying and impressive. My travelling companion, who was somewhat more bulkily constructed than myself, and who also entertained some misgivings as to the neces- sity or even propriety of being slid into eternity from the slippery seat of a hand-car, feigned illness and begged to be excused. Any possible peril associated with said hand-car was obviated as it turned out on the morning of our departure that a flood of rain made the train the only dry spot on the mountains. We descended to Pa- ranagua through heavy mists, only seeing now and then a flash of mountain summit or green valley in a break of the clouds that closely wrapped us about. The return journey was made in a clear afternoon, when the sun was flooding the sea, the lagoons and the winding of the rivers, turning them into gold. The whiteness of the houses in distant hamlets seemed whiter still in the sun- light ; and the mountains were full of shadow pictures, as hill rising upon hill rolled upward in successive green 302 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY waves to the faraway summit of the Serras — a sixty-mile wave of rolling tree-tops, its crest a thin white sky-line breaking over, as it seemed from below, upon the ele- vated tablelands about Curytiba. The high mountain wall of Southern Brazil is scaled by three different railways, each as remarkable in its en- gineering as it is unusual in its scenic splendours. I have already alluded to the line between Santos and Sao Paulo; the two-hour journey on the Petropolis line is claimed by many to be quite as inspiring as a panorama of nature. The third railway, the one from Paranagua to Curytiba, carrying the traveller from the moist, steamy littoral in a brief and almost breathless three-hour up- ward climb into the temperate zone, impressed me as being by far the most remarkable and beautiful, the most daring and the most spectacular piece of railroading seen in Brazil; for sheer pageantry of natural scenery, it is scarcely surpassed elsewhere on the planet. With the ex- ception of the marvels with which Nature is seen to clothe herself in the Bay of Guanabara, I do not remember when my eyes have ever been more completely filled with the luxury of seeing, than in this 66 miles of ascent from Paranagua, with all the sunlight glories of mountain, val- ley, forest, river, cities and ocean shining and shifting before one's vision like the fragments of coloured glass in a vast kaleidoscope. One forgets all he has heard about the repeated attempts to scale these summits, the romance of French and Belgian investments, the metre of the gauges, the gradients, and the statistics of the thir- teen tunnels, which he had expected to remember. He only is conscious that there he is face to face with Nature in one of her loveliest moods. One can only look — and look — and look — and lose himself in seeing. As Tenny- son might have said gazing down on these wide valleys richly spread: PAEANAGUA 303 ^ "Indeed these fields Are lovely; lovelier not the Elysian lawns." It is one of those faces of Nature that seem appro- priately and eternally feminine. They charm because they are charming and for no other reason. As one leaves Paranagua and begins to climb by devi- ous windings the richly wooded hills, he passes almost at once out of visible human civilisation. Now and then a small hut surrounded by banana trees, but mostly great wastes of unoccupied land and virgin forests — a constant reminder that one is travelling in a country where there are only three men to the kilometre and for the most part no system of good country roads. It is still a short way from almost any part of this south coastal section into the untouched and uninhabited interior, where the fight with the "bush" requires almost as much cour- age and persistence as the early adventurous Portuguese, who landed at the old port town in the sixteenth century, evinced in their contests with the Brazilian Indians scurrying out of these dense fastnesses with their long bows and poisoned arrows. As one climbs higher out of the valley, the houses of several coastal towns become visible, and a distant bell from a lofty village steeple reminds you that the Por- tuguese always built their churches and monasteries on high hills. The graceful Parana pine and the palm trees with their straight trunks, from which the Greeks are said to have gained their idea of the column, stand out silhouetted against the undulating mountain horizon. Rushing torrents with frequent abrupt waterfalls in- crease in number as the valleys are now left behind, and one is led to wonder how long the utilitarian economies of man will allow these strong mountain streams to pour their unused powder into the indigo-coloured sea. There would seem to be the happiest of economic conjunction 304 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY here between the great masses of timber and the flowing streams, needing but the whirling mill-wheels of the in- dustrialist to convert natural resources into wealth. In face of such possibilities even the idealist turns utili- tarian and in imagination of all that modern enterprise will bring to this naturally abounding section, finds him- self repeating the old Hudibrastic maxim: "What is worth in anything But as much money as 'twill bring?" Among all the treasure trove of Brazilian natural re- sources, few things are more notable than the Brazilian forests. The Paranagua railway fairly flings one into the bosom of these virgin woods. There are visions of lavish and phenomenal growths — ^branches hung with long trailing garlands and feathery fingers — bright and glowing orchids here and there — a pile of mushrooms, children of the night — and soft airs coming to you out of the dim depths, bearing fragrance on their wings. There are also glimpses of fairy plumage of gorgeous birds, and in places the woods are ''manifold with sound" — bird songs and the silver shock of falling waters. The road itself furnishes a wondrous stage setting for views of memorable beauty. There is the Pico do Diabo (Devil's Peak) a gallery swung out from the mountain side by means of a big viaduct, a dizzy height from which one looks down more than a thousand feet immediately below. He sees no bare rocks nor barren spaces. It is a waving sea of tree-tops. Mighty cedars growing out- wards from the sides of the cliffs, hang in mid-air like evergreen banners, while even larger pines and palms appear to be bending down their green heads toward the valleys below as if trying to escape the eternal sunlight that covers the whole verdant picture. Not a sign of civilisation up here but the steel track and an occasional PARANAGUA 305 station (one wonders where the few passengers who board the train come from) ; not even a hut breaks this carpet of green below you. The only break is an occa- sional waterfall. Thirty-five miles in the distance the sea is sweeping into the river inlets as the tide rises about Paranagua. Still farther seaward one can make out the white edge of the South Atlantic creeping along its undulating shore line. The white spires of churches in towns widely separated in other parts of the distant valleys are revealed by the lights of sunset as the train climbs nearer the summit. The temperature has changed to the cool refreshing airs of the high plateau. As we reached the ridge of the Serras, sunset was over and twilight was passing quickly into starlight. But for a few twinkling lights dimly seen in the darkening dis- tance, Paranagua, ancient and new, child of the sun- shine and the sea, had passed out of my vision, but not out of my life. I shall see it ever as it lay in peculiar isolated beauty and charm on the ankles of the green hills, stretching out its hands to the sea. XXI PERNAMBUCO AND CENTRAL BRAZIL The dissimilarity of Brazilian towns along the coast is due in part to diverse nationalities, each of which had some part in forming their external appearance and the characteristics of the people. Pernambuco, the most easterly of Brazilian or South American States, is particularly interesting in its reflec- tion of the spirit and traits of the people who for many years contested hotly here in their early naval and colon- ising experiments. One needs only to walk about her picturesque streets, fringed by the quaint vari-coloured houses, to recognise the traces of the Dutch occupation, which began in 1630 and for more than a quarter of a century stamped its national features upon Pernambuco. The sobriety, order and architecture of many a north- easterly Brazilian town is due in no small measure to early Dutch settlers, who came here early in the sixteenth century, not to loot and to pillage, but to explore and to colonise. Although slaves were brought here from West Africa as early as 1583, Pernambuco has fewer negroes at pres- ent than Bahia, and the active industrious traditions fos- tered throughout the history of this colony have tended to give a self sufficient and independent quality to both negroes and whites. Recife, which is the name by which Pernambuco is known to Brazilians, owes much to the able Portuguese coloniser, Duarte Coelho Pereira. When Brazil was di- vided in 1634 into the fourteen ''Capitanias,'' each with 306 PEENAMBUCO AND CENTRAL BRAZIL 307 a shore line fifty leagues long, and as far inland as the owners could penetrate, Coelho Pereira was the first Cap- tain of Recife. He established the earliest official col- ony at Olinda, the picturesque sea shore town beset with palms, not far from Pernambuco. Olinda is at present a kind of seaside resort for the Capital. It holds a charm for any one who is fond of the tropics, and it is a bit of old Portugal set down upon the sands. The word Olinda means ** Beautiful, " and is said to have been the exclamation made by the Portu- guese Captain when he first beheld this bow shaped curve of ^vhite sand, fringed with the feathery tops of the cocoa- nut palms, the low hills furnishing a tropical frame in the distant background. The sturdy Portuguese, were he living to-day, might be unhappy at beholding the run- dowTi appearance of the low mud houses of the negroes that line the tramway to Olinda, for Coelho Pereira was evidently a progressive and exacting colonist. He be- lieved in the soil. He deemed the fortune of his peo- ple to lie in agriculture rather than in any get-rich-quick gold mines which blinded the adventurous eyes of many of the Spanish conquerors on the West Coast, and also hampered many of his own countrymen who became feudal lords of large Brazilian fiefs. It was the custom of Portugal in these pristine days to send her convicts to her colonies, somewhat as France sends her criminals to-day to work out their sentences at Cayenne, in French Guinea. The Portuguese Cap- tain of Pernambuco objected strenuously to this policy and by reason of his objection received a better class of colonists. These he imbued with his two ruling ideas — the culture of the land and a spirited independence, both of which quahties are predominate traits of the Pernam- bucans to-day. This State has always been one to be reckoned with in Brazil. In 1882, Pernambuco was the only Province 308 THE BEAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY refusing to accept the new Constitution imposed by tlie Emperor. The State has always had a predominating influence over all of North Brazil and this was especially strong in the period of the second Emperor. The State has been stirred with many a political con- test and revolution. One of these revolutions lost for Pemambuco a large territory which was originally in- cluded within her borders. In earlier days Recife em- braced the territory of the present States of Alagoas, Ceara, Parahyba, and Rio Grande do Norte. Shortly before my visit this same turbulent spirit asso- ciated with political interests revealed itself in a striking celebration at the return to Pernambuco of the Federal Senator Dantas Barreto, the popular idol of the people in this State to-day. Dr. Dantas Barreto was himself for four years Governor of Pernambuco and, it is said, he was instrumental in placing Governor Manuel Borba in his present position. Owing to certain political mis- understandings relative to patronage, the Senator and the Governor are now on far from friendly terms, and the people who side strongly with the Senator revealed their loyalty to the Senator by turning out in thousands to greet his arrival, dragging his carriage by hand through the streets. An official said to me, ''The air of the entire city was tense with excitement. One could feel the animosity between the two parties. The least event, a pistol shot for example, would have kindled a great flame in this ancient capital. The Pernambucans are a fiery race." As one walks through the busy streets of the city to- day there are signs of progress and modernity all about one. Loyalty to old traditions is not absent. The Banco do Recife founded by Sr. Francisco A. Bacheco is one of the institutions which will be pointed out by these peo- ple with pride. This bank was founded in 1900 with an authorised capital of 4,000,000 milreis with a special ob- PERNAMBUCO AND CENTRAL BRAZIL 309 ject of aiding agriculturists and small depositors. This is the only Brazilian bank in the state and it has 2,000,000 milreis in small deposits. The bank gives five per cent, on small deposits from cultivators and farmers, and de- posit of only $30.00 is necessary to open an initial ac- count. This is one of the latest indications of the tra- ditional loyalty of Pernambuco to agricultural pros- perity. The market which is a joy to the Northerner in its wonderful abundance of rich tropical fruit is a further indication of the rich resources of Brazilian land. Here one finds great banks of pineapples which have made Pernambuco famous. There are also the rose mangoes of enormous size and as rosy as a peach. There are alli- gator pears, guavas, melons, and well nigh every other fniit which grows beneath the equatorial sun. There is a striking absence of the shrieking, ill-kempt, hawking market men found in some South American markets. Things are done decently and in order here, and the visi- tor finds it a hardship to leave the Pernambuco market without taking with him a basket of fruit. There are also quaint and primitive things to be seen in the streets of this old town. The milk man leading the cow with the calf tied to the cow's tail, and the small boy carrying an empty bottle ready to be milked full, while you wait, is a curiosity. There are the open air cigar and cigarette stands where Pernambuco tobacco can be had at moderate cost. An immense black coil, looking like the rope coiled on the deck of a ship, is presided over by an old negro woman ; this is a tobacco store and the woman for a few cents will cut off for a customer a few inches of this unattrac- tive-looking material. Sweetmeat vendors, and lines of workmen carrying on their assembled heads everything from a small cargo of sugar to a piano, will be encoun- tered on the streets. 310 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY The old churches flavour of Dutch architecture and are notable here. Schools are seen more frequently than in many Brazilian towns; the Pernambucans are proud of their men of letters. Large modern sugar factories remind you that this State is the chief producer of cane sugar in Brazil, while other business houses dealing in cotton, hides, timber, oils and tropical fruits, suggest the varied resources of this section. The introduction of railroads and the establishment of factories are tending to mark a new era in this State possessing at present somewhat over 2,000,000 popula- tion and 50,000 square miles of territory. The advantageous position of Pernambuco as an ocean port and gateway to other countries as well as Brazil, immediately impresses the visitor. As we steamed into the newly made port which has on one side a long break water and on the other the extensive port works under construction by a French company, we found ourselves in a kind of international naval display. There was a long line of German interned ships. A Japanese steam- er, the Hudson Maru, lay near us, the ship which one day will be known to history because it brought to Pernam- buco the crews and passengers captured by the German raider which has been working in this section. A ship Avith a long Danish name stood along side of our Bra- zilian Lloyd steamer. A mystery invests this particular ship as it came into Pernambuco during the early days of the war without a flag or papers, and the Pernambu- cans interned it on general principles. There is indeed almost a constant procession of ships of various sizes and destinations passing through this narrow channel between the break water and the new port works. Many nationalities were represented but we saw no American ships, although Pernambuco offers perhaps the most di- rect communication with the United States of any Bra- PERNAMBUCO AND CENTRAL BRAZIL 311 zilian port. Through this port, in upwards of 1,000 ships, $17,000,000 worth of imports are brought each year, and the export trade is valued at $6,000,000. One finds an evident desire to establish closer commercial relations with North Americans. To my question as to the num- ber of Americans at present in Pernambuco, the Consul replied: "As yet we have only fifteen Americans, includ- ing women and children." Among the many excellent ocean ports of the South American Republic, Pernambuco with its industrious and alert population, its rapidly expanding industrial pro- gress brought about by the building of railroads and the erection of modern mills and factories, deserves serious consideration. The traveller who wishes to know Brazil in her endless variety and resources will not be satisfied in touching the east port cities of Bahia, Pernambuco and Para, which face outward to a wide commercial world. One needs the knowledge of central Brazil and the great northern river valleys lying almost entirely within the tropics and comprising about 80 per cent, of the area of the entire country. From Pernambuco one will be able in the com- ing day of good roads to travel westward 2,562 miles, all the way in Brazil. The greatest area included in a single state in this cen- tral portion of the Republic is embraced in the more than half million square miles of Matto Grosso (meaning ** thick forest"), the second in size among Brazilian states, one of the four commonwealths without a coast line. Here in this inland empire there are future pos- sibilities beyond computation. Vast river systems run- ning north and south meet here in the Matto Grosso high- lands, and with the building of a short canal Para could be connected continuously in one great continental water- way with the southern Argentine metropolis, Buenos Aires. It is a state of pastoral and forest wealth prima- 312 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY rily, but there are regions of mineral wealth awaiting the digging; lands fit for agriculture; and the various kinds of rubber, the export of sugar, tobacco, mate, rice, and coffee point the way to a period when this colossus of a state, as yet not fully explored, will be able to be independent of the world in the opulence of her diverse products. Until very recently Matto Grosso has been without a mile of railroad, being dependent on her numer- ous rivers for communication with the outer world. The Brazil Railway has begun the transportation freedom of this giant state, penetrating the southern section of Mat- to Grosso, tying it by railway connections with Sao Paulo, and also opening a door westward toward Bolivia at the Madeira-Mamore Falls in the northern corner. The natural ranching lands promise speedy development of this state, which now has only about 300,000 inhabitants, in a territory that might easily give support and riches to many millions. Goyaz, another inland state, with about the same popu- lation as Matto Grosso, though only about half the size, lies between her big neighbour and the state of Bahia. The small quiet inland Capital of Goyaz, in her seques- tered aloofness with no railways to link her up with even Brazilian modernity, hardly seems a place in which to found the Capital City of all the Brazils, yet those early Constitution makers who suggested this as the future Federal District of a massive empire, because it lay in the heart of the lands, may one day be found to have possessed a prophetic vision. Goyaz 's railways are al- ready under way, and her many fine streams are a great resource. Steamers from Para reach her along the waterways, and bring out her tropical products, her ce- reals, rubber, vegetable silk and the minerals, of which latter Goyaz has enormous untouched riches. There are unnumbered tribes of Indians, and the State exports 50,- PERNAMBUCO AND CENTRAL BRAZIL 313 000 or more cattle yearly to the neighbouring common- wealths. On the eastward boundaries of Goyaz lie the four large states of Minas Geraes, Bahia, Piauhy and Maranhao, all potentially dowered for the raising of cereals, tropical fruits, cotton and tobacco, while Minas Geraes, which means ''general mines," is the Brazilian home of gold, diamonds and minerals. Cattle, hides and rubber are also found among the export products of these states. Minas Geraes, the largest of this group, has an area of 250,000 square miles, a population of four and a half mil- lions, and its capital, Bello Horizonto, with its popula- tion of upwards of 35,000, is a young but flourishing city, as beautiful as its name suggests. A great part of this state lies on the elevated plateau, that rises quickly from the sea to furnish the wide tablelands of Brazil, where grazing of cattle, agriculture and a sub-tropical climate hold out inviting possibilities for future prosperity. It is not long after the arrival of the traveller in Brazil that the omnipresent *'Caxambu" mineral water directs his attention to the famous mineral springs in Minas where a successful business is carried on in bottling the spark- ling and medicinal w^aters from a dozen or more natural springs. In this fertile land in the south of the state espe- cially are also grown 180,000,000 kilos of coffee yearly, and its cornfields, its hard woods and its dairy exports to- gether with a score of other agricultural products reveal the peculiar fecundity of the lands. The mineral wealth of Minas Geraes attracted the ad- venturer, as early as the seventeenth century, and the story of the gold-mining days would fill a volume. Every one knows of the great diamond mines famous for cen- turies, where the coveted *'Braganza" and the "Regent" gems were found, and the "Estrella do Sul" diamond with which a negro woman slave bought her freedom, and which later was sold for $15,000,000, being among 314 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY the largest diamonds in existence. Here is the home of the ''black diamond" and out of the soil of Minas Ge- raes and Bahia have gone most of the blazing jewels which bedeck the Brazilian woman-kind in every large centre of the country. Two of the chief gold-mining companies are promoted by British capital, and one of them has been operating in Minas since the year 1830. Of the important export of manganese iron ore mention is made in connection with the successful shipping car- ried on by the United States and Brazil Steamship Lines which carried the major part of the 260,000 tons of man- ganese ore, in 1915, to the United States. The State of Minas is also connected with the inter- esting and important development about monazite sands, which yield thorium, used in the production of the fa- mous ''Welsbach mantles," for lighting. This Brazilian product is of special interest to Americans since the fore- most place in the monazite discoveries has been taken by the American mining engineer, Mr. John Gordon, who from the year 1866 has been engaged in the mining and exportation of this somewhat mysterious product. Although it is not easy to trace the location of mona- zites and, since naturally those who have access to knowl- edge concerning the unusual product derived from these sands are not eager to vouchsafe information, still it has been possible to trace the existence of thorium to several different parts of the world. It is found in the United States in Burke Co., North Carolina ; in the Ural mountains; in Russia; in British West Africa; in Tra- vancore, East India ; in Japan, and in Brazil. The world supply of extracted monazite sands is thought to be at present not more than nine thousand tons, and this material has been obtained largely from Brazil and India, and is now stored somewhere in Europe within the fighting zone. The discovery of the Austrian scientist Auer von Wels- PERNAMBUCO AND CENTRAL BRAZIL 315 bach, that thoria possesses the power to transform heat into light waves, has been the chief influence in bringing monazite sand to the attention of the world. Thus far no chemical substitute has been discovered for thorium, and the very large use of the delicate lighting mantles in all parts of the world gives sufficient reason for the renewed present attention being given to these sands found in Brazil. According to quite thorough studies which have re- cently been made of Brazilian monazite, the geographi- cal location of the best known deposits in Brazil occupies a coastal strip of territory between the northern part of the State of Rio de Janeiro and Maranhao, as well as along certain river beds in the interior of the Re- public. According to our authority, "the coastal strip consists of cretaceous quaternary beds, the product of the decomposition through the ages of the granite rocks upon which these beds border. They are the result of wave, wind and sea action, concentrating the sand and leaving behind only its heaviest particles." In the interior of Brazil it seems that nearly all of the larger rivers of the States of Minas Geraes, Espi- rito Santo and Rio de Janeiro contain traces of these deposits in their sandy beds where a like process of dis- integration of the granite has proceeded. The chief dif- ficulty in securing these deposits exists not simply in the fact that the beds are often thin and scattered over a con- siderable extent of river territory, but the matter of transportation comes in as it does in almost every other phase of modern enterprise in Brazil. Another element of difficulty has been stated recently by an engineer as follows : *'The deposits of the interior are just like the North Carolina deposits, but unfortunately without the com- paratively cheap labour of North Carolina's hard work- ing and thrifty population." 316 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY The name of another American has also been asso- ciated with the monazite discoveries in Brazil, Dr. Or- ville A. Derby, an American scientist who was at the head of the Brazilian Geological and Mineralogical ser- vice for many years. Dr. Derby found that no official ex- amination of the deposits of zircon oxide had been made although a large amount of this material had been shipped in past years to Germany. It was from Dr. Derby that it was learned also that the above de- posits which contained thoria are to be found at various points in the Caldas District which lies near the bound- aries of the states of Sao Paulo and Minas Geraes. These deposits in Brazil are at present in the hands of private persons who have had considerable litigation at different times with the Government relative to their rights in these matters. This litigation has had to do at times with the ''foreshore" rights of Brazil, which by decree dating back to 1868 gave the Federal Govern- ment rights over certain extent of territory along the sea shore. The exportation of monazite sand from Brazil from the year 1905 to the present time reveals the fact that the majority of the substance was exported from Vic- toria, Rio and Bahia to the United States, to Germany and to France, the largest exportation being in the year 1909 when the output amounted to $708,092. There has been considerable fluctuation in the price due to specula- tion, and it seems that a considerable amount of the product sent to Europe found its way to Hamburg. The early development of this industry in which Mr. Gordon was a pioneer, was attended with considerable delay and difficulty. At one time Mr. Gordon shipped to the United States fifty tons of the sand, distributing about twenty tons as samples among his friends of the Columbia School of Mines, with no particular result. Be- coming tired of paying storage charges on the other PERNAMBUCO AND CENTRAL BRAZIL 317 thirty tons, lie had them dumped into the Erie Basin, where they now lie *'for some future geologist" as Mr. Gordon says, ''to marvel at their erratic presence." Two years after this incident while on a journey to Europe, Mr. Gordon came into touch with the Welsbach inter- ests and began at once to develop the large Brazilian in- dustry which has been associated in Brazil with his name. As to the acquiring of properties in Brazil for the de- velopment of monazite sand, it would hardly seem wise to encourage investors without considerable capital, and especially without a knowledge of the complex mining laws of Brazil. Each of the Brazilian States has the right to levy its own export duties on products shipped out of the country, and these duties on monazite as well as on other materials vary. In Bahia the export tax on mo- nazite is approximately 40 per cent., while in Espirito Santo it is 35 per cent. We are told that the State of Rio de Janeiro is now considering a considerable reduction of its present taxes on this product, following the example of Travancore, India, where the export duty has been set at the low figure of two and one half per cent. Those interested in Brazilian mining are encouraged to believe that the new Brazilian mining law promulgated on Jan. 7th, 1915, will assist considerably small placer miners. There is also considerable interest evident in mining circles concerning the way in which the new Brazilian Civil Code, which came into effect Jan. 1st, 1917, will influence mining enterprises. Certain it is that Brazil promises to become increasingly a foremost source of the world's supply for monazite. Unlike the other central Brazilian States Minas Geraes is quite well supplied with railways, and is carrying on colonisation, having more than a dozen colonies with a population of 26,000 persons. The climate is excellent and equable and one finds grazing lands of peculiar rich- ness on her broad plateaus, sometimes fourteen hundred 318 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY feet above sea level. This large and flourishing com-, monwealth is not wanting in industries, and her institu- tions are growing in pace with the coastal sections. The eastern coastal States in the central portion of the Republic, Ceara, Rio Grande do Norte and Parahyba, ly- ing north of Pernambuco, and the historic States of Al- agoas and Sergipe to the south are smaller in area than the others which have been noted. Sugar and cotton form the staples of these States, with a considerable pastoral industiy in Ceara which possesses upwards of 2,000,000 cattle. Ceara has over one million population, with two railways, and a coastline of 348 miles. Each one of these States carries on important industrial work, especially in cotton mills, Rio Grande do Norte having a big cotton mill, turning out yearly two million yards of fabric and 200,000 pounds of thread. The droughts of Ceara have been a menace to the State, and have driven large portions of the inhabitants to the Amazonian rub- ber forests for labour during certain portions of the year. The Territory of Acre which bounds this central belt of country on its far western side, has an area of 74,607 square miles, is a great asset to the Federal Government in its rich rubber forests, while its woods and medicinal plants are worthy of mention. Thus, from tropical littoral, across great mountain ridges, over wooded and fertile plateaus, into steaming jungle and rubber lands, cut by mighty rivers, and tra- versed only here and there by the iron roads of railways, stretches Central Brazil — coming slowly, surely into modernity. XXII PARA AND THE RUBBER WORKERS OF THE AMAZON Paea, like Quito, on the west coast of South America, and Singapore in the east, has the distinction of being an equator city. Not that the equatorial imaginary line runs exactly through the capital of this northern Bra- zilian State ; as a matter of strict fact Para city, or Belem, lies thirty miles south of the equator — ^but because of its location it shares in the general climate, kind of products, and to a degree in the characteristics of the people of other equator cities. In its warm, humid atmosphere, Para resembles more nearly Singapore than the lofty Quito in the Cordilleras. The temperature varies slightly throughout the year, oscillating between 26 and 27 degrees Centigrade. At no time is the atmosphere as unbearable as in certain Ameri- can and European cities in midsunmier. The inhabi- tants of the region say that cases of sunstroke are un- heard of here, and that the frequent rains and trade winds assure an equable and fresh current of air across the broad mouths of the Amazon, whose portal Para guards. To arrive at Para near the carnival season in Febru- ary, as was the experience of the writer, is to see this city of 200,000 inhabitants in its most picturesque mood. Buildings and streets are hung with flags and streamers, while the main streets of the town are well supplied with aerial cables of small incandescent lights. It is colour, colour, everyw'here. The spirit of this pre-Lenten holiday time was mingled 319 320 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY with the vibrant note of patriotism, for the new gover- nor, Dr. Laiiro Sodre, had just taken office subsequent to the deposing of a former governor. Along the streets, over private houses, in the cafes, and even in the mar- ket stalls, one found the universal sign, "Salve Lauro Sodre!" It took but a short time in Para for the visitor to realise that the new Governor was a popular idol — as a foreigner expressed it, *'A little tin god," to the Para inhabitants. Something slightly resembling a revolution had recently occurred here. The former governor. Dr. Enas Martins, losing his power over the police and sol- diery, was compelled to vacate his office, in spite of the fact that his term of service was nearly at an end. There are various reasons for disaffection here in South America, but in this particular case, trouble arose from the fact that the government found itself unable to pay the salaries of its officers and public servants, and in addition the Governor fell out with the man who was one of the leaders of the party in power. When political friends disagree, it is the first sign of change of adminis- tration in Latin America, and thus Dr. Lauro Sodre, the well known and much loved Senator and General, whose connection with politics in Para State dates from impe- rial days, is the hero of the hour. His position, however, is not altogether enviable, since he is expected to make good where his predecessor failed, but is dependent upon the same slender government treasury. The revenue of the State of Para is said to be not far from $2,000,000 yearly, one half of which is needed to pay the interest up- on the public debts of the State. It is the general belief that the new Governor is "hon- est," and there is little doubt either of his extensive po- litical experience or of his humanitarian sympathy with his people. As Federal Senator, instructor in the Mili- tary Academy, General in the Army, and former Gov- ernor of the State of Para, Dr. Lauro Sodre would seem PARA AND RUBBER WORKERS OF AMAZON 321 to possess qualifications for successful leadership of this important Brazilian State, the name of which has be- come world famous in connection with Para rubber. It is not merely as the great rubber port of Brazil that the State of Para lays claim to importance. She is at the head of one of the world's greatest waterways, and her commerce reaches as far as the remote interiors of Peru and Bolivia. Her completed government rail- way, the Estrada de Ferra de Braganga, is 256 kilometres long, and this together with the two other roads that link her with Matto Grosso and Bolivia, add to her scores of rivers, as carriers of agricultural and commercial products. The capital city of Para, or Belem, as she is known to Brazilians, is situated on the south bank of the Para River, eighty five miles from its mouth. This river is one of the mouths of the Amazon, and Para is the re- ceiving and distributing centre for northern Brazil, as well as for the vast interior. Although the Amazonian rubber crop is the main spring of commerce in this region, the increasing export trade in Brazil nuts, cocoa, hides and skins, of cattle and of deer, is notable. Lumber also gives promise, since valuable woods in huge quantities suitable for all pur- poses, are to be found in the State. The cedar for build- ing purposes is especially suitable and abundant. The foreign trade of Para in 1915 amounted to $23,- 052,618 as compared with $22,996,755 in 1914. The rub- ber export to the United States and Europe from the Amazon district in 1915 amounted to 49,686,761 pounds to the United States, and 33,473,578 pounds of rubber to Europe. The people of Para are all eager to tell the visitor of that marvellous island of Marajo, situated about six hours from the capital city where upwards of 350,000 head of cattle indicate possibilities of another great in- dustry. This island, with its 25,000 people, about three 322 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY fourths the size of Portugal, produces annually 40,000 head of cattle, and there are said to be one hundred and fifty breeding farms. The Federal Government has re- cently established a new department, equipping it with trained men who will make a particular study of the cat- tle of this district with the aim of protecting them and developing the industry. A visit to this island reveals the need of scientific method in cattle raising. Marajo is shaped like a saucer that has been broken in places and the water drifts in through the break during the rainy or winter season. When the rains are on, the cattle stand knee deep in water eating the tops from the rich grass which pro- trudes from the inundated land, getting fat and swollen with the abundant verdure. In the dry season, however, the waters vanish, and the land is baked by an equatorial sun; the cattle meanwhile become lean and suffer for food. The land of the island is owned in fabulously large tracts, and there are loose methods of taxation. There is no fencing and the cattle business is primitive in the extreme. Still there are indications of advance and we found one land owner who is sending his boy to Cornell University in order to obtain a modern agricultural training which he may be able to put into practice on his father's vast estate. In writing of any part of Brazil it is fairly safe to get a working knowledge of the seasons and the effect of rainfall. Some years ago a well-known writer of the United States after a trip down the Amazon went home and wrote that he saw on either side of this great river, lands capable of supporting at least 2,000,000 head of cattle. Not long afterwards the Consul in Para received a visit from a friend of this writer who had come to the Amazon country fully equipped to go into the cattle business on a big scale. He would not believe the Con- PARA AND RUBBER WORKERS OF AMAZON 323 sul's statement that these ostensible cattle lands seen by the American writer were low lying lands, deep under water for a good portion of the year ; be took months to investigate the matter for himself. Upon returning he left a note for the absent Consul, together with two books of his friend, the author. The note ran something as follows : **My friend made a mistake. He didn't mean cattle, he meant ducks. That country could easily support two million ducks. Please put these two books in the bottom of your safe, where no other tenderfoot like myself will be able to find them. ' ' As a matter of fact the Amazon country, near the big river especially, is one of the great frontiers which still awaits the coming of men and scientific modem proce- dure to yield its increase. The State of Para is enor- mous in extent and possibilities ; with its area of 1,149,712 square kilometres, it runs 14 degrees from north to south, and 12 degrees from east to west, while its shores are washed by 700 leagues of the Atlantic. In all this terri- tory there are less than 2,000,000 of inhabitants, hardly more than one inhabitant to a square kilometre. In France where population is less congested than in many parts of Europe there are 74 persons to the square kilo- metre ; such a population would bring 73,500,000 to Para, and it is estimated that 100,000,000 of people could live comfortably in this north Brazilian State. This need of population and labour is one of the chief requirements of Para after the omnipresent need of capital for the development of modern industrial enter- prises. There is little immigration at present and unless a new tide of population can be started into this region so rich in varied resources, its great day of opportunity can not fully come. The cajiital city reveals, nevertheless, decided indica- tions of growth. The extensive port works connected 324 THE BEAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY with the name of Percival Farquhar, who promoted the financial company which built the same, cost upwards of $52,000,000 and are thirteen hundred metres long and allow ships alongside drawing thirty feet of water. These works were begun in 1906 and in normal times are lined with ships engaged in coast, river and ocean trade. The Brazilian Lloyd steamers, 72 in number with a total ton- nage of 140,000 tons, can be seen alongside these docks five or six times a month in their various trips to the Amazon country, to New York and between the coastal cities of Brazil. The Booth Line steamers which touch at Para, in one year shortly before the war, carried 19,- 849 tons of goods exported by this State. Although freight rates have increased 25 per cent, since the com- mencement of the war, this port is not afflicted as some Brazilian sections with abnormal freight charges. The imports of Para, which in 1915 amounted to up- wards of $6,000,000, were chiefly in coal, flour, lard, ce- ment, bacon, condensed milk, arms and ammunitions, dry goods, hardware and jewelry. There are indications of foreign firms coming to this section with large means. One of these with nine engi- neers recently came to start work quietly but determin- edly in connection with nitrate. There was no noise and bluster but quiet efficient planning and work, and the firm had sufficient capital behind it to allow it to take things easily without too much worry in this equatorial land, where both traditions and climate are antipodal to those in the North. There is particular need in the city of Para at present for an American bank, and the promise is favourable for the success of such a bank at present. One very small bank of this capital city was pointed out as having made a clear profit of $250,000 last year, simply in discounts and selling foreign drafts. It is repeatedly stated by foreigners that one must understand the South American to be most truly sue- PARA AND RUBBER WORKERS OF AMAZON 325 cessful here. The American manager of a large concern in one of the Amazon river cities in answer to my ques- tion as to the existence of political "graft" said, "Yes, there is graft everywhere almost, but fully as important as money to get your concessions is friendship. The American politicians like those at home are looking for money, but do^vn here they won't even take your money unless they like you." Some one has called the State of Para the new Cali- fornia of South America. As I think of the flourishing appearance of the capital city with her excellent build- ings, her museum and zoological garden, her new theatre and modern government buildings, her pleasant squares and the spirit of industry evident, I can not but believe that this country has a rich future. Not only in her own varied resources which have hardly yet been discovered is the State of Para wealthy, but she stands sentinel with key in hand to the most vast and potential river valley of the world. With this in mind the words of Dr. Ruy Barbosa, Brazil's famous statesman, seem appropriate : "If in our country there were no other lands than that of Para, we might still consider its wealth with pride, and celebrate its fame before all who might be tempted to question its sterling properties. . . . In- deed, the splendid future of our country may be said to be guaranteed by the superior advantages which nature has dispensed to this mag- nificent State of Para." There are 75 men on the docks of Para to-night load- ing or pretending to load rubber upon a Brazilian Lloyd steamer. By actual count, 23 of these men are asleep sprawled about on the big boxes which contain the fa- mous Para rubber destined for the United States, while only four or five of these workmen are busy occasionally, as in ten minute intervals the great electric crane swings do\\Ti the long chain with its teeth-like clamps that are 326 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY adjusted to the boxes. Yet we are told that each of these labourers receives 12 milreis, about three dollars, for his night's work, which is not sufficiently absorbing even to keep him awake. The inefficiency of this exhibition is explained by the fact that only half a dozen men are in the hold of the ship to receive these great loads of rubber, and these move in shifts of three with a leisureliness that rasps the nerves of the passengers who have already lain in this port for nearly four days beyond schedule, watching this long- drawn-out process. The number of workmen engaged is explained by the fact that the different Rubber Com- panies each employ their own men to load their rubber, and the longshoreman foreman with strident voice and persuasive language usually gracing such occasions in the North, is here conspicuous by his absence. This is a fitting example and reason also for the manifest lack of progressive life in the present day Ama- zon rubber industry, explaining incidentally why the great river business in the finest rubber to be found on the face of the earth has remained almost static with little advance for a decade, while Eastern plantation rub- ber, scientifically managed, has increased more than 200 per cent. The collecting and the exporting of rubber in the Ama- zon Valley partakes of the characteristics of the people and the influence of the climate in these equatorial lati- tudes. It is both a matter of ancient and traditional custom and it is also pervaded by that innocuous desue- tude attending business in tropical localities. There is no insistent economic necessity driving the people to toil. When one has said this, he has said much by way of explaining rubber conditions on the Amazon to-day. Humboldt, in his ''Personal Narrative of Travels in the Equinoctial Regions of America," observes that *'the richness of the soil and the vigour of organic life, by mul- PARA AND RUBBER WORKERS OF AMAZON 327 tiplying the means of subsistence, retard the progress of nations in the paths of civilisation." There is also a decided obstacle to advance in the in- adequate living conditions of the ''seringueiro" or rub- ber collector, who is forced to spend his days in the Ama- zon forests and humid jungles securing his food-products at high prices, and finding all too little joy in his secluded existence. The traveller makes haste to ask why foreign capital and foreign leadership have not come into these rich re- gions and changed all this, introducing cultivated rubber conditions resembling those in the Orient. It is a diffi- cult question for which to obtain an adequate reply in this section. The visitor will be given the history of eight or more European companies which have found untimely graves in the Amazon rubber business, losing their hold through ignorance of the ways of men in these infre- quented parts or by poor management. One manager of a company failed because he did not realise soon enough that you can more easily persuade than you can drive Amazon rubber gatherers. This seems to apply especially to the inhabitants of the State of Ceara, who go up the river in great numbers to gather rubber, when the almost annual drouth has parched their state. The River Indians, also, many of whom make good rubber gatherers, silently fold their tents and steal away when they are not well treated. According to local report, the Portuguese only will endure the commands of foreigners. Another reason for the failure of outside rubber com- panies in the Amazon Valley has been the tendency to- wards over-capitalisation — what is styled "dirty com- panies" in this region. There are many other causes presented, such as ''sweating" labourers, the artificial raising of the cost of food, or absence of experience in the processes of cleaning, smoking and transporting this valuable utility. 328 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY The giving of proper attention to the rubber collector seems to be the crux of the rubber problem on the Ama- zon at present. An experienced rubber expert, speak- ing of the need of improvement of the status of the rub- ber gatherer, says, ''For 1911 the receipts into the Public Treasury of Belem (Para) were in round figures $2,- 000,000, and Manaos has its theatre architected in grand style, while the seringueiro rots in the forest. The Ama- zon States may not be blamed too severely for extracting tax money from this their world-famous product, but it is evident that both the State and Municipal Govern- ments of this region must make certain changes in the manner of disposing of their duties on rubber if labour is to be attracted and held." In spite of these obstacles, Amazon rubber holds to- day and doubtless will continue to hold, a large place in the world market. The present status of the Brazilian industry shows that out of approximately one third of the rubber pro- ducing area of the earth, the Amazon section produces about 25 per cent, of the world supply, or not far from a yearly output of 39,000 tons. This reveals slight prog- ress in the yearly output of rubber in the Amazon Valley during the last ten years, while the increase in Eastern plantations where cultivated rubber is produced, has been in the last decade 260 per cent. It is estimated that the production in the Oriental plantations in 1916 will be 125,000 tons, possibly more. Rubber can be produced in the native forests of Brazil at considerably less cost than in the cultivated rubber districts of Asia and Africa, and the standard rubber species, "Hevea Brasiliensis" is found in the Amazon territory in almost unlimited quantities in "wild" trees. It awaits only right conditions of labour and markets to afford an ever expanding commercial future. In the Brazilian rubber region, each "Hevea" rubber PARA AND RUBBER WORKERS OF AMAZON 329 tree will yield 12 pounds of rubber yearly from the ''Bra- siliensis" variety, and 8 pounds from the ' ' Guxmensis " and ''Brevifolia," which is much more than can be taken from the cultivated trees of the Orient. Of the "Manicoba," or the Ceara variety, the Brazil tree gives three fifths of a pound to one fifth of a pound in the British plantation of the East. This is an assurance not only that the forests of the Amazon are the original ''home of India Rubber," but also that, given proper modern methods, the region has little to fear from rubber competition in other portions of the world. He who sails up the Amazon and follows into the primeval fastness any one of her many tribu- taries will be confronted to-day with virgin forests whose area fairly staggers mental calculation. The United States is the most important customer of Brazilian rubber, taking in the year 1915, 49,686,761 pounds, as compared with 33,473,578 pounds which went to Europe. During the writer's visit to this region, rub- ber was at the somewhat low figure of 66 cents a pound, and it costs roughly speaking 25 cents to produce it on the Amazon and another 25 cents a pound in taxes to the Federal and State Governments of Brazil. To the question, "Who makes the money on rubber*?" I received this reply from several sources : " It is often difficult to say. It depends considerably on market prices. The possibilities of getting good labour is always a determin- ing factor if any one makes anything." It is significant that most of the traders up the Amazon are in debt at the present to the rubber houses at Para, from which port most of the rubber is shipped. There is small doubt that if the measures now meditated to relieve this product of certain exacting Government restrictions carry, the profits will be greatly increased for all concerned. Quite as important to this end will be an organised and syste- 330 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY matic policy by which rubber may be produced through- out the whole year. The manner of securing Amazon rubber is still primi- tive. As yet there are only a few attempts at cultivated estates. The milk of the rubber tree is caught in mud, leaf or tin cups below gashes made in the trees; it is collected in buckets or pails for the smoking hut; there, over an oily, nut fire and through a tin cone with a small opening at the top, the rubber latex is smoked. It is a simple process of dipping sticks of wood into the milk and holding above the smoking cone, repeating the process until bunches of rubber are formed weighing 50 or 60 kilos each. It is a method at least a century and a half old. This rubber when smoked, according to a strange twist of Brazilian law is the property of the "seringueiro," who usually receives no wages but obtains his living sup- plies on credit at the general stores of the company or owner. The owner takes a lien on the collector's rubber for this indebtedness and the ''seringueiro" liquidates this debt by delivering the rubber he has extracted. The rubber is then shipped for sale to the merchant at Ma- naos or Para who has equipped the general store keeper. The accounts are adjusted once a year between the three parties. A manifest inconvenience of this roundabout deal lies in the fact that the receivers of rubber are unable to dis- pose of their prospective holdings before the actual ar- rival of the rubber at Para or Manaos, and are thus un- able to take advantage of favourable prices by selling over a spread of months, as is the case in the Eastern plantations. Notwithstanding many external disadvantages by way of antediluvian methods, it must be remembered that the tree "Hevea Brasiliensis" is indigenous in the Amazon valley, and this fact is a momentous one relative to the THE 'SMOKING HUT" OF THE RUBBER GATHERER OF THE AMAZON COUNTRY BRAZIL IS THE "TREE" COUNTRY OF SOUTH AMERICA THE DRIPPING LOVELINESS OF THE TROPICS ' PAEA AND RUBBER WORKERS OF AMAZON 331 future of the industry in Brazil. This rubber needs no chemicals such as are used with *'tame" rubber in the East, and when smoked by the Para method it is unsur- passed for strength, elasticity, stability and durability; its price still governs the standard price of rubber in other markets of the world. In its wild state the tree costs nothing for production and little for upkeep. The native Amazonian ' ' seringueiro ' ' moreover is un- rivalled in his almost instinctive and traditional knowl- edge of the rubber tree. As one walks along by his side in the forest, passing a tree he will touch you on the arm and say ''boa" (good tree), and when you tap the tree for rubber you find it in the " seringueiro 's " phrase a "five-gallon-cow" — passing another tree, your experi- enced guide says "moribundo" (dying), and if you tap it, you will get only a yellow-looking, evil-smelling and dis- coloured latex. It is this man — this "seringueiro" — king of the Brazil- ian rubber forests — his life and his environment, which determines largely the output of rubber to-day in the Amazon Valley. Sandmann states in a word the modern Brazilian problem of rubber — "To reduce the living ex- penses of the 'seringueiro' ... to direct scientifically unskilled labour." XXIII THE BRAZILIAN INDIAN Among the ''great names" of Brazil that of Colonel Mariano de Silva Rondon must be included. He is the Indian's friend. For twenty-five years Colonel Rondon has laboured to undo the hereditary hate and suspicion of the Brazilian Indian for the white man, and guide his feet into the ways of peace and the arts of civilised life. No small part of the influence now being exerted by the Bra- zilian Government in its pacification of the wild and sav- age tribes of the unmapped interior of the country, is due to the indefatigable labours of this man endowed with unusual humanity and powers of treating with these descendants of Brazilian aborigines. As the head of the Coromission on the Protection of the Indians established by the Govermnent, with Matto Grosso as his particular field in recent years, Colonel Rondon has been able to con- vert hostile tribes into helpers and builders of the coun- try. Those who first tried to kill him are now aiding him in the telegraph and road-making plans in which he has, been able to interest them. By patience, kindness and humanity^ Colonel Rondon has won the confidence of the Brazilian Indian. It has been truly a labour of love which one day will be more fully recognised. In accordance with the decree of Government promul- gated in 1910 the Brazilian Indians were given rights of citizenship and agencies for their development worthy of their importance in the Republic. The decree provided for ten districts, each one in charge of an inspector, with Colonel of Engineers Rondon as Director-General. The 332 THE BRAZILIAN INDIAN 333 aim has been to train and to pacify heretofore miciviUsetl tribes in settlements by themselves, and gradually to bring them into touch with such service as their abilities and the character of the section demanded. The plans involve schools, training farms, land allotments, work- shops and ''Attraction Posts." These latter stations are stocked with ornaments and such articles of utility as make an appeal to the untrained and often untamed In- dians. Gradually the well meant labours of the civilisers have impressed the forest-dwellers and the inhabitants of the jungle. Colonel Rondon's tactics have been quite dissimilar from those used by the early Portuguese who evidently thought that the only good Indian was a dead one, and proceeded to exterminate them. As a result to-day the traveller in the State of Amazonas will find many tribes with farm implements in their hands engaged in agricul- ture, and in Matto Grosso, the Indians are entrusted with the work connected with the telegraph lines. Along the lines of the Brazil Railway in the south, as along the great rivers in the inland state of Goyaz will be found Indian camps and settlements where the active, strong and also docile men of the ''bush" are beginning to imi- tate the ways of the white man, led and instructed by the Indian inspectors. In certain parts of Rio Grande do Sul where the Indians are more advanced, many of them have been taught the arts of husbandry, and are in places fit to begin the agricultural labours and state demands. The nucleus of colonies and the surveys for colonisation have been promoted in many of the Brazilian states where in the next decade thousands of the Indians, who are still living the lives of wandering nomads in the fastnesses of the unexplored interior, will be converted into civilised workers. All kinds of missionary work is looked on with favour by the Brazilian Government as useful means of 334 TliE BEAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY civilisation, though the Government itself does not at- tempt any definite religious propaganda. It is interesting to note that there is a most favourable sentiment in Brazil toward the Indian whose blood flows in the veins of so many of the inhabitants, and the stories of Indian life and the moving-picture films of late have revealed the sense of responsibility which is evident among the people toward the aboriginal Brazilians who have been in the past exploited, enslaved and at times ruthlessly destroyed. Dr. Roquette Pinto has demonstrated the fact that since 1872 while the negro and half-breed population of the country has been diminishing, the Indians have gradu- ally increased ; in 1872, according to this investigation of the National Museum of the Federal Capital, the propor- tion of Indians to the whole population was 7.0 ; in 1890 it was 12.0; and in 1912 the proportion was 13.0. It is estimated that the proportion of Indians at the end of the next century will be 17.0, thus controverting the idea that the Red Man is a fading quantity, in Brazil at least. At the discovery of Brazil, there were more than one hundred different tribes of Indians inhabiting the coun- try. As far as can be ascertained the Brazilian Indians were not so advanced in the arts of peace and organised communities as were the industrious and agricultural Incas of the Peruvian Andes, nor were they so inclined to religious rites as were the North American Indians. The aborigines of Brazil were not wanting, however, in warlike and ferocious traits, and their vengeful and often bloody deeds inflicted against their white foes were scarcely surpassed by the men of their race and colour in other parts of the American continent. They were not ignorant of poisoned arrows, of blow-pipes, and of the deadly man-transfixing arrows shot from their mighty bows. Many tribes were cannibals, and according to his- torical report, many were the tribes whose members THE BRAZILIAN INDIAN 335 gained distinction by the number of heads of their en- emies, reduced by trepanning, which dangled at their belts, while others ate their relatives as a mark of dis- tinguishing and thoughtful consideration. As far as knowledge is to be gained, the present-day Indians have ceased to a large extent to indulge in like barbarities, though in the more remote sections certain travellers affirm that many of the above practices are still in vogue. The Brazilian climate, affording tropical fruits to b^ had with little or no cultivation, innumerable rivers and thousands of miles of seacoasts for fishing and easy means of communication, and the wide spaces affording a nomadic existence, all in an equatorial zone where clothes and houses were not a necessary consideration, were not intended to call forth either the physical or mental effort which other parts of North America or the West Coast of South America required. Brazil gave to the original in- habitants a luxury of living in all kinds of f niits, bananas, plantain, the cashew, the yam and the mandioca root thriving almost anyw^here in the rich organic soil-life of this land. There was also the palm of which there are said to be two hundred species in Brazil, and which the Indian utilises as widely as the Far Easterners do the bamboo. This ''Prince of the Vegetable Kingdom" was the Brazilian Indian's mainstay. The remarkable and varied uses for which the natives called upon this tree, of all the most royally beautiful in this country of exuberant and lovely forestry and flora, are given by the narrators Fletcher and Kidder in their illuminating historical and descriptive sketches of the Brazil of Imperial days : "It (the palm tree) furnishes the Amazonian Indian's house, raiment, food, drink, salt, fishing-tackle, hunting implements, and musical instruments, and almost every necessary of life except flesh." "Take the hut of an Uaupe Indian on one of the af- fluents of the Rio Negro. The rafters are formed by the 336 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY straight and uniform palm called Leopoldina pulclira; the roof is composed of the leaves of the Carana palm; the doors and framework of the split stems of the Iriartea exhoriza. The wide bark which grows beneath the fruit of another species is sometimes used as an apron. The Indian's hammock, his bow-strings, and his fishing lines are woven and twisted from the fibrous portions of differ- ent palms. The comb with which the males of some of the tribes adorn their heads is made from the hard wood of a palm ; and the fish-hooks are made from the spines of the same tree. The Indian makes from the fibrous spathes of the Manicaria saccifera, caps for his head, or cloth in which he wraps his most treasured feather-ornaments. From eight species he can obtain intoxicating liquor; from many more (not including the cocoanut-palm, found on the sea-coast) he receives oil and a harvest of fruit; and from one (the Jara assu) he procures by burning the large clusters of small nuts, a substitute for salt. From another he forms a cylinder for squeezing the mandioca- pulp, because it resists for a long time the action of the poisonous juice. The great woody spathes of the Maxi- miliana regia are used by hunters to cook meat in, as they stand the fire well. These spathes arc also employed for carrying earth, and sometimes for cradles. Arrows are made from the spinous processes of the Patawa, and lances and heavy harpoons are made from the Iriartea ventricosa ; the long blow-pipe through which the Indian sends the poisoned arrow that brings down the bright birds, the fearless peccari, and even the thick-skinned tapir, is furnished by the Sitigera palm: the great bas- soon-like musical instruments used in the 'devil-worship' of the Uaupes are also made from the stems of the palm- trees." Since the Indian has been driven into the wastes of the Brazilian interior, he has lived his life for the most part away from modern humanity and his existence has been THE BRAZILIAN INDIAN 337 a part of the stone age. With the exception of certain attainments in the way of weaving and the work in feathers, with some pottery making in the northern sec- tions, he has been an unappreciable factor in the new Brazil. Certain tribes have disfigured their faces by hideous insertions of pieces of wood into their ears and lips, and many have added European vices to their own savage manner of living in rude huts and migratory sub- sistence. The Indians of the rubber forests have in cases been taught to work the rubber trees, but their inveterate fear and hatred of the white man, who in past years has enslaved and taken advantage of him, has delayed the process of their enlightenment. The early periods of settlements were marked by the same kind of atrocities that came in the wake of the North American colonial advances. Certain Brazilian tribes were enslaved by Royal decree from Lisbon in 1537, and the passage of the years has brought many inhumani- ties on both sides, until comparatively recent times. In the year 1615 historians recount the destruction of 2,000,000 Indians in the state of Maranhao alone by rea- son of sickness and the brutalities to which they were subjected. It was not until 1823 that we find Jose Boni- facio de Andrade e Silva promulgating laws for the civ- ilisation of the Brazilian Indian, and it was along the lines of this decree that modern reform measures have been constructed. The Jesuits were undoubtedly truly interested in the welfare of the Brazilian Red Men and in sections of the country penetrated to the haunts of the forest dwellers and ministered to their needs. By these missionaries the Indians were held in a state of pupilage, and it is believed that in many cases their control of their converts resembled a condition of slavery. The Brazilian army has had times of conflict with the aborigines, hold- ing them in check by force, but modern missionary en- deavour by Catholics or Protestants has been widely scat- 338 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY tered and with not altogether successful attempts to win to civilisation these river and jungle and campo folk. There are many manners and customs of the Brazilian Indians reminding of the Red Men of North America, but in the attitude to religion the Indians south of the equa- tor are strikingly different. There is a lack of religious ideas, and the worship of the Great Spirit of the northern Indian, found in early days in the valleys of the St. Law- rence and the Mississippi, is sought in vain. In Brazil, the Indian erects no temples for worship, and while medi- cine men are found, and also wonder-workers, the sense of religious awe wliich characterised the North American Indian is not usually discovered. Religion, such as it is, partakes of a crude fetichism and a tendency at times to astrolatry. The idea of a Supreme Being is not common, but there is found in some tribes the belief in a kind of imp or sprite that has power over hunting and fishing grounds and likes to circumvent the Indians. The Tupis, who represent the main tribe of Brazil, were said to have originally a threefold worship of the Sun, the mother of animals ; the Moon, the mother of vegetables, and Ruda, or Peruda, the god of love. Contact with foreigners has modified these conceptions and has brought also less de- sirable influences in the shape of intoxicating liquors and the white man's diseases. Despite the absence of religion the Brazilian Indians are said to be among themselves adherents to a fairly strict moral code. There is a remarkable honesty, a re- spect for property, and conscious obscenity is quite un- known as a rule. They are hospitable after their sus- picions have been allayed, very fond of music, and usually monogamous, though the chiefs sometimes have more than one wife. There is found a keen love for chil- dren and also a peculiar unselfishness evident among these Indians who have been visited in their palm-made villages. Dwellers among these people seem to attribute THE BRAZILIAN INDIAN 339 these virtues of unselfishness to the absence of bad quali- ties rather than to the presence of good ones, a negative instead of a positive virtue. The Brazilian Indian is a lover of liberty, and has an inherent hatred of restraint of any kind. He wants to be let alone, and retires before civilisation of the settler into deeper fastnesses of the woods. In most cases he is the harmless child of nature, living often a nomadic life along the rivers, threading the forest mazes, crossing the streams in rough bark canoes, guided in direction by his native instinct and the sun. Like others of his kind in various parts of the world, the Brazilian Indian is a lover of ornaments, paint and feather decorations. The way to the heart of an Indian man or woman is via look- ing-glasses, beads, knives and fish-hooks. The Amazon- ian traveller, Alfred Russel Wallace, announces that "a pound's worth of fish-hooks and six pounds laid out in salt, beads and calico, will pay all expenses for six months." One method of pacification tried by Brazilian reformers has been establishing themselves in trees and dropping down trinkets of this kind to the Indians as they gradually became bold enough to venture forth from their coverts. The Brazilian Indians may be divided into four na- tions, of which the Tupis are the main group, and have spread over the largest area. They formerly dwelt along the coast and were efficient in boating and the use of the canoe especially. There are innumerable mixtures of ethnical branches and the names of the numerous tribes and sub-tribes make a page as staggering for pronuncia- tion as a Russian or Chinese dictionary. In physical appearance the Indians of this Republic belong to two types; there are the short, stout Indians with flat noses, yellowish complexions, and slightly oblique eyes, reminding of the Mongolian races ; the other type is more like the Caucasian with straight, tall bodies. 340 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY aquiline noses, thin rather than stout, and having a ruddy skin and expressive eyes. There are various theories as to the Asiatic origin of the South American Indians by the way of Behring Straits, but the theories against such an hypothesis are alike numerous. The layman, not par- ticularly keen for the tracing of the devious and uncertain paths of our aboriginal inhabitants on this Western Con- tinent, is satisfied to conclude that the Indians were here because they were here. At least the problem of chief and immediate concern for the Brazilians is that which is now being grappled with so much good sense by Colonel Ron- don and his followers — the making of this large popula- tion ready for useful labours and citizenship. While it will be many years before the more savage of the tribes dwelling in the deep impenetrable Brazilian forests can be reached, there are other thousands living in a semi-civilised state in Indian villages where railroads and industries have not as yet penetrated. These are being slowly but surely drawn toward the modernity dawning upon this leviathan land. A good picture of the mode of life of these Indians, living in a dwelling called a *'moloka," a huge palm-house in an Indian village con- taining often a hundred or more persons, is drawn by Dr. Koch-Griinberg, the ethnologist and investigator who has made a minute study of this people : ''Life in one of these large communal lodges is, on ordinary days, of idyllic regularity. The inmates are awake long before daybreak, and carry on a loud and animated conversation as they lie in their hammocks. At early dawn all enjoy a bath in a neighbouring river, and shortly afterwards the women call to the first breakfast. Each places in a large earthenware vessel the remnants of the previous day's meal — boiled fish, highly seasoned with pepper, or game — and these, together with a shallow basket of manioc cakes, are deposited in the centre of the house. The men thereupon leave their hanmiocks, to THE BRAZILIAN INDIAN 341 which, they have returned after their bath, and squat in a circle around the appetizing meal prepared for them. Each, after eating, washes his mouth and hands in prepa- ration for the dessert. Large calabashes, filled with re- freshing and nourishing manioc broth, are then handed around. The women, as custom requires, eat after the men. ''Then all betake themselves to their daily occupation — the men to hunting and fishing, the women to their plan- tations, and peaceful stillness reigns throughout the en- tire village. A few old women only remain behind and swing themselves idly in their hammocks. At intervals come from the river close at hand the muffled voices of the children who are splashing about in it, or from the top of an adjacent tree is heard the shrill cry of a tame par- rot." The evening meal is a repetition of the morning one, with fresh game, fish and manioc root, followed by pipes and an early retirement to the everpresent Indian hammock. In such centres life flows along with compara- tive ease and sobriety, with an occasional contest with a neighbouring tribe to lend excitement to the daily round and common task. That the future holds for the Brazilian Indian a some- what brighter hope than that which has confronted his species in other parts of the Americas, is probable. The large numbers, the awakened conscience of the Brazilians for their emancipation and training, the need, desperate enough, for workers in the tropical Amazonian regions where the white man finds difficulty with the climate and living conditions, are all arguments in favour of the growing rather than the diminishing future of Brazil's aborigines, whose blood is already mixed freely in Bra- zilian veins. XXIV LANGUAGES, LIBRARIES AND LITERATURE Literature is the world in words. Richard Le Gallienne. An American, experienced in affairs international, gave me Ms solution of Pan-Americanism in the follow- ing words : '*If I had my way in the task of accomplish- ing more satisfactory relations between nations, I would begin by requiring every boy in our American schools to learn to read and to speak with ease at least two lan- guages in addition to his own." In South America one meets at every turn the convic- tions of both business men and those in public life em- phasizing the prime necessity of thorough language equipment on the part of men who expect to have deal- ings with people in Latin American countries. No mere ''smattering" of Spanish or Portuguese will be sufficient; what is known in Brazil as ''ejaculatory" or "pidgin" Portuguese makes the foreigner appear ridiculous in the eyes of the Brazilians. One must acquire the ability to speak in a connected way and to express one's ideas in general conversation in these countries where conversa- tion and business are inextricably associated. The attitude of many business houses in the United States, as well as the tendency of certain educational in- stitutions, to inaugurate courses in Spanish and Portu- guese, is indicative of influences reaching farther than the mere selling of goods to Latin Americans. To be sure the ability to sell goods depends upon language ability, 343 LANGUAGES, LIBRARIES, LITERATURE 343 and the man entering any South American city to-day will be confronted at once with the question, ''Can you speak Spanish or Portuguese f If the answer is ' ' No, ' ' he will be asked, *'Do you speak French?" The use of French among the Latin Americans of the higher classes is so conmion that it might almost be called universal. It is the common medium in many sections between members of foreign nationalities whose members may be unac- quainted or lacking confidence of expression in the lan- guage that the other foreigner speaks. An American and a Russian, or a German and a Spaniard in conversation, turn naturally to French as a lingua franca. Among one's first impressions of South Americans is that of their versatility in language. The libraries con- tain books and magazines printed in Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian and English. Children are taught these languages in the homes from their earliest years, and readily shift from one to the other in speaking with their plajTiiates at their games. The literature of the world is far more nearly an open book to the educated people of these Republics than to many other nations who claim superiority over them in practical matters. When any important business is to be transacted it is especially important that the foreigner knows the lan- guage of the country, for it is in this language that the Latin American is freest to express himself and through which the easiest access to his real thought can be ac- quired. The people of these Republics are noted for their volubility. Even in a business transaction they desire to preface matters by a friendly chat about your family, the weather, the condition of the country, politics, etc. It may seem foolish to the direct American to spend ten minutes of valuable time discussing social matters as a prelude for selling a ship load of steel, but unless said American has sufiScient acquaintance with the native lan- guage to speak at ease concerning these domestic mun- 344 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY dane matters, lie may fail in placing Ms order for steel. Even the policeman whom you ask to direct you on the street takes the opportunity for a friendly tete-a-tete. It cannot be too often reiterated that business in South America is done largely through the medium of friend- ships, and the foreigner who is handicapped by the lack of facility in the language spoken, has lost his oppor- tunity at the very beginning. The use of the daily press moreover is absolutely es- sential if one is to get on in these Republics. It is a period of the newspaper and the periodical in these coun- tries; and these journals mirror accurately the trend of thinking and action of the people. This language ability is soon found by those becoming proficient in it to be an education in itself. One is im- pressed to find many a business man down here giving himself a wide education through the medium of the study of Spanish or Portuguese. It has cast his thought naturally into other moulds and has given him new his- torical and traditional backgrounds. Through his ability to read Spanish or Portuguese he has discovered often for the first time the rich civilisation of the old world where culture reigned w^hen North America was peopled only by savage Indians. Facts were grasped in a dual set of symbols because the man was achieving the ability to think these facts in two languages. New angles of vision arise for these student business men. Other ap- proaches to the same problem than those hitherto known are discovered. A readiness of mutual understanding occurs, and there is a rapid clearing of atmosphere be- tween individuals. It is interesting to note in South America the way in which the man from the United States changes even his gestures and adds to his mannerisms as he learns to speak these Latin American languages. Almost unconsciously the man from the North as he acquires the languages of LANGUAGES, LIBRAKIES, LITERATURE 345 his southern neighbours, takes on also something of their attitude of mind and their customs of speech and eti- quette. He becomes more polite, as the South Americans say. He loses some of his brusqueness and hustle and he learns to accomplish by courtesy and gentleness the re- sults which he had previously been accustomed to bring about by directness and forcefulness. It comes through the knowledge of the language which gives him the tem- per of the people more than through any other one agency. If it is true that the man who knows no other country but his own fails really to know his own, it is likewise clear enough that he who knows no other lan- guage than his own has failed really to discover the possi- bilities or adjustments of his native tongue. Twenty years ago it might have seemed a far cry to ad- vocate for American boys and girls language study and language speaking in foreign tongues as absolute neces- sities. It is not so to-day. The United States has been thrust into the great family of nations with amazing rapidity, and the requirements of yesterday will not suf- fice for to-day. It is apparent that if our American boys are to be capable of competing with the present genera- tion of youth in other nations in matters of trade, com- merce and politics, a new regime of language ability must be ushered in through both the school and the home. No longer does the English youth boast as did his father that he knows only English, and that those who would converse with him must learn his language. The young Englishman who comes to South America, like the young German or the young Frenchman, have already received considerable training in Spanish or Portuguese, and the first few years of their residence in these coun- tries are marked by assiduous toil in perfecting them- selves in the language of the country, providing they have any ambition for advancement or influence. English is not the only language that is undergoing a 346 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY wide cultivation. During the last month or two here in Brazil I visited the libraries of many Americans who have taken keen delight in showing me some of the treas- ures of thought and history which they have discovered in Portuguese regarding the early Indian life, the his- tory of the Jesuits and Brazilian poetry and folk lore. It is truly the day of the ''International mind" and that mind is expressed in many kinds of word symbols. The majority of the transient distinguished travellers and public men who visit South America are unable to speak scarcely a word of Spanish or Portuguese and rarely French, and remain practically dumb in the midst of their peculiar opportunities to reveal the thought life of North America. The Frenchman, the German or the Italian on the contrary brings with him in his visits to these countries a readiness of linguistic ability that im- mediately opens the door of knowledge of his country and its ideas and ideals. We have found some notable exceptions among Ameri- cans in South America relative to language ability. For several weeks it has been the writer's privilege to travel wdth Mr. A. L. M. Gottschalk, the American Consul Gen- eral to Brazil. We passed through various states in the country where recent immigration has brought to this land of opportunity Italians, Poles, Germans, Portuguese and French. With each set of the above people the Con- sul General was equally at home and would sit and chat with them by the hour in their native tongue, and in each case securing a new angle of vision and fresh point of view from which to judge the situation in these dis- similar States. On the trains this gentleman was read- ing with equal facility books in Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and French, and this knowledge of the national literature of the different races involved, gave him at once a sympathetic reception into their thought and hearts. LANGUAGES, LIBRARIES, LITERATURE 347 I could not lielp but contrast this gentleman with an- other official whom we had met in another section of South America, who was unable to speak a single long sentence or even answer the telephone in the language of the Republic to which he had been sent. The one was a cosmopolitan, gathering his light from every available source, while the other was a provincial, moving blindly about in a world unrealised. The first official was a tan- gible and constant agent in translating the spirit and life of one nation to other nationalities. The other was al- ways an alien, having little chance to share in the life of the people whom he was supposed to know and serve for his country's sake. The North American young man who finds himself in any city or town of South America without a thorough knowledge of the language, is a pitiable object. The libraries are closed to him for the most part ; the theatres are barred, for he cannot understand the colloquialisms, although he may understand the drift of the play; his evenings are a blank, for he can have no social life with the people who hesitate to bring a foreigner into their homes if he cannot speak their language. He is an exile and his life is more monotonous than he can endure for any length of time. Therefore he takes the first oppor- tunity to get back to the States, '* where they can under- stand English. ' ' It is encouraging to note that this language necessity is being realised in many directions at present. Pub- lishing houses in both North and South America are be- ginning to form plans for the interchange of books. We heard recently of a plan for translating North American books in Spanish and Portuguese language in order that South Americans might get acquainted with us, and a reciprocal plan of reprinting Spanish and Portuguese books in English for distribution in the United States. An astute business man in Brazil said recently that 348 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY every boy wlio was intended for business in South Amer-' ica should be sent first to France, Spain and Portugal, and then on a grand tour through South Anieriea. This is of course an impossible ideal for many, but every prospective South American business man can acquaint himself at home through teachers and associations with South Americans, resident in the United States, with their language and traditions. He can learn while still at home that the South American peoples are intensely patriotic and love supremely the names of their great men, their generals and their statesmen. The man who comes down here and does not know the history of Brazil for example, who has not studied the early relationships between Brazil and Portugal, or does not know the sig- nificance of the names of Don Joao VI or Dom Pedro II, or above all does not acquaint himself with the attitude of Brazil relative to the race and colour question — such a one has little chance of success in the greatest of South American Republics. The responsibility for world trade of the United States as well as for world relationships, rests with the Ameri- can educators and the American schools quite as truly as it depends upon our Chambers of Commerce and our State Department. We have goods to sell and we have thoughts to give to the world, but we can neither sell goods nor express our ideas to other peoples unless we have familiarised ourselves with the medium of language through which we can become intelligible to foreign nations. The Portuguese language, the most Latinised of the Latin tongues, has received at different times, and espe- cially from Lord Byron, considerable honour. As a medium for the expression of great literary ideas, with the exception of a few works like Camoens's ''Luziadas," the world of letters has not been thought generally to have been vastly enriched through Portuguese literature. LANGUAGES, LIBRARIES, LITERATURE 349 To many, the language of these early settlers of Brazil is more difficult and intricate than Spanish. The Portu- guese can more readily understand the Spaniard speak- ing in his mother tongue than the Castilian can under- stand the Portuguese. The Brazilian dialect is possessed of greater facility in the way of assimilation than the French, for example; it is less regular than the Italian. To those unfamiliar with Latin speech, the PortugTiese is less musical and pleasant to the ear than any of the other Latin tongues. Both the Portuguese and the Brazilian have failed to give the minute attention to the lexico- graphical side of their language. In Rio de Janeiro espe- cially there is something of a fad among the travelled Brazilians to exchange their native Portuguese for French in common conversation — something as the Jap- anese only a few years ago found it pleasing to exchange things Japanese for Western commodities, and the Babu of Calcutta is known for his aping of the English. As one travels on the East Coast of South America where the more or less blatant and showy materialism of the new industrial order first impresses, there is little expectation of finding such a building with such contents as is to be discovered in the National Library of Rio de Janeiro, founded in 1808 by the Prince Regent of Portu- gal, Dom Joao, later the Brazilian King Joao VI. Com- ing to Brazil as ruler, he brought with him the Portu- guese Royal Library of sixty thousand volumes. This excellent nucleus of books has received notable additions since Dom Pedro II added fifty thousand vol- umes from his own collection, and Dr. Julio Benedicto Ottoni, the Brazilian manufacturer, donated the famous ** Brazilian Collection." According to the law of the country, a copy of every work published in Brazil must be forwarded to the library. The result has been a wor- thy collection of books and literature, including three hun- dred and sixteen thousand, one hundred and sixty-seven 350 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY (360,167) printed books; 569,643 manuscripts; 6,876 geographical maps; 123,182 pictures, and 28,709 coins and medals. It is said that the languages in which the books of this library are printed include fourteen, and the study and devotion given to the collection and modern arrangement by erudite librarians has added greatly to the value of the institution. This literature is housed in a building on the Avenida Rio Branco, which was opened in 1910, a century after the library was originally established. It is doubtless the best equipped institution of its kind in the whole of South America. The building stands by itself, is fire- proof and follows the modern method of division into sections. The main reading hall accommodates 136 per- sons and there is a special room for those who wish to read the papers and reviews or do research work. Not the least interesting to the visitor are the old and valu- able editions, and the drawings of old masters which have made the building a veritable literary museum. In this collection of special note are the Archives and Amours of Dom Pedro I, the Mazarin Bible, and the first edition of the *'Luziadas." Closely associated with the National Library are the organisations connected with art. Especially is Brazil- ian literature encouraged by many Academies of Letters in various states, the central body being the Brazilian Academy of Letters. After one has spent days of inter- ested investigation in such institutions as the National Institute of Music, the National Institute of Painting and the Academy of Fine Arts, all of which organisations are associated with the National Library, he is prepared to say that Brazil, at least, has been contributing her share of effort in making more notable Portuguese art and letters. It was with considerable interest that I accepted an invitation to witness the installation of a Brazilian ''im- LANGUAGES, LIBRARIES, LITERATURE 351 mortal" in this national, literary pantheon. The new academician on this occasion was Senhor Ozorio Duque Estrado, well known Brazilian literary critic and writer. The hall of the Academy was filled with two hundred in- vited guests who joined with the other thirty-nine mem- bers of the Academy to hear the discourse of the new member and afterward to cover him with the praises by way of flowers and embraces, for which this Latin Ameri- can people are famous. After a brief reception the gnests gathered in the hall to await the formal entrance of the members of the Academy. Finally a goodly number of these entered and took their places upon the platform, about which Avere banked great masses of flowers. These flowers were made in large wreaths and gave a festal effect to the scene. After the literary immortals had been seated, two of their number clothed in ornate red coats and sashes proceeded to an ante-room and soon appeared conducting the new recipient to literary honours, at which the entire audience arose and joined in applause. I was interested in noting the entrance of three pho- tographers, who placed themselves in three strategic parts of the hall, and prepared for a ^'flashlight." It seemed somewhat inconsistent to the decorum of the oc- casion to allow these photographers to go on with their elaborate arrangements even amid the opening of the speeches, but whether it is because the Brazilian likes to have his picture taken, or because nothing short of an earthquake can interrupt a Brazilian orator when his eloquence is fairly turned on, these photographers had no effect whatever upon the new immortal who had been introduced and was getting warmed up in his address when the blinding flashlight occurred. The photograph- ers filed out with their apparatus and their assistants, but the picture was evidently unsuccessful, for in about fifteen minutes the entire picture-taking delegation re- 352 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY turned and again made elaborate arrangements, and again tlie room was filled with fire and smoke. The audi- ence meanwhile seemed to be giving more attention to the photographers than to the speech, but the literary- critic who was by this time driving home his points with many gestures and in a full voice, paid absolutely no attention to these distracting events, and by his perfect concentration upon the subject of his discourse soon drew away the attention of the audience from the pho- tographers and for the next full hour held them entranced by his eloquence. The address which was couched in literary quotations and punctuated with humour was far more entertaining than the customary speech of an Academician either in the United States or in the French Academy, from which Brazil has copied her idea of the forty immortals. There were times indeed, during the presentation of the new member, that the audience fairly shook with laughter and was ready to burst into applause. The North American would immediately notice in this audience of the literary elite the presence of colour. There were at least a dozen men in the Assembly of dis- tinct negro race, while one of the iromortals on the plat- form was distinctly of mulatto type. In referring to this fact which denoted a distinct difference between the high- est assemblage of literary folk in Brazil and that which might occur in the United States, a Member of the Academy said to me : ''Any person, regardless of the type of liis complexion, can be elected to the Brazilian Academy on the merit of his ability." In this new Republic the freedom accorded to every citizen is in some senses more apparent than it is in our own Northern Republic. Every office, whether social, political or literary, is open to the negro, and to members of races of mixed blood. There is a saying because of LANGUAGES, LIBRARIES, LITERATURE 353 this attitude towards the negro, since the time the Re- public was proclaimed, that Brazil sent away her first Emperor because he was not a native, and her last Em- peror because he was not a mulatto. In this assembly of literary people one had the chance to study the faces of poets, novelists and dramatists and of many modem Brazilian writers whose names are al- ready household words in this countrj\ There was pres- ent one of the popular woman writers and novelists, Mme. Julia Lopez de Almeida whose works are a delight to the people. The presence of this lady among the liter- ary folk was all the more striking because of the fact that here in Brazil, as in the other South American Re- publics, it is exceptional to find women who have devoted themselves to literarj^ careers. In the United States it is the woman's day in literature. One cannot open an American magazine without noticing that at least half of the stories are contributed by women, while in the case of the drama, as in books upon a wide range of subjects, the names of women are prominent. This is not the condition in Brazil and it will be many, many years before the women of this countiy will find niches in literary life equal to those held by men. It is considered that the woman's place is in the home with the children. She is a glorified housekeeper and nurse. While in America publishers will tell you that the book must be liked by women if it is to have a large sale, that the more serious books upon religion and philosophy are also sold in large number to women purchasers, and that magazines depend far more largely upon the patronage of women than of men, here in Brazil one seldom finds books or libraries in the homes that are used largely by women. As far as one can judge, the women who read at all do not get far beyond the highly coloured romances either in their own language or in the translations from the French. The paucity of magazines, moreover, in the 354 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY Portuguese language, published in Brazil, is almost start- ling as compared with conditions in North America. This condition may be due in part to the lack of com- pulsory education in this country and to the lamentable absence of any well-founded and intelligently conducted educational system as a whole. At any rate one notices a tremendous gulf fixed between the excellent attainments of the members of the Brazilian Academy and the wide- spread ignorance among the lower classes. A study of the works of the members of the Academy leads one to think that the literary models have been taken quite largely from those of the old world and, as in other things, the influence of France is evident. The dawn of the "Eighties" was marked by a particular period of intellectual development, especially among Bra- zilian poets, and such names as Francisco Octaviano and Raymundo Correa met with extraordinary popularity. At present the name of Alberti de Oliveira is frequently heard in connection with the country's poetry as well as with the Brazilian Academy, while the name of Senator Ruy Barbosa as a writer on politics and jurisprudence as well as because of his philological and journalistic work, stands out pre-eminently among the names of Bra- zilian writers of to-day. A contemporary speaking of him says, ''The purity and correctness of his language alone assure his works and his discourses a permanent place amongst the classics." Among the short story writers of the more imaginative type, the Academician, Coelho Netto, has seventy volumes to his credit and holds perhaps the first place in public appreciation. Many of the w^orks of the members of the French Academy are read and valued largely in intellectual circles, and since publication of literary work in book form is not as a rule a very profitable speculation in Brazil to-day, the book purchasing public being limited. LANGUAGES, LIBRARIES, LITERATURE 355 some of the best literary talent is given expression through the medium of such papers as the Jornal do Com- mercio, the large and dignified newspaper of Rio de Janeiro. As a student of Cariocan life and a prominent romance weaver of the present day Brazil, D. Julia Lopez de Al- meida reveals a depth of sympathy and understanding which have carried her works to a considerable reading public. Among literary critics Jose Verrisimo is known throughout the country and occupies a place similar to that of Emile Faguet in France as regards national lit- erature. There is a tendency among the litterateurs towards the depiction of life in the Brazilian interior and conditions connected with the national, colonial and racial history in somewhat similar fashion as the United States had its period when the minds of the people were particularly interested in books dealing with the Far West. These works in many cases reveal genuine literary ability and the nervous exuberance of their descriptions stamp some of these authors with distinct literary personality. There is little doubt but that the encouragement which Brazil gives to literature through her honoured institu- tion of Academy of Letters, forms one of the encourag- ing signs of the times in this Republic where among the more highly educated men, at least, there is no dearth of intellectual ability. XXV 'ar:\iy and navy We are a peace-loving nation. "We detest militarism. We have had only one war, and that was with Paraguay when our territory was invaded. But now preparedness is in the air and every boy wants to be a soldier. Such a moment will pass; our national character and our traditions will dispel it. Judge Amaeo Cavalcanti, Mayor of Rio de Janeiro. With the possible exception of the Chilians, who have inherited some of the fighting traits of the Araucanian Indians, that most warlike and vigorous of South Amer- ican aboriginal stock, the Latin Americans are not by temperament a belligerent people. The revolutions w^hich have occurred in the past, and which, now are in- frequent, have had politics behind them rather than mili- taristic motives. The part which distinguished South Americans have taken in late years in international peace conferences has indicated the temper of the people. As a rule they prefer to do their fighting in the conventional garments of the la^vyer or politician, rather than in khaki of the soldier. This is particularly true of the Brazilians, who, as Dr. Cavalcanti says, have engaged in only one great war and that for preservation of their invaded lands. The Euro- pean war and the events connected with the U-boat man- ner of warfare especially, have aroused the Brazilians, whose leanings have been on the side of the Allied Pow- ers, to renewed preparations for military and naval de- fence. The entrance of the United States into the world conflict stirred the country even more deeply than did 356 ARMY AND NAVY 357 their natural predilection for France or the participation of Portugal. For some time the storm of protest against the inhumanity of the submarine warfare as carried on by Germany had been brewing in Brazil. Immediately after the Lusitania was sunk, the Central Club in Rio de Janeiro, composed of Americans, British, Germans, Bra- zilians and other nationalities, passed a resolution virtu- ally expelling and excluding from membership the Ger- mans, revealing not only the foreign feeling but also the sentiment that one heard expressed among Brazilians generally. The papers voiced the indignation of the people at the sinkings of neutral merchant ships, and the consequent loss of life of the defenceless. One heard also more favorable comment relative to the Monroe Doctrine and the public men spoke of the need of closer affiliation between the Northern and Southern Republics. It must be remembered that influences affecting seriously any one of the American Republics are reflected immedi- ately among the other Republics whose constitutional life is built on similar models, and whose economic relation- ships are mutually vital. It needed only the attacks upon Brazilian shipping to fan into flame the war sentiment which had been brewing, and the breaking of Brazilian neutrality and the union of the big Southern Republic with her Northern neigh- bour in coast defence comprised an act that was almost universally favoured in Brazil. It was a further indica- tion of the strong idealism and humanitarian sentiment of the Brazilians, as well as a sign of the courage to main- tain national self-respect, which Brazil holds dear. The strength of army and navy which Brazil brought to the war is of interest, not simply because of the things this Republic can accomplish by way of influence and actual fighting, but also as an indication of the talent of these people in military and naval arrangement. It is often the man who hates most to fight who makes the 358 THE BEAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY douglitiest opponent. Those wlio know the Brazilians are inclined to believe that they will contest their rights for peace and democracy with a determination and bravery corresponding to the manner in which they value these commodities. The scheme of organisation of the Brazilian army was changed in the year 1908, the old voluntary system which had been in vogue from Imperial times, and which had been found inadequate to secure the necessary troops on a peace footing, being changed to virtually a compulsory service regime. In accordance with this law of January 4th, 1908, every citizen of Brazil between the ages of 21 and 44 may be drafted by the Government to serve in peace or war under one of three branches of military. In the first line or active army and its reserve men be- tween 21 and 30 years of age may be drawn ; the second line includes men and reserves from 30 to 37 ; while the National Guard takes Brazilians from 37 to 44 years old. During war times exemptions are accorded to felons, persons without civic rights, the morally and physically undesirable or imfit, and those holding religious beliefs inimical to fighting in the army. Although the Positi- visits, who are strong peace advocates, represent the faith originated with the military classes in Brazil, there is little fear that any appreciable number of the population will line up in the above company as exempting them- selves from military service because of the pacifist ten- dencies of religious faith. The Brazilians are inclined to hold the opinion that might well become general every- where, that a religion which prevents a man from defend- ing his country in need, or shields criminals against so- ciety through a confessional or any other ecclesiastical device, ought to be given up or exchanged for a belief more in harmony with common sense and national pa- triotism. Whatever may be said as to the shortcomings of Brazilians, no one can affirm that this Republic is still ARMY AND NAVY 359. in the grip of medieval religion, as some of the South American Republics give evidence of being. Separation of Church and State is a fact in Brazil, and the best religionist is the best patriot. During times of peace there is quite a list of exemp- tions of persons having dependents, or who for various reasons are manifestly unfitted for military service. Al- though the last military law has not been put in force to its full extent up to the time of Brazil's breaking off of neutrality with Germany, the effect has been pronounced in securing on a peace footing of 32,000 men and 2,626 commissioned officers, with 20,000 of the first reserve called up annually for maneuvres ; and a war strength of enlistment of upwards of 500,000 men. The reservists of the first line are called upon to give four months ' service annually, while the members of the second and third lines may be called out annually for four weeks. There are something like 30,000 of effective State forces, infantry and cavalry, attached to the third line of service, while the States of Sao Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul have their special military organisations. The country is di- vided into thirteen military inspection districts, every municipality possesses its own National Guard, and the majority of the cities have rifle clubs in which uniform military training is given. As in the United States, the President of the Republic is the commander-in-chief of both the land and sea forces, but in peace times he dele- gates this command to the Ministers of War and Marine. In war periods the President may select the commander- in-chief from among the army generals. The visitor to Brazil is impressed with the 200 rifle societies, which are gathered into one central organisa- tion named the Brazilian Confederation of Rifle Shoot- ing. The State provides the arms, ammunition, uniforms and instructors, and the members constitute quite a for- midable force of sharpshooters and light troops. There 360 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY is also a well-trained body of 20,000 gendarmerie, which in States like Sao Paulo, where French military men have instructed the forces, form excellent home-defence guards. The troops are divided into 15 regiments of infantry, 13 cavalry regiments, five regiments of field artiUery, together with five battalions of four companies of engi- neers, all subdivided according to the most modern mili- tary ideas of effectiveness. The armament is also quite up to date. Among the arms one notes the Mauser maga- zine rifle, Nordenfeldt-Maxims, the cavalrymen carrying the short magazine Mauser, a steel Ehradt lance, and a straight sword. The sergeants are furnished with a re- volver instead of a rifle, and the Krupp guns are used in mountain and coast fortifications. There are arsenals at Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, and Cuyaba in Matto Grosso, a big ammunition factory in the Federal District and also a powder factory, while smokeless powder is made at Piquete, in the State of Sao Paulo. The "War Department_^carefully organised with a War Cabinet, two directories, three departments with specific duties, and a section of Justice attending to legal matters and finances, has made a thorough study of the organisa- tion of foreign armies, profiting by the results of foreign army-experience in the matter of defence and equipment, as well as in caring for the welfare of troops. The soldiers and officers are paid in accordance with Continental rather than American standards, as a rule. The private soldiers receive 18 milreis monthly (a mil- reis is value of about twenty-four cents at present), though soldiers in the ranks get 10 or 15 per cent, addi- tional to their pay on completing ten or fifteen years of service. The third sergeant or the musician of the first class receives 54 milreis monthly; the second office ser- geant 72 milreis ; the first office sergeant 90 milreis ; and the adjutant-sergeant the monthly pay of 120 milreis. AKMY^ AND NAVY 361 Among the higher officers the marshal receives the high- est monthly stipend of 2,811 milreis, and the general of division 2,350 milreis. At the death of an officer the Government grants a pension to his family in accordance to his rank and years of service, while the soldiers of the line being disabled after twenty-five years of service receive full pay, or a place in the Veterans' Home if they are unable to earn a livelihood. The officers are chosen from the military schools, and not from the ranks, save in rare cases when the Commander-in-Chief promotes men for disting-uished bravery from the sergeant rank to that of second lieutenant. The regimental schools where soldiers are taught read- ing and writing, together with exercises in physical de- velopment, deserve attention, while such military insti- tutions as the Collegio Militar in the Federal Capital w^ith its 600 or more students are worthy of Brazil's high standards for the training of her army officers. The participancy of Brazil in the war will undoubtedly increase both the quantity and quality of her military forces, as the spirit of these people is high and heroic, and their preparations for defence and making war, if necessary, will be as extensive as the resources of their country will permit. The Brazilian Navy, composed of more than fifty ves- sels, has been growing steadily in the last decade, and ranks at present as the first in naval strength, at least as far as tonnage is concerned, in South America. Among the armed ships now guarding the long Brazilian coast- line are five battleships, seven cruisers, ten torpedo boat destroyers, four torpedo boats, three second class cruis- ers, several submarines, gunboats, river monitors and smaller fighting craft. The two battleships, Minas Geraes and Sao Paulo, the largest fighting ships, are reckoned in the first class of such dreadnaughts, while the boats built since 1910, when the new naval programme 362 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY went into force, are comparable with their class in mo- dernity in any part of the world. The effective strength of the Brazilian Navy is somewhat more than 7,000 fight- ing men and 1,000 officers. Brazil has drydocks, repair- ing yards and floating dock equipment built in the latest scientific fashion and arrangements are suited for float- ing men-of-war and dreadnaughts of the largest and latest pattern. The following details of the training of the Brazilian naval cadets by Commander E. Hamilton Curry, R.N., given in Lloyd's '^ Twentieth Centuiy Impressions of Brazil," reveals the system by which the Navy is being built and maintained at present in this Republic : "Brazil, like many other countries," says Commander Curry, ''suffers from the lack of seafaring population from which to draw her seamen. She is doing her best to remedy this defect, not in the usual manner by drafting the land conscript on board ship and attempting to make a sailor of him, but by a method of systematic instruc- tion, by which the youth of the nation is induced to join the sea service, and is given every reasonable encourage- ment so to do. The attempt to draw their seamen from every one of the States which make up the vast area of Brazil is one that commends itself as the right idea to all taking an interest in the country. "The method of instruction pursued with regard to the executive and engineering officers of the Brazilian Navy is comprised of courses of instruction in the Naval College at Rio de Janeiro, interspersed with training afloat in training ships. After three years at the college the naval cadets are sent to sea for one year, after which they pass their examinations for sub-lieutenant and are drafted into the active service of the profession they have selected. The method adopted with engineer cadets is similar to that of their comrades who belong to the executive line. The training takes place at the same col- ARMY AND NAVY 363 lege, and the young men are drafted to sea in the same manner. '*In every one of the separate States of Brazil there is what is known as the Escola de Aprendizes (School of Apprentices), where boys are enrolled for service in the Na\^ between the ages of twelve and sixteen. Here they go through such elementary instruction as circumstances permit; they are then drafted to one of the 'model col- leges/ which corresponds to what are known as secon- dary schools in England, and from these to headquarters in Rio de Janeiro to the quartel central do corpode mari- nheiros nacionales. On joining headquarters, they bind themselves to serve for fifteen years, which period in- cludes the term of their apprenticeship. ''There are establishments on shore for the instruction of both officers and men in gunnery, torpedo, submarine work, telegraphy and signalling." British officers have rendered assistance in training these young Brazilians. There are good reasons for the expectation that the Brazilian Navy will one day be ranked among the impor- tant maritime forces of the world. Brazil has peculiar responsibilities by way of her great rivers, all of which must be guarded, her extensive merchant marine, and a coast line far greater than any other nation of South America. Her chief cities are on the sea lines, and here are the great accumulations of wealth and industry, both native and foreign, needing protection. There has been considerable criticism on the part of Brazilians because of the enlarged naval programme, which some have thought demands greater outlay of funds than the coun- try can afford. In light of the late events these objections are silenced, and the Republic will doubtless continue in its policy of adding dreadnoughts and other fighting sea craft which seem, under the present condition of the world, necessary for defence and also for the preserva- tion of peace. 364 THE BEAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY There seems to be no immediate cause of war among South American States. The last war between nations here occurred in 1883 between Chile, Peru and Bolivia, and although there is still some difficulty about the hold- ing of Arica and sections of the disputed territory, which Chile does not seem inclined to give up, there is a growing tendency toward better feeling between the Peruvians and Chilians. Between the three most important and strongest countries, Brazil, Argentina and Chile, present relations are friendly, and although each one of these countries watches with unfailing interest the military and naval programme of each one of the others, there seems to be little reason by way of boundary questions, river rights, or racial or religious misunderstandings, for pre- dicting troubles leading to war. As far as European plans are concerned, one would have said three years ago that no trouble would be expected in South America from that source. At present, predictions as to Euro- pean aims and policies national and international are more or less futile. Things are on the knees of the gods. Certain it is that the United States has no designs on any South American State. If her attitude and disposi- tion regarding Cuba and the Philippines have not con- vinced Latin Americans that Uncle Sam is inherently opposed to going colony-hunting, it is difficult to see what proofs will be effective. The common interests of the American Republics, cemented as they are sure to be by the exigencies of the tragic days through which the world is passing, would seem to be toward a closer union of interests and ideals. It is not so much a re-emphasis upon the Monroe Doctrine that is needed now for the Latin American Republics; these, especially the South American ones, are quite sufficient of themselves, and any suspicion of protecting or patronising them meets with certain misunderstanding. That which is more necessary and peculiarly opportune is a new definition by treaties ARMY AND NAVY 365 or agreements between self-respecting nations, made on the basis of equality and confidence. There is need of a conjunction between the political and commercial Amer- icas, something more than a paper Pan-Americanism. An understanding on the basis of the industrial and economic development of the Western continent, in which the combined strength of armies and navies will serve only as necessary means of protection against un- warranted attack, and never as ends toward aggression or territorial lust. In such amalgamation of common international inter- ests, Brazil will not be found wanting in interest or in efficient co-operation. Whatever she may do by the way of armament, will be in line with the policy which is actuating more and more democracies throughout the world — the policy of safeguarding national freedom. One could not think of Brazil as a militaristic Republic. She has tried monarchy once for all, and has been glad to exchange it for the democratic form of government. She has no need nor will she ever require more territory. Her main effort for many generations will be the internal development of her vast country, to which the world must look as to other parts of South America for opportunities for colonisation, and for a granary of the world's food supply. Many a Brazilian would cherish the hope that the con- ditions following the close of the European war may not necessitate an undue expenditure of money taken from Government revenue in maintaining large military and naval forces. Brazil needs all her milreis for the ex- tension of her well-laid plans to make her country as great economically and industrially as it is in physical extent. XXVI THE LATIN AMERICAN VIEW OF NORTH AMERICANS In one of the theatres of Rio de Janeiro a play has been running this year which depicts among other char- acters a young North American business man. He is supposed to be in love with the heroine, but the Latin American dramatist who wrote the play has suggested one point of view, at least, from which the Latin Ameri- can is supposed to think of the man of the United States. This practical young lover, dressed in the regulation business suit, is continually rushing on the stage and abruptly approaching the heroine and exclaiming **I love you!" then pulling out his watch, he adds, ''But I must go to my business. I will return!'* The North American is synonymous in the minds of many of these people with business efficiency, and a prac- tical way of doing things that to them seems quite in- consistent with the dominating ideal of doing everything decently and in order and keeping the money making side of life in the background. A member of one of the old South American families, who spends his time between his landed estates and Paris, Rome and Vienna, said in reply to my question as to the attitude of the South American relative to his northern neighbour : "We are Latins in temperament, and you are Anglo-Saxon. There is a world of difference between the two races in their attack on the same problem — the problem of life. You love to work and you make your business of first importance, pleasure, home life and other things, coming secondary. We in these South American countries, where climate and traditions are very different from those existing in the LATIN AMERICAN VIEW OF NO. AMERICANS 367 United States, do not care so much about business, but we do care greatly about getting the most possible out of life in connection with our pleasures and our friends. You live to work, and we work to live." It is not strange therefore that with these antipodal ideas about a matter so vital as that of bread-winning, the American business man, with his activity and cease- less appetite for practical and efficient endeavour, fre- quently gets on the nerves of the South American and becomes to him what the Englislnnan has been called by an East Indian Brahmin, ''One of the uncomfortable works of God. ' ' I have talked with scores of business men in South America who have been united on this point, namely, that they cannot see the value of any man's work- ing or continuing in business after he has earned enough money to make it possible for him to live in any degree of comfort. The Spanish American inherits certain of the ancient medieval ideas about ''gentlemen," who, like the high caste East Indian, has been intended from the foun- dation of the world to occupy a special and selected field of leisured competence, while far down below him, with a wide gulf between, is the labourer or common worker who was created to till the soil and to keep shop, inci- dentally being ready at all times to wait upon the "gen- tleman. ' ' In countries like Chile, where many of the old families are living at present upon the nitrate industry, and Ar- gentina where these same aristocrats subsist by reason of their fortunate possession of wide tracts of the produc- tive pampa, the favoured sons have not been obliged to exert themselves even to make a living, and this fact has helped to increase rather than to diminish among this part of the population the respect for industry and mod- ern business. These people are quite willing to let the foreigner with his utilitarian ways, build and run his railroads, work his mines and inaugurate modem enter- 368 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY prises for the preparation and export of tlie national products. The South American's interest in this kind of endeavour is limited largely to the amount of money which his agents are able to pass to him on occasion from his investments. As far as his interest in the nat- ural development of his country is concerned or in the private initiative of far-reaching reforms for the people, he furnishes a marked contrast to the business man of the United States who, as often happens, is quite as much interested in a fitting way to spend his accumulated profits, as he is in gaining them. These different ways of looking at money and business naturally affect the attitude of the South American of the better classes to the men of the North. He is mystified at their activity. He admires them often, but he can hardly conceive himself as a business man of this type. Furthermore, the South American business men, rightly or wrongly, have been led to think that they need to watch the '^Gringo" or ''Yankee" relative to business affairs. There is quite a general suspicion of Americans in all parts of South America, and one does not travel through these countries without perceiving some of the reasons for this suspicion. It is due both to the ignorance with which the great majority of the people of the United States have tried to deal with the people south of the Rio Grande, and also to the fact that many irresponsible business agents have exploited these people with an un- scrupulousness that they would never dare to exhibit in the United States. Many of these business adventurers have sold their goods or promised to sell them to South Americans, expecting to have but one chance, and caring little about the sentiment their acts necessarily leave be- hind them in this land where memories are long and feel- ings acute. The European competitors of North America have not been slow to aggravate and to keep alive this tradition of LATIN AMERICAN VIEW OF NO. AMERICANS 369 the** trickery of the Yankee." Goods ordered from the United States and paid for in advance, never arrived, or, when they did arrive, were found to be of a different quality than when ordered, or damaged through poor packing and delayed shipments. The American traveller hears in South America a more or less general wail of distressed and helpless dealers who have lost money through their attempts to deal with the manufacturers of Uncle Sam's country and have found it impossible to obtain redress. These conditions are being obviated partially at pres- ent by such organisations as the Arbitration Committee on Business recently founded *in Argentina through the co-operation of the United States Chamber of Commerce, as well as by such local bodies as the American Chamber of Commerce recently founded in Rio de Janeiro, and by a gromng tendency to discountenance inexperienced dealers. The reputable American business men (and I found the great majority of these throughout South America to be quite as reputable as the business men at home) are rising in a united and organised way against the business adventurer who regards the South American Republics as easy marks for his chicanery. We predict that the future will see far less reason for the South Americans to complain of the ''Gringo," as the North American is called when these people do not intend to be especially complimentary. Wider knowledge and bet- ter organisation are intended to protect both the South American and the North American alike in matters of business relationship. It must be remembered, however, that in these Latinised nations, as in Japan, the wounds of the spirit are more difficult to heal than those of the body, and the indifference or disregard which many a North American business man has evinced toward the South American has wounded the Southerner's pride as much as his pocketbook. 370 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY Unfortunately the European war, while it has neces- sarily increased, temporarily at least, the volume of trade between North and South America, it has also been the occasion for the entrance into commerce between these nations of many inexperienced shippers of the North, who have added to the immediate tales of woe which one hears in these countries at present. An injured South American told me that he had ordered a particular brand of liquid disinfectant from the United States and after waiting about eight months for the order which he had paid for in advance, he received a cargo of moth halls. The agent explained the matter by saying that he felt sure the manufacturer would remedy the mistake, but this would mean another wait of six or eight months, be- cause of the difficulty of getting shipments. Another man on the West Coast told me how thirty per cent, of his order of shirts from the States had been stolen on the way down here, because the boxes had popped open at the first reshipment at Panama. Another man informed me that he still meets the flotilla-men who are engaged on the lighters along the coast of Chile, who are wearing shirts originally intended for the gentlemen of Santiago. In one of the clubs in Rio de Janeiro I met a man with a very mournful face who, upon finding that I was a North American, immediately began to pour out his vials of wrath against my country. Wlien I learned his story, which gave some cause for his anger, I had difficulty in looking sympathetic; his dilemma was so ludicrous. He had ordered a shipment of hardware from the "States," and through a tragic mistake of some shipping clerk, when the man went to the custom house to receive his goods, to his utter horror he found that he had a large cargo of coffins on his hands which were originally in- tended for a customer in Australia. This Latin Ameri- can, who seemed to be somewhat superstitious, was re- duced to such a condition of consternation that he almost LATIN AMERICAN VIEW OF NO. AMERICANS 371 lost his power of gesticulation. He had been obliged to pay a large custom house fee in order to secure the re- lease of the rest of his goods, which was not balm to his injured feelings. Seeing my amusement, which I could not entirely conceal, he added : **It would be some solace if I could ever expect to dis- pose of these coffins do"\vn here, but as a matter of fact no Brazilian would ever be caught dead in one of these boxes. We want to be done up fancy when we die." Of course many of these mistakes are due to the short- sightedness or lack of wisdom on the part of the South American business man who elects to deal directly or through irresponsible agents rather than through a repu- table commission house. Nevertheless the currency given to these happenings is more or less widespread and is in- tended to cast suspicion upon the integrity of the North American. Among the difficulties in forming correct opinions, as in the ready development of our export trade, are not only our ignorance on the general subject of foreign trade, but our lack of knowledge of commercial geog- raphy. We know little of lands outside of America, their resources, the kind of people who inhabit them, their characteristics, their customs, their wants, and least of all their languages. How many Americans rea- lise that Buenos Aires is the fourth largest city in this hemisphere, that it has the finest equipped newspaper in the world, an underground subway, a bank which, until recently, measured by its capital stock and deposits was one of the largest in the world? Argentina has 27,000 miles of railroad, and an annual total commerce greater than that of China, or of India, or of Australia, or of Japan, and practically equal to that of Canada. Very few Americans take the trouble to learn that the city of Rio de Janeiro has one of the best natural har- bours in the world ; that it is the best electrically lighted , 372 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY city on the continent ; one of the most beautiful of cities, with miles of paved streets and shaded avenues, where the double rows of royal palms hold their heads over homes as artistic as may be found in either Paris or Ber- lin. Evidently the manufacturer who addressed a letter to a hoped-for client in "Rio de Janeiro, Province of Buenos Aires, Brazil." had not given the subject much thought. In Santos, Brazil, more coffee is handled than at any other port in the world. Montevideo, another thoroughly progressive and modern city, is the capital of a Republic with a million and a quarter people, which raises every year eight head of cattle and over twenty head of sheep for every man, woman and child in the Republic. In Chile is located the world's nitrate supply, the export duties of which furnish that country with nearly two- thirds of her revenue. Brazil is the greatest coffee and rubber country in the world, and is becoming a great grazing land, while her mines, which are mainly un- touched, are among the richest in the world. The time has come when our point of view must change from being merely a national one, to an international one. Our horizon is broadening, our opportunities are increas- ing, and America should prepare herself to meet them. Young men should be trained for the export trade ; they should be educated in this specialised business the same as the English and German young men are educated, in order to compete successfully with these countries. An English or German young man who wishes to enter the foreign field is obliged to familiarise himself thor- oughly with every detail of the home manufacturing, and then he is sent to the foreign market to grow up with his future customers. He Uves their life; he studies their LATIN AMERICAN VIEW OF NO. AMERICANS 373 manners and tastes, he talks to them in their own lan- guage, and does business with them in their own way. Germans particularly have shown the greatest adapta- bility. Throughout South America one finds many of the large business concerns owTied, controlled and managed by Germans, Italians and Englishmen who have, so to speak, grown up with the country, and who are in loyal sympathy with the people of their adopted land. If in the future we expect to gain a goodly percentage of the foreign trade of Latin America, we should follow the example set by the other nations and thoroughly edu- cate our young men in the intricacies of foreign com- merce; and the business languages, Spanish and Portu- guese especially, with French if possible, should be part of the curriculum of every school and college which pretends to give young men a working business educa- tion. This will affect directly South American opinion. America has been greatly handicapped, especially at present, in not having a merchant marine. England and Germany together operate practically 57 per cent, of the ocean borne shipping of the world, and before the war their ships carried about 59 per cent, of all our foreign commerce, and a still larger part of the goods passing in trade between North and South America. Another handicap in the way of building up our for- eign commerce has been the lack of banking facilities. The English have a wonderful system of branch banks; ninety-eight stock banks in Great Britain, Ireland and Scotland and the colonies, have a total of 11,666 branches. This has practically made it easy for them to exploit the trade markets of the world successfully, by extending to the foreign merchants long credits, putting the American manufacturer at a great disadvantage because of a lack of such facilities, and because he has had no discount market in which to sell his bills. Because of the necessity of taking his payment in a sight draft on London he has 374 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY been obliged to pay the cost, at least to take the chances in fluctuation rates of two exchanges of money from the local currency into pounds sterling and from pounds sterling into American dollars. The South American is also inclined to remember the diplomatic controversies which have occurred between his country and the United States and brings these up as added evidence, in cases of business troubles, to prove what he considers to be a lack of consideration on the part of the Northerner to the people in this part of the world. One finds here and there jealousy of the Northern Re- public as a new country, similar in many respects to the South American Republics, and growing great and strong along the very lines upon which these southern states an- ticipate future progress. None of this feeling is evident towards the nations of the Old World with which the Latin Americans have been tied more closely by tem- perament and race than with the United States. The South American is proud above all others, Orientally sen- sitive to criticism, and remembering for years a slight which in the North would be contemned as too trivial for notice. In these war times the large trade which the United States has carried on with Europe has increased in some respects this jealousy. I have a letter from Uruguay which states that it is evident that the United States is seriously endeavouring to establish markets with Europe which would seem to be in direct competition with the markets formed and of long standing with the Old World among the South American Republics. The recent unfortunate incident connected with the Tennessee and the Diplomatic Trade Commission which refused to land in Peru, stating as a reason that the Port of Callao was unhealthy, is only one of a num- ber of incidents intended to warp the point of view of LATIN AMERICAN VIEW OF NO. AMERICANS 375 these people towards North Americans. There is a feel- ing amongst many of the most intelligent men down here that this sending of commissions to South America has been somewhat overdone; they feel that the great need in cementing relationships is not through more of these transitory visits by government or business functionaries, but rather by the sending of able representatives of our best firms to South America to open houses and to re- main sufficiently long to secure an intimate knowledge of the spirit and method of doing business with a people whose ideals and prejudices must be considered by any nation expecting to enlarge its trade in these quarters. One of the principal objections to these large visiting commissions seems to be that the majority of the time is spent in social functions and that the real investigation of business life receives little attention. A government official on the West Coast informed me that the most suc- cessful commission with which he had to do was that of a small band of business men who followed in the wake of the Tennessee. Because of the feeling of the Peruvians over what they considered a discourtesy, this latter commission received little or no social attention by the government officials and therefore was left free actually to study the industries and to obtain valuable knowledge relative to the proposed object of the visit. To be sure the South Americans are also responsible for these semi-social junkets, since in the abundance and generosity of their hospitality they leave little room in the itinerary of these visiting delegates for serious at- tention to business affairs. The Monroe Doctrine has been represented by many a European as a menace to these Republics. Hardly a book on South America written by an Englishman especially, fails to bring out the old slogan that the South American Republics, abundantly capable of caring for themselves, resent the alleged "interference" of this Doctrine which 376 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY tliey say, has outlived its nsefiilness, if perchance it ever had any. As a matter of fact it seems much like thrash- ing a bundle of straw, as most South Americans have noted the United States method in Cuba and Porto Rico and do not seem to fear outside aggression, from this quarter, nearly as much as from their closer neighbouring Republics. In short, the newspapers print daily a mass of detailed happenings concerning their sister Republics — political, social, and commercial news, not omitting any- thing concerning army or navy, while some of the causes of old feuds and revolutions between these states are not yet laid, much less are all of the boundary disputes settled, or the old war forgotten, among these impul- sively patriotic people. The trouble with Mexico has aroused a large amount of newspaper comment and while many of the South Americans have suffered with business men of North America by reason of the unsettled affairs in Mexico, their sympathies as Latin Americans are ostensibly with Mexico rather than with the United States. I found in Brazil a decided satisfaction over the attitude of the United States relative to the consultation of the A. B. C. combination in regard to Mexico. The conviction deepens, as one travels from Republic to Republic, that the methods of doing business in the two Americas are fundamentally and traditionally totally different. The Spanish American has his own way of working and he makes no secret of the fact that he does not like the North American way. Europe has adjusted itself to the South American business mode. The United States has not, at least to any such extent. In this truth lies the failure of North Americans to gain South American trade, even where earnest attempts have been made, and in many cases have failed. The inhabitant of the United States has a business system which he follows, making in- LATIN AMERICAN VIEW OF NO. AMERICANS 377 dividuals fit into it ; the South American has friends and his business revolves around these friendships. Favour and sentiment rule in South America as dividends and efficiency govern in the North. It is encouraging to state that the opinion and the re- spect of the South American business men for the people of the United States have been greatly enhanced of late by personal visits of South Americans to our country. Since the European war has closed largely the channels of visits to the old country, scores of families have taken the opportunity of combining business and pleasure in tours through the United States. They return almost in- variably to speak with enthusiasm of their reception, and with changed points of view concerning the Americans. In the last analysis the opinion of one nationality of an- other hinges upon personal contact and acquaintance. The first secret of right relationship between people of varying racial and national stock depends upon the earn- est and persistent determination to secure the point of view, the one of the other. XXVII THE NEWSPAPER AS AN INTERNATIONAL MEDIUM Brazil is the newspaper man's paradise. During the last century, since the publication of the first Brazilian journal, each year has seen the birth of not less than 250 papers. Many of these periodicals have been small and shortlived, but it is to be noted that there are in this country to-day 1,000 journals which are more or less in- fluential, their circulation varying from 500 to 100,000 copies daily. Every city, town or centre of conunercial importance possesses its two or more papers which are forceful in the expression of independent principles, filled with news that is often impressive to the foreigner because of its cosmopolitan character, and usually well edited. The local Brazilian newspaper holds a unique position of in- fluence because of the vast area of the country making transport comparatively difficult, and also because of the local character of first colonial settlements. Brazil is a nation of newspaper readers and in consideration of the fact of a large illiteracy, the national press is worthy of study. It is quite to be expected that while there is a wide- spread tendency to publish periodicals of every sort all over the country, Rio de Janeiro, the Federal Capital, contains in its half dozen or more really excellent news- papers the highest and best expression of Brazilian jour- nalism. 378 NEWSPAPER AS INTERNATIONAL MEDIUM 379 One of the first Brazilian gentlemen whom I met in Rio de Janeiro was Count Candido Mendes de Almeida, the managing director and publisher of the Jornal do Brazil. He had just returned from a long tour through the United States, going from coast to coast and inspect- ing, as he told me, virtually every large newspaper plant in our principal cities. He had brought back many new ideas w^hich he and his brother, who is a Brazilian sena- tor, are now putting into operation in the fine building owned by this paper on the Avenida Rio Branco — at present the highest structure in the city. The distinguished publisher was particular to point out to me the index arrangement of news on the front page of his paper, a newspaper feature he had discovered in the States, and which has not been followed usually in Brazilian papers. The foreigner is grateful for this help in finding his news, for there seems to the unin- itiated in Brazilian journalism a diabolical plot on the part of the editor to hide his news of importance under a bushel, and make one read columns of comparatively solid matter, lest perchance he miss the latest telegram, narrating a vital event in the world's affairs. The Jornal do Brazil is independent in politics and according to its managers, "aims at being a complete and reliable source of information as to facts and hap- penings in the city, the States of the Brazilian Republic, and all parts of the world," an ideal that comes nearer being reached than one would at first suppose. Since the year 1894, when the present publishers took com- mand, this paper has played a role of importance espe- cially in the formation of public opinion on such sub- jects as the diplomatic relations between Brazil and Por- tugal, the pacification of the South, the campaign waged against the monopolies of prime necessity, electoral re- form, the aboHtion of Papal legislation, and other vital matters of national importance. 380 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY In addition to the daily newspaper, this company pub- lishes weekly a beautifully illustrated magazine in colour, the Revista da Semana, a periodical of 32 pages, to- gether with a four hundred page illustrated annual, con- taining much useful information and good writing. This newspaper by devoting great space to daily occurrences, the introduction of personal criticism, its famous "To w^hom appeal," under which title campaigns were direct- ed against different forms of authority, marked an inno- vation in the sober journalism of Rio, and it has been styled "a clever combination of Yankee journalism and the Petit Journal of Paris." Paiz is another of the influential papers of Rio. Like the other journals of the Capital, this sheet has had on its staff some of the leading literary men of the nation. One of these, its editor in the early nineties, Quintino Bocayuva, called "the Prince of the Brazilian Press," took his part as did many other journalists in the pro- visional government of Brazil. In this country govern- ment and journalism have been intimately associated, most of the famous public men and statesmen having been also connected with the press. Paiz, which occu- pies one of the palatial buildings on the Avenida, was said a few years ago to have the greatest circulation of any paper in South America, and at present continues to be a journal of great influence, giving in its columns many brilliant papers upon political and social questions. Shortly before he sailed for a brief trip to Europe, it was my pleasure to spend an evening with the distin- guished scholar, financier and philanthropist, Dr. Jose Carlos Rodrigues, who since 1890 has, until recently, been the proprietor and general editor of the Jornal do Com- mercio, the greatest national newspaper of Brazil. While there are many papers in Brazil of real merit, there is indubitably no journal which has had through a long period of years such dignified standing, or such NEWSPAPER AS INTERNATIONAL MEDIUM 381 power over public sentiment as this newspaper, which started as a small shipping journal in 1827. It was founded as a commercial paper and it has always main- tained its position as the authoritative sheet regarding business and commerce both at home and abroad. The historian who writes the annals of Brazil will find some of his best and most complete material in the archives of the Jornal do Commercio from the year 1827 onward. Although I believe there is one other paper in Brazil (in Pernambuco) which claims an earlier foundation than this patriarchal journal of Rio de Janeiro, there is proba- bly no other organ of the country from which a study of national journalism can be more completely made. One's first impression in taking up this newspaper, whose normal bulk is sixteen pages and its special or Sunday issues reaching twenty-four pages of eight col- umns each, is to the effect that one is getting too much for his money. With its absence of heavy head lines and the features of sensational journalism, one is puzzled to know where to begin. It is impossible to read it all and it is equally impossible to "skim" this journal. Many of the features guiding the readers in the news- papers of the United States are absent. For example there is no editorial page, and the absence of leading articles marks a distinct characteristic of much Brazilian journalism. From the beginning the Jornal do Com- mercio has held to its ideal of being unbiassed in political matters, and by reason of its success in holding to a neutral attitude in politics, the paper has gained the utter confidence of the community and the nation as well. This paper is called the Solon of the Brazilian Press because it rarely expresses its opinion editorially, but when it does its dictum is almost as powerful as that of the Gov- ernment. As to the matter of writing editorials, the pa- per's policy has been suggested as follows; 382 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY "We are not a party organ and we credit our readers with enough sense to form their own opinions from the news we give them; party government not existing in Brazil, the partisan leader-article is a waste of ink. When, after due hearing of all sides on a grave national problem, we think we know what is the best course for Government or the Administration or the public to pursue, we declare our judgment." These "judgments" are usually declared, by the way, in an unobtrusive manner among the ''Varias" as the Portuguese journalist style the "notes of the day." The foreign news of the paper is extremely extensive and is derived from the journal's own correspondents in many nations. One can read telegrams daily from Eng- land, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, the United States of America and from virtually every South Ameri- can Republic. There are also the daily telegrams from each of the twenty States of Brazil. Another feature which seems curious to the North American are the paid "publications by request" or "an- nouncements by request." Although the editors of the Jornal do not deign to express their own opinion daily, they give this privilege to the Brazilian world at so much a line. It is possible and somewhat popular also to re- publish articles partisan and other^vise in this influen- tial organ, which have been published elsewhere in the country or even in other newspapers of the Federal Capital in order that the thoughts of the writer may get a hearing among the influential circle of Jornal readers. As many of these articles are filled with spice and often are of a semi-private character, they are eagerly read by the newspaper loving Cariocans. It is significant of the influential character of the paper that as a result of a series of such special articles, the Jornal was able to raise some time ago in two or three weeks a fund of $60,000 for a statue to the late Secretary of Foreign Affairs, the Baron Rio Brauco. In addition to its morning issue the Jornal do Com- NEWSPAPEK AS INTEKNATIONAL MEDIUM 383 mercio publishes an evening edition in a different size of sheet, reminding one in some ways of the Pall Mall Ga- zette. There is also a handsome monthly, the Jornal Illustrado, and the IllustraQao Brazileira, published by the same organisation. The remarkable success achieved by this newspaper is due in no small degree to the eminent Brazilian, Dr. Carlos Rodrigues. It is a particular pleasure for an American to meet this brilliant man, since for thirty years Dr. Rodrigues lived in the United States and Eng- land as a correspondent for his paper. At one time he edited an American paper and was instrumental in plac- ing several of our well known newspaper men in their positions, which they still hold in connection with the Metropolitan dailies. ^'What policies were uppermost in your mind I" I asked of this Brazilian editor and publisher. The editor replied : "It was my idea to keep the paper absolutely unbiassed politically, and then I paid particular attention to the telegraphic and cable services, in order that the tele- grams from every quarter of the globe should form a complete daily chronicle of the day's events." Having been told that the Jornal do Commercio was said to have been responsible for a Brazilian revolu- tion, I asked how it had been possible to omit political partisanship and still to influence the people so widely. *'We had some perilous times," he said, "during the early days of the Republic. It was easy to blame the papers for what was happening with the mixed policies of men little accustomed to Republican institutions. As a matter of fact the revolutions that were suppressed by the editors and prominent men who used the pages of the Jornal to express sane views, has not yet been re- corded." It was brought out that in Brazil the news- paper has been particularly the guide of opinion and 384 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY once a paper gets a standing and reputation for sober good sense, the editor has a tremendous power and obli- gation to choose wisely his material and to direct senti- ment. It is this fine quality of wisdom with foresight that the large newspaper building that Dr. Rodrigues planned on the main avenue of Rio de Janeiro reflects in every part. One is told that the editor's selection of the site was quite largely responsible for bringing Avenida Rio Branco into being. This newspaper building, which was erected at the cost of $325,000, has seven floors and is surmounted by a tower containing three additional floors. There are four electric passenger elevators, special ele- vators for office use, pneumatic tubes for the conveyance of MSS., an internal telephone system, and 500 em- ployees. There is also an Association of Employees in a flourishing condition. Provision is made for the public in a number of ways, one of which is represented in a fine concert hall on the seventh floor. Dr. Rodrigues' successor is Dr. A. R. Ferreira Botelho, who recently has been particularly interested in starting a branch of the Jornal do Commercio in Sao Paulo. I was interested in the present work of Dr. Rodrigues who, although he is upwards of seventy-two years old, is working laboriously on a two volume edition of a His- tory of Christianity, which is to include the findings of the best modern scholars in Europe and the United States. Dr. Rodrigues, although a Catholic, like the ma- jority of his countrymen, is not held by sectarian ties and as I wandered through his fine library it seemed to me that at least half of his books were in English, and the positions which he was taking in his history accorded more nearly with the Protestant than with the Catholic faith. This man of scholarship, high culture and wealth NEWSPAPER AS INTERNATIONAL MEDIUM 385 is a type of the editorial leadership of many newspapers in Brazil. There are also several sheets, both morning and even- ing, in which the illustrations and the method of pre- senting news remind one of the cheaper journals in for- eign cities, but as a rule, one of the most distinctive things about the press of the Federal Capital of Brazil resides in the fact that virtually every Brazilian states- man or litterateur has reached his elevated station largely through his connections with the Brazilian newspapers. *'Wliat can the papers in the United States do to- wards developing South American trade?" I asked in the office of an experienced official in one of the largest port cities in South America. This was the reply I re- ceived : **The Press of the United States can help us by telling the truth about these Republics." In explanation the official went on to say that there had been evidently a campaign in the United States to picture South America in couleur de rose. It had been presented from many angles as a kind of Eldorado wait- ing the twentieth century business pioneers of North America to discover its easy treasures. Many sections of the American press, moreover, had failed to ascertain carefully concerning the facts previous to publishing arti- cles from transient travellers, while many papers had picked out only the sensational things regarding the pres- ent day Republics and played them up with the view to secure interested readers more than with the serious ob- jective of depicting the actual conditions. To prove his point the official showed me a series of clippings which he called his "Cabinet of Fabrications," in which the South American was pictured chiefly as a dangerous revolu- tionist, a semi-savage (usually coloured), and instances of North Americans making $250,000 in two months in this land of promise, etc., etc. 386 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY There is no doubt but that tlie work of the press in the United States has been instrumental recently in arous- ing a new and wide spread interest in these South Ameri- can Republics. One American Consul informed me that in the year 1914-15, when South America became particu- larly prominent in our newspaper world, he received, largely from business men in the United States, ten thou- sand two hundred (10,200) pieces of maiL There were floods of letters about every conceivable subject germane to the securing of South American business, and a deluge of catalogues, which for the most part, being printed only in English, were quite useless to prospective Latin American customers. It is quite evident from a study of this particular sub- ject that the American press as a whole has failed to in- clude in its information concerning South America many facts of prime importance, and in some cases it has so highly coloured other facts as to give a wrong impression. For example one will be told by the most level headed business men down here, that while there is a real oppor- tunity for large capital, and for those firms to enter the arena of trade which can meditate enterprises like the building of railroads, the opening of mines, the construc- tion of large docks, or the starting of steamship lines, the opportunity for the man with little capital and with no branch house in South America is comparatively lim- ited. The press would do well to emphasise the fact that the American business man who comes down here is at once confronted with the Spaniard, the German, the Eng- lishman, the Italian and the Portuguese, who are at home in the language of the people, who in many cases have inherited generations of experience in selling goods to the South Americans, and who also are probably unsur- passed as traders and foreign manufacturers for these countries. The truth about South America would also include the NEWSPx\PER AS INTERNATIONAL MEDIUM 387 fact that the sending of young inexperienced men down here to cope with these hardened veterans in trade has proved disastrous to many a firm ; a further truth which may not be too often repeated is to the effect that the South American at present, even while he is forced to buy certain manufactures of the United States, which he is unable to obtain in the ordinary channels from Europe, is not predisposed to trade with the North Americans, and he is quite as independent relative to this matter as are our owti manufacturers. It is quite evi- dent to an unprejudiced observer that South American business is not a prize to be gained at a bound ; it must be necessarily an evolution, for the South American does nothing in trade lines in a hurry. His conservatisms and traditions hold him as in a vise. It will take every ounce of ingenuity and perseverance which the North American business man possesses to gain an equal footing in these Republics with England, for example, and if he accom- plishes this in the next twenty-five years, it will be by dint of the keenest exertion and a far more profound study of the South American people and their country than he has yet deigned to give them. This at least is the common testimony which one who mixes with all sorts of business men in these countries will receive to- day. Another contribution which the Press of the United States may make in the interests of mutual relationships would be a more careful study of South American jour- nalism, especially with the view of publishing material in these papers which the South Americans would gladly read, and which would enable them in turn to get ac- quainted with the United States. While I was in Lima, Peru, the leading newspaper was publishing a series of articles upon conditions in North America which were making a decided impression in that city. The articles were a revelation to many who 388 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY bad as little conception as to what the United States was like as that possessed by many of our people re- garding the Land of Pizarro. The editors of niany news- papers have told me that they would be glad to form con- nections with newspapers in the United States for such articles, and they have also said that they realise that their papers gave far more space to European matters and to their sister Republics than they furnished for their Northern neighbour. In writing these articles it should be remembered that the Latin American has a different idea of the presenta- tion of his material than does our press. It would seem to Northerners to be lacking in system, and frequently as dull as a Congressional Record. One of the largest newspapers in Spanish America makes a boast that it has never during its entire eighty years of history, pub- lished a picture. Glaring head lines also are conspicu- ous by their absence in the best journals, while long com- munications on serious subjects are given considerable space, sometimes even a whole page. The Jornal do Commercio for example gave eleven columns of space recently to the account of an event at the Academy of Letters in Rio de Janeiro, while it is not uncommon in South American Journalism to find several pages given to the verbatim description of a debate in Congress. It is said that the South American reads only his news- paper, and also that the newspapers are responsible for the moulding of sentiment in a way far beyond that known in other parts of the world. One editor told me that he nearly lost his life because the people claimed that his paper was responsible for starting the greatest revolution which this country had ever experienced. One only needs to go to the clubs to see the crowds of men surrounding the newspaper tables, and then visit the libraries of these institutions, which is the one place in the building where you can be perfectly sure of being NEWSPAPER AS INTERNATIONAL MEDIUM 381) absolutely alone, in order to recognise the influence of the newspaper among the Latin American gentry. Another service which might well be entered upon as a polic}'^ by certain of our newspapers who are interested in Pan-Americanism, would be to start a campaign for travellers to South America. In the last analysis the only way to understand a country is to go and see it, and the study of successful American business down here proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that it has been a far sighted plan for manufacturers themselves to visit these countries in person before spending their money upon projects that would have been found at once by them to have been impracticable had they previously visited the country. Some day not far off South America is to be the traveller's paradise. In Cuzco and along the whole stretch of the Cordilleras one will find condi- tions as primitive as exist in any part of the Orient; in Southern Chile there is a beauty of mountain and sea which rivals anything to be seen in the Alps ; the hacien- dos of Argentina, the coffee plantations of Brazil, and the rubber regions of the Amazon make unforgettable im- pressions upon the traveller, while the American will travel the world over through all his years without find- ing such a dream city of enchantment as is Rio de Ja- neiro, lodged in its amphitheatre of hills, and looking down through its tropical sunshine upon its peerless bay. Furthemiore if the press of the United States would get on with the South American, it should realise that adverse criticism without presenting the more promising traits of the country and the people, is fatal to success. One is dealing with a different temperament down here, and with natures as sensitive to dispraise as are the Orientals. They are willing to have their weaknesses pointed out providing a man is "simpatico" in the man- ner of his presentation. There is not, in this part of the w^orld, the custom common in the United States and Eng- 390 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY land of hitting every head that comes to the surface. When they do hit them, it is done with extreme polite- ness. A writer on South America said recently in his preface that enough flattering remarks had been made concern- ing these people, and it was his intention in his book vir- tually to show them up with all their weaknesses and faults. It is needless to say that such an announcement doomed the book in the minds of many of these intelli- gent and keenly sensitive people. As a matter of fact, the press of the United States can find remarkable ma- terial for the interest of its readers in the old settlements of this hemisphere which are only just learning to be- come Republics. The history of Pizarro in Peru and Valdavia in Chile are as fascinating in adventure as any historical romance; while Paraguay with its Dictator Lopez and its war in 1860 that practically eliminated every man in Paraguay, or the picturesque colonial and imperial history of Brazil, the only American Republic which has possessed an Emperor, read like the story of "a thousand-and-one nights." Foreign trade is a far bigger thing than shopkeeping, or consular statistics. It is based upon national charac- teristics, and its ramifications are as wide as histoj-y and as vital as personality. No one travels abroad with see- ing eyes who does not recognise the provincialism in many sections of our press in the United States. In this era of world expansion, when the nations of the earth are drawing together, in order to be able to live separately, the newspaper that limits itself to the locality where it happens to be published is destined to a career of super- ficial and shortsighted opinion. The press of the United States needs editors with tele- scopes as well as microscopes. The newspaper is the mirror held up to human nature, and human nature is not bounded by any such narrow limits as north or south, NEWSPAPER AS INTERNATIONAL MEDIUM 391 or east or west; it is a world thing, and it includes as Kipling would say, every country ** where two strong men stand face to face." There are signs apparent that the press of North America is beginning to realise this, and it is one of the most encouraging symptoms on the horizon, not only as far as relationships with South America are concerned, but also as regards the intelligent part that the United States may be called upon to assume in the fraternal fed- eration of the world. XXVIII BRAZIL'S TO-MORROW They go ! They go ! I know that they go, but I know not where they go, But I know that they go toward the best — toward something great. Walt Whitman. Of parts of Peru, one has written as a ''place from which the old life has vanished and no new life has come." Quite otherwise is it with Brazil. The huge country is beginning to throb with modernity. New vi- tality is rapidly absorbing, in the large centres of popu- lation particularly, the vestiges of custom and inane tra- dition of old dead days. As many an Old-World nation is crashing down with decayed systems and worn-out monarchies, this newest of American Republics is just beginning to clothe her freshly-made republican institu- tions with the forms of twentieth century civilisation. In the great relay race of the nations, Brazil is starting late, but with such a tremendous advantage of resources and intelligence as to betoken a large share in later honours. It will require some time yet, together with ever re- newed perseverance, before this nation will strike its great pace in the world's marathon. The discovery of her physical strength in lands, rich for varied occupation, has not yet been fully made. Her youth have not yet been trained in hand or brain to possess the land of happy inheritance. Government and State have not learned to work in unified harmony. A more perfect judicial procedure is necessary, and a more equable dis- 392 BRAZIL'S TO-MORROW 393 tribution of responsibilities between the diverse com- monwealths and the Brazilian Union. Electoral reform and revenue reform are yet to come. Politics and theory are yet stronger than practicality and industry. The former should not be stifled, but the latter should be brought up to secure a balance. Intellect must be made the hand-maid of Utility, in order that Beauty and Ideal- ism, of which the Brazilian is enamoured, may be better served. If the American is in danger of losing sight of his fixed stars as he hews and forges his strenuous way along the path of business enterprise, the Brazilian needs to give increased attention to the road up which he must climb to reach his clearly-visioned stars. Above all there is the need here as in other nations, which become permanently great, for the building of great manhood and womanhood. Whether Brazil enters into the wider occupation of her domains by employing the adopted sons of other nations, or by utilising the populations drawn from the veins of her own honoured ancestry, it is the man that counts. A nation does not be- come immortal by reason of natural wealth or industries alone ; its destiny lies in the spirit and in the endeavour of the men it is capable of producing. As Robert Love- man has said — "What care I for caste or creed f What for class or what for clan? It is the deed, it is the deed : It is the man, it is the man." I shall not soon forget the words of the veteran states- man of Brazil, the highly honoured Senator, Dr. Ruy Barbosa, thoughtfully pronounced in his drawing room in the Federal Capital, concerning the first needs of his beloved nation : *' Political reform is sorely needed in my country," said he, "better laws and progressive mea- sures ; but the thing which is most of all needed is men 394 THE BRAZILIANS AND THEIR COUNTRY who will execute these laws. It is not so much increased or different legislation which is required in Brazil to- day, as men of integrity and character in office, who will be found capable of putting into effect the laws which we already have. Politics has tampered too much with industrial enterprises," continued this life-long politi- cian who knew the Empire of Brazil as well as he knows the Republic. ''Railroads in my section in Bahia, for example, were built in the least feasible places in order to favour politicians. The concessions given to foreign governments were of such broad and general nature as to make easy the defrauding of Brazil by these foreign syndicates, chiefly interested in exploiting the Govern- ment and getting their pay for miles of railway built, regardless of the needs of the section through which these roads were hurriedly constructed. We are reaping to-day the results of political favouritism in our Brazilian industries. We have too many men living on the Gov- ernment. We have too few statesmen of large and un- selfish minds who are really and vitally interested in Brazil as a whole." These are not idle words to-day for the consideration of Brazilians, or of any other republicans in any part of the world, when political partisanship is as much out of place as is religious oligarchy and the Divine Right of Kings. If there ever was a time when the nations called for ''sun-crowned men," free from the lust of office-seeking, and the selfish pride of power, it would seem to be now when the world is battling for the sov- ereign rights of humanity. That Brazil is capable of bringing to this contest a co- hort of great men, who in brain and heart and soul are fitted to stand alongside the best and most courageous of those who are entering the new era, I for one have no doubt. In the high adventure of advanced civilisation, lying BRAZIL'S TO-MORROW 395 so promisingly before her, I would join with many of her warm friends in all the Americas, in greeting Brazil with the salutation of the shadoof boys of the Nil "May your day be happy!'* Hfc INDEX Academy of Letters, 350-351 Acre, Territory of, 83, 318 Agriculture, products of South Brazil, 215 cocoa, 287, 293 diversity of, 217 like Far West, 223 sugar cane, 289 Amerioans, business men in Bra- zil, 369 in South Brazil, 215 opportunities for, in lumber business, 221 learning Portuguese, 344 in cattle industry, 229 Brazilian attitude toward, 366 in Pemambuco, 311 American Chamber of Commerce, in Rio de Janeiro, 369 Americas, the North and South, complements of each other, 7 similarity of experiences, 9 relationships fostered by books and language, 13-14 ; by visits, 377 need to study people, 119-120 Amazon river, magnitude of, 91 grazing possibilities in region, 93 waterways, 239 Navigation Company, 252 Andradas brothei-s, 51 Almeida, Julia Lopez de, 355 Alvares Diogo, pioneer work of, 284-285 Army, organization described, 356 ff. war strength, 359 military forces of Sao Paulo, 198 Athletics, and outdoor sports, 254- 256 motoring, 257 Automobile Club, of Sao Paulo, 199 ff. Bahia, description of, 282 ff. Barbosa, Dr. Ruy, gives reason for Republic, 56-57 presidential candidate, 86 statement concerning Para, 325 concerning Brazil's needs, 393- 394 Blakeslee, Dr. George H,, quoted, 1. Brazilians, debt to Portugal, 28 Orientalism of, 59 ff. country, discovery of, 29, 269 climate, 93-95, 150 rivers, 240 inheritors of aristocratic tradi- tions, 32-33 struggle for independence, 37 ff. present-day needs, 392-393 great men, 394 ports opened, 38 independence declared, 47 government, 74 ff. politics, 80-82, 293 and North Americans, 366 sanitation, 175 3S7 398 INDEX Brazilians, beef industry, 218 hospitality of, 118 characteristics of, 16-27 tramway politeness, 148 ff. testimony by themselves, 18, 68 love of display, manners, 63-66, 367 prodigal use of language, 68- 69 attitude to time, 70-71 artistry and utility, 72-73 "splendid names," 79-80, 348 customs, 154-155, 279 rural life, 172 extravagance, 244 conservatism, 138 sensitiveness to criticism, 390 Brazil Railway Co., colonization work of, 188-192, 215 roads owned and controlled, 247- 251 Bryce, Viscount James, regarding government, 74 quoted on Rio, 156 Camargo, Dr. Affonso Alvez, in- terviewed, 221-222 Carlyle, on Constitution, 90 Carnival, scenes in, 319 Catholic Church, 180 churches in Bahia, 290 Cattle, industry of, 223-227 congi'ess of cattlemen, 227 in North Brazil, 322-323 Cavaleanti, Judge Amaro, describes attitude to war and peace, 356 Ceara, State of, described, 318 Clemenceau, regarding importance of schools, 100 regarding tropics, 280 Clubs, men's, 130-131 Coffee, production and export of, 201-206 number trees, 217 manner grown, 207-208 in Parana, 222 Colonization, early, 35; nature of colonists, 178-195 feudal characteristics, 180-181 modem colonists, 182 ff. in Rio Grande do Sul, 185 by Federal government, 186 ff. type needed, 193 Colour, lines of, disregarded, 23- 24, 154 mixtures of, 179 Confucius, quotation, 1 Constant, Benjamin, leader of Bra- zilian Positivist movement, 85 Constitution, modelled on that of the United States, 21 first established, 49-50 beginning to "march," 89-90 Corcovado, railway, 159 beauty of view, 281 Curityba, industries of, 221, 297 Darley, George, quoted, 159 Democracy, does not mix with Im- perialism, 43 free speech, 80-81 in titles, 107 in people's hearts, 89 Diplomats, study needed for Latin America, 11-13 Diversities, international, make for progress, 37 Dom John VI, Ruler of Brazil, 41- 45 Dom Pedro I, Emperor, 45-54 abdication, 53-54 Dom Pedro II, 51 attitude to literature, 20-21 INDEX 399 Dom Pedro II, beloved by his peo- ple, 55 visit to the United States, 81 significance of reign, 56-58 Dress, 5-6 Dunbar, Paul Laurence, quoted, 137 Dutch, occupation of North Brazil, 283, 306 Edison, Thomas, prayer of, 161 Education, apathy concerning ele- mentary training, 102 of girls, 26-27 in Sao Paulo, 215-216 memoriter habits, 69 illiteracy, 86, 103-104 among Paulistas, 216 importance of schools, 100 systems described, 100-117 students studying abroad, 102 military schools, 361 handicaps of, 106-107 Brazilian educator quoted, 109 CoUegio Militar, 110 missionary schools, 111-113 arts and crafts, 110 of Indians, 333 Mackenzie College, 111 characteristics of students, 114 needs of, 116-117 Electric energy, 161-177 England, allied with Portugal, 60 Farrell, James A., on transporta- tion, 232 Fazendeiros, home life of, 122- 123 at Lages, 167 Fletcher, Rev. J. C, Brazilian omnibuses, 150 France, influence of, 21 port works, 290 Franklin, Benjamin, example of, 244 Friendship, high regard for, 129- 130 in business dealings, 325 Gambling, in clubs, 199-264 lotteries, 257-266 "Jogo do Bicho," 262 Gaucho, description of, 122 in South Brazil, 224 ff. homes described, 229-231 Germans, colonization of, 183- 184 marriages with Brazilians, 222 preparing youth for trade, 372- 373 merchants, 297 Government, federal, 83 republican, 74-90 political parties, 86 arbitration measures, 88 suffrage, 86-87 influence of old families, 86 control of education, 107 political movements in Pemam- bueo, 308 in Para, 320 Gottschalk, A. L. M., American Consul-General to Brazil, 346 Goyaz, description of, 312 Guanabara Bay, environs pictured, 269 Home life, love of, 26 wives as homemakers, 26-27 large families, 61-62 children, 292 general description of, 118-131 Huguenots, French, first Protes- 400 INDEX tant colony in New World, 36- 37 Huntress, F. A., Vice-President, Rio de Janeiro Tramway, Light and Power Co., Ltd., 143 Ignorance of condition and nature of Latin Americans, 17 Immigation, early Portuguese, 34. See Colonization Incas, of Peru, 137 Independence proclamation, 48 Indians, 35, 198 in South Brazil, 213-214 general description of, 332 ff. increase of, 334 home life of, 340-341 Italians, in Sao Paulo, 184 Japanese, in South Brazil, 184- 185 Jesuits, interest in Indians, 30, 33, 198-199, 337 as educators, 105 King, President, of Oberlin Col- lege, regarding missions and education, 114 Kipling, quotations, 132, 140, 267 Le Gallienne, Richard, regarding literature, 342 Lages, 177 ff. Language, Portuguese tongue imi- versal, 23, 349 versatility in, 343 in schools, 108, 342 ff. Latin Americans, lovers of peace, 356 progressive, 371-372 point of view of, 366 ff. Lawyers, abundance of, 69-70 education of, 108 Libraries, first National, 42 at Rio de Janeiro, 349-350 Literature, Portuguese, 31 Brazilian fiction, 32 book-shops, 278 Livingstone, quoted, 42 Lotteries, 257-266 Loveman, Robert, quoted, 393 Lowell, J. R., on use of time, 70 Lowery, William, on shipping 234, 236 Mackenzie College, 111 Mackenzie, Murdo, 250 Magellan, Ferdinand, voyage of, 267 Manufactures, new beginnings of, 23 in Sao Paulo, 216 Marajo, island of, 321-322 Martin, Henry, quoted regarding Bahia, 287 Mate, herva, factories and export of, 299-300 Matto Grosso, cattle country, 231 description of, 311 Mexico, compared with Brazil, 50, 134 attitude toward, 376 Minas Geraes, population of, 294 minerals of, 313 Missionary schools, 111-113 Monazite, where found, history of, exports of, 314-317 Monroe Doctrine, 238, 364-365, 375-376 Monroe Palace, at Rio de Janeiro, 273-274 Moors, influence of, 79 rule of Iberian Peninsula, 59-60 INDEX 401 Naidn, Sarojini, "The Caromandel Fishers," 122 Napoleon, array of, marching on Lisbon, 41 quoted, 132 National City Bank, of New York, 215 Navy, composition of, 361 instruction for, 362-363 Negroes, 291 ff. Newspapers, as international me- dium, 278 ff. in great popularity, 388 what American papers can do, 385 Nietheroy, city of, 268 Nolting, W. T., quoted, 143 Oakenfull, J. C, regarding Bra- zil's future, 214 Olinda, description of, 307 Orientalism, seen in Brazil, 59- 73 in Paranagua, 297 Ouvidor, Rua, street scenes and description of, 276-278 Palm-tree, usefulness of, 335 Pan-Americanism, one solution of, 342 aids of travel and press, 398 industiial and economic, 365 Para, city and state, 319 fif. Parana, state of, 218-219 Paraguay river, 244 Paranagua, city of, 294 Peace Congress, 78 Pearson, F. S., Engineer, 132 ff. Pernambueo, revolt of, 44 description of city and state, 306 Peru, contrasted with Brazil, 33 Pirahy, tunnel, 170 ff. Population, in 1808, 39 present, 97-98 needed, 145 Portugal, conservatism of, 19-20 explorers, 195 relation to Bahia, 286 virility of race, 29-31 oppressive measures, 39 resisting Brazilian independence, 49 Portuguese settlers, 178 Positivism, influence on Republic, 85-86 Prescott, quoted regarding tropics, 95 Press, printing of early official edicts, 45 mirror of popular sentiment, 344 an international force, 278 ff. of Rio de Janeiro, 379 ff. American cosmopolitan press needed, 390-391 Races, mixtures of, 23-24 international marriages, 123-124 Railroads, Central Railroad of Brazil, 163, 246 Brazilian systems of, 241-253 Leopoldina, 250-251 Great Western, 252 by rail to Paranagua, 301 Religion, Latin American and North American contrasted, 4 of Indians, 338 in schools, 115 separation of Church and State, 88 no restrictions of, 187 Repplier, Agnes, on manners, 65 402 INDEX Republican, institutions and gov- ernment, 74-90 accomplishments and trials, 76- 79 Revolutions, first bloodless, of 1821, 45 Rio de Janeiro, beauty of, 156 ff. port of, 233 progress of, 371-372 city of enchantment, 267 ff. celebrating independence, 48 telephones, tramways, electric lighting, 134 ff.; 147 ff. Rio de Janeiro Tramway, Light and Power Co., Ltd., 138 ff. gas manufacture, 141 ff. management of tramways, 149 the harnessing of hydraulic en- ergy, 162 ff. training school for young Bra- zilians, 145 Rio Grande do Sul, revolution of, 77 agriculture and cattle of, 223- 227 colonists of, 185 Roads, the great need of Brazil, 98 Rodrigues, Dr. Jose Carlos, 5 Brazilian editor, interview, 383- 384 Rondon, Col., friend of Indians, 332 Roosevelt, Col., sea captain's ex- planation to, 124 expedition of, 213 Root, Elihu, visit to South Amer- ica, 5 Rubber, of Amazon Valley, 325- 331 contrasted with Eastern planta- tions, 328 Rubber, problems of the "serin- gueiro," 331 Santa Catharina, State of, de- scribed, 223 Santos, coffee port, 195 shipping of, 216 Sao Paulo, description of, 196-212, 215 Light and Power Companies, 138 ff. coffee, cultivation of, 201-208 institutions of, 211 Italian settlers, 184 tramways opened, 139-140 water power and electric supply, 208-211 Sao Paulo Tramway Light and Power Co., Ltd., 209 ff. Shelley, quoted, 270 Slavery, conditions of, 40 ff. South Brazil, awakening of, 213 ff. Southern Brazil Lumber and Col- onization Co., lumber mills of, 219 ff. Spain, Brazil's treaty with, 91 Smith, Sir Sydney, blockades Por- tugal, 41 Steamships, importance of, 232 ff. coastwise, 238 Brazilian Lloyd, 324 need of merchant marine, 373 Taj Mahal, 14 Tennyson, quoted, 303 Thome de Souza, first Governor- General, Bahia, 284 Trade, relations between nations, 2 exports, 8, 22 State and Federal taxes, 82-83 INDEX 403 Trade, United States compared with Germany, 9 in early Empire, 40 competition in, 386 future of, with South America, 387 business methods different, 376 transportation facilities, 232-253 meaning of, 234 banking opportunities needed, 373 necessity of language study, 342 handicapped by ignorance of method, 370 ff. products of, in South Brazil, 215 United States, contrasted with Brazil in historical beginnings, 3, 4 contrasts in government, 74-75, 81-82 responsibility and opportunity of, 98-99 crying need for ships, 235 as purchaser of rubber, 329 government officials and lan- guage, 346-347 United States Steel Corporation, work described in Brazil, 233 ff. Vespucius, Americus, quoted re- garding Southern Hemisphere, 91 Villegaignon, Durand de, attempt to found Huguenot colony, 36 War, European, effect on South American shipping, 237 German raider, 310 influence of entrance of United States into, 356-357 place of religion in, 358-359 strength of Brazilian Army in, 359 ff. Watson, Thomas, quoted, 280 Whitman, Walt, quoted regarding Americans, 392 Wilson, President Woodrow, re- garding equality with Latin Americans, 14 Women, Latin American treatment of, 60-61 as wives and mothers, 125-129 Woods, Parana pine and devel- opment of its markets, 219 ♦ V I ( 14 DAY USE -7.? 6 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED EARTH SCIENCES LIBRARY This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subjea to immediate recall. LD 21-50to-12,'61 ., General Library (C4796sl0)476 Umversuy^of^Cal.fornia V "]%