Rio Janeiro, as I first knew it, was far behind. Oil lamps shed fitful gleams here and there on half-naked people. Electric lights now dispel the darkness of the streets, and electric streetcars thread in and out of the "Ruas." There is progress everywhere and in everything.
To-day the native of Rio truthfully boasts that his city has "the finest street-car system of any city of the world."
A man is not permitted to ride in these cars unless he wears a tie, which seems to be the badge of respectability. To a visitor these exactions are amusing. A friend of mine visited the city, and we rode together on the cars until it was discovered that he wore no tie. The day was hot, and my friend (a gentleman of private means) had thought that a white silk shirt with turn-down collar was enough. We felt somewhat humiliated when he was ignominiously turned off the car, while the black ex-slaves on board smiled aristocratically. If you visit Rio Janeiro, by all means wear a tie. If you forget your shirt, or coat, or boots, it will matter little, but the absence of a tie will give the negro cause to insult you.
Some large, box-like cars have the words "Descalcos é Bagagem" (literally, "For the Shoeless and Baggage") printed across them. In these the poorer classes and the tieless can ride for half-price. And to make room for the constantly inflowing people from Europe, two great hills are being removed and "cast into the sea."
Rio Janeiro may be earth's coming city. It somewhat disturbs our self-complacency to learn that they have spent more for public improvements than has any city of the United States, with the exception of New York. Municipal works, involving an expenditure of $40,000,000, have contributed to this.
Rio Janeiro, however, is not the only large and growing city Brazil can boast of. Sao Paulo, with its population of 300,000 and its two-million-dollar opera house, which fills the space of three New York blocks, is worthy of mention. Bahia, founded in 1549, has 270,000 inhabitants, and is the centre of the diamond market of Brazil. Pará, with its population of 200,000, who export one hundred million dollars' worth of rubber yearly and keep up a theatre better than anything of the kind in New York, is no mean city. Pernambuco, also, has 200,000 inhabitants, large buildings, and as much as eight million dollars have recently been devoted to harbor improvements there.
Outside of these cities there are estates, quite a few of which are worth more than a million dollars; one coffee plantation has five million trees and employs five thousand people.
With its Amazon River, six hundred miles longer than the journey from New York to Liverpool, England, with its eight branches, each of which is navigable for more than a thousand miles, Brazil's future must be very great.