A Tour Through South America

by A. S. Forrest

Until the end of the seventeenth century the chief source of the coffee supply was Arabia, but in 1690 the plant was introduced into Java by the Dutch, who also placed one specimen in the Botanical Gardens at Amsterdam as a curiosity, from which plant seeds were afterwards planted in Dutch Guiana. Indeed, from this one plant at Amsterdam the coffee plantations of the New World may be said to have sprung. The islands of the Caribbean Sea were soon supplied with seeds, and plantations were laid out in many localities, which experience proved were the most favourable for the production of the best crops. It is uncertain how the coffee plant came to be introduced into Brazil. One story is that a runaway from Cayenne took a few seeds to Para or Maranhão, somewhere about the year 1761, and that some years later two or three plants were conveyed from there to the city of Rio de Janeiro, where they were cultivated in a private garden, probably by way of a novelty. Even at the beginning of the nineteenth century the cultivation of coffee was not looked upon by the Brazilians as deserving of any serious attention, and they had not much use themselves, except as medicine, for the beverage which to-day is hardly ever out of their mouths.

The State of São Paulo was the first to give serious attention to the cultivation of coffee, and as a result has reaped the reward of being the most prosperous State in the whole of Brazil. The interior of São Paulo (which lies between 20° and 25° S. latitude) possesses a rich and productive soil, with a climate whose temperature and rainfall are eminently suited for the cultivation of many kinds of agricultural produce, and it was in the Campuias district that coffee was first planted and developed on an extensive scale. From this district the cultivation has spread all over the State, until São Paulo is almost synonymous with the name of coffee. The rapid development of the industry has placed Brazil in the forefront of coffee-producing countries, and the annual output from its ports exceeds that of all other ports put together. To-day there are over 361.572.12 alqueires of land under coffee cultivation alone, whilst the prosperity of this industry has given an impetus to agriculture generally, and the growing of sugar, rice, maize, beans, tobacco, vine, and manioc, all engage the attention of farmers in the State.

A FAZENDA.

A large number of “fazendas” or farms are in the hands of Brazilians themselves, and many more are worked and owned by persons of Italian, Portuguese, German, English, French, and Spanish nationalities. These coffee fazendas are all very much alike, and the traveller through the country is quickly impressed by the high state of cultivation that this profitable industry has developed. No visitor to São Paulo should depart without seeing a fazenda, as the coffee plantation is called, and the hospitality and kindness of the Paulistas to strangers make a visit pleasurable as well as memorable.

The estate of Senhor Antonio Prado, a Brazilian gentleman who has done much for the beautifying of the capital, lies about 230 miles therefrom, and the journey by rail is through a country full of interest and beauty. The towns and villages that lie along the route are partially hidden by the dense foliage of the tropical vegetation that bespeaks the richness of the soil. The undulating hills through which the railway winds offer a change of view at every moment of the journey. The rich red earth accentuates and intensifies the green of the foliage, whilst the stain of it tinges everything it touches. The railway carriages, constructed on American models, are full of the fine red dust, and the passengers have a ruddy hue when they descend from a journey through the country. The whitewash of the buildings and cotton clothes of the peasants are all more or less tinted with the eternal red of the soil. The Prado fazenda, situated upon rising ground, is a low, one-story building encircled with verandahs. Brilliant-coloured flowers grow in front of it, luxurious creepers entwine themselves around the supports of its verandahs, and tall palms nod their heads above its roofs. The floors of broad, hard-wood planks are red with the stain of the all-pervading earth.

The “fazendiero” lives well, and his table groans under a plentiful variety of meat, vegetables, rice, bread, and sweetmeats, to which visitors and friends from neighbouring plantations are welcomed round the board. From the verandahs the view is extensive, a waving sea of green, except when the bloom is on the coffee plant, when the white flakes of colour suggest fallen snow, very refreshing to the eye in the intense heat.

A ride through the coffee trees on this estate could be extended for many miles, but the lanes and vistas are all very much alike, appealing most strongly to the sense of distance and extent.

Beyond the region planted lies the wild forest, thick woods almost impenetrable, save where patches of land, full of gaunt, half-burnt stumps, betoken clearings in process of being turned into plantations—a preparation that takes no little time and much labour.