Big volumes have been written on the subject, and I gladly refer my readers to them. There they will find all the figures that I as well as another might quote, but I adhere to my intention of leaving to statistics their own special eloquence, and of giving here an account of only such things as my eyes have seen.
If you want to inspect the Brazilian coffee plantations you have only to look around you. I can show you the coffee-plant, a shrub between three and five yards in height, which, for foliage and manner of growth, bears a strong resemblance to box. The flower is very like that of the orange-tree, but with a more subtle scent. The fruit, or "cherry," red at first, then of a brownish colour, contains two kernels. The characteristic feature of the coffee-plant is to bear flowers and fruit at the same time, in all stages of maturity, when once the first flowering is over, providing a spectacle that interested me greatly. But under these conditions it follows that at whatever season the harvesting may be carried out the crop is bound to be very unequal in quality. The only rational way to meet the case would be to have several harvests each year, but the cost of the proceeding would not be covered by the difference in the quality obtained. For this reason the fazendero generally makes but one harvest a year, plucking at the same time berries of varying quality, from the small rolled moka, which is found on all plants, to the more or less perfect berries destined for the average consumer. Not that the fazendero makes the mistake of placing on the market a mixture of coffee of all qualities. When the berries have been dried in the open air on asphalt floors they are sorted by machinery, and thus seven different kinds are obtained, whose value naturally depends on their quality.
But, unhappily, the canny dealers who buy the Brazilian product classified in this way have nothing more pressing to do than to invent fresh combinations, tending to increase their own profits but, at the same time, to ruin our palates. Here we have the Bercy mysteries of wine adulteration imported into the coffee market! We need not be surprised, therefore, to learn that to some palates coffee is only drinkable when mixed with chicory, with burnt fig, or roasted oats—the last more especially appreciated by the North American public. The best of it is that at home with us Brazilian coffee bears but an indifferent reputation among the epicures who like only the moka of Santos. I confess that one of the surprises awaiting me in Brazil was to find their common coffee infinitely superior to any we get in our best houses. It is a light beverage, with a subtle, soft scent; and, being easily digested, it does not produce the usual nervous tension that causes insomnia. In the hotels and railway-stations of Brazil a cup of coffee is a perfect joy, not only for its delicacy of flavour but also for its immediate tonic effect, and cannot be compared with the article offered in similar places at home. The cups certainly are smaller than ours, but I fancy the average Brazilian drinks quite five or six in a day. It is true I did hear "Brazilian excitability" put down to coffee intoxication, but one would like to know just what this "excitability" amounts to, and, besides, I am not clear that alcoholic countries have a right to take up a critical attitude towards coffee-drinkers. Man in all parts of the world seeks to stimulate his powers, and only succeeds in obtaining temporary results—which have to be paid for later on in one way or another, either by a reaction of debility or by hypersthenic disorders.
No one needs to be astonished, then, to find coffee in every mouth, both as a drink and as a topic of daily conversation. If it be true that coffee has made Saint Paul, I can testify that Saint Paul has repaid the debt. The muscles and the brains of the entire population are devoted to the same object. Enormous sums of money are invested in it, large fortunes have been made in it; and when the famous "valorisation" was operated, it looked as if a fearful catastrophe were preparing. This is not the moment to dwell upon the economic conditions of coffee-growing in the States of Saint Paul, Rio, and Minas-Geraes. I shall confine myself to recommending the reader to refer to the excellent book that M. Pierre Denis has published on the subject. [54] As for the "valorisation," a stroke of unparalleled audacity, it consisted in forbidding the laying out of new plantations at a moment when the market was menaced with a glut that seemed likely to bring about a "slump," and in forcing the State of Saint Paul to purchase the whole of the surplus stock—some eight million bags—and hold it until prices had recovered their tone, when the article could be placed gradually on the market at a remunerative figure, the scheme to be executed by means of a financial operation the details of which need not be gone into here. This is a piece of advanced State Socialism which looks like succeeding, contrary to the expectations of the economists, but which it would be highly imprudent to repeat on any pretext. As may be imagined, the scheme aroused the keenest opposition, for in case of failure the risks might have amounted to some hundreds of millions; but it sufficiently denotes the extraordinary mixture of audacity and foresight that belongs to Brazilian statesmen. The perilous honours belong more especially to the President of the State of Saint Paul, M. Tibiriça, and to Señor Augusto Ramos, a planter of the Rio State.
As I took a keen interest in the peripatetics of this social drama that threatened to swallow up both public and private fortunes, I naturally desired to visit the great laboratory of the fazendas, where modern alchemy transmutes into gold the red earth that contains the mysterious diabase which is the essential element in coffee-growing.
A member of the Prado family kindly offered to show us his fazenda at Santa Cruz. The beauties of the landscape were, unhappily, concealed beneath a haze of fine rain, but man, alas! had done worse—for it is a disastrous introduction to the glories of the fazenda to cross smoking tracts of forest on fire. In the distance huge trees were still blazing, around us was a waste of ashes and of half-consumed boughs, and the falling rain seemed only to quicken the dying conflagration. In some of the great green holes were fearful gaping wounds through which the sap was oozing, while some tall trees still stretched to heaven their triumphant crown of foliage above a trunk all charred that would never sprout again. The Brazilians contemplate spectacles such as this with a wholly indifferent eye, and, indeed, even with satisfaction, for they see in the ruin only a promise of future harvests. To me the scene possessed only the horror of a slaughter-house. At least we have the grace to hide ourselves when we massacre innocent beasts, since an implacable law of Nature has decreed that life can only be supported on life. Why can we not hide in the same way the savage destruction of the beauties of the forest?
Between two harvests the fazenda is a scene of quiet repose. We witnessed all the different operations—from the drying to the sorting, and to the final departure of the bags to the Santos warehouses. Although our tour of inspection was arranged by the proprietor himself, he was only present on our account. The imposing mansion, the splendid gardens—all were deserted. The Italian colonist has taken the place of the slave. The former master, now the employer, is no doubt attracted towards the city. The overseer looks after the colonists, who are collected into a village, and the labour is organised as it might be in a factory. The families seemed prosperous enough beneath their coating of original dirt. Only babies and pigs were to be seen—scarcely distinguishable the ones from the others, except that the pigs occasionally wallowed in a chance pool. This was risky, however, for the terrible jaws of the crocodile lie in wait on the banks of the neighbouring pond.
The coffee plantation furnishes occupation for entire families. Men, women, and children bring equal zeal to bear upon the task of weeding, which has to be repeated five or six times a year. The prolific Italian reaps an advantage from the size of his family. Moreover, plots of land are set apart for him, on which he raises forage for his cattle and the maize, manioc, and black beans on which he lives. Often, too, he gets permission to raise his private crops in the open spaces between the coffee-plants. All the colony is afoot when the time comes to pluck the berries. The Saint Paul growers claim that they have only a single crop, all the berries ripening at the same time. I saw them full of blossom, covered thickly with bouquets of white flowers. But I noticed also in the sorting-rooms a great irregularity in the grains.
We walked out to the plantations—vast stretches of red earth in which the shrubs are planted at irregular intervals. Beside the path and amongst the young plants there were great charred branches rotting in the sun, the melancholy remains of forest monarchs laid low a dozen years ago and awaiting final decomposition. Here and there colossal tree-trunks were still erect, though hemmed in on all sides by the green bushes whose monotonous uniformity triumphs over the dethroned sylvan power. Occasionally some forest giant that has escaped by miracle from the flames raises to the sky its splendid stature, sole evidence of past splendours. In the bare flatness of the immense plain covered with the low coffee-plants, where no outstanding feature provides a scale of measurement, it is difficult to realise the real dimensions of these relics. It is only when standing actually beneath a bole that you can estimate its proportions, and a series of "Oh's!" and "Ah's!" of amazement burst from all lips. One of these trees, whose trunk was no less than seventy metres in height, had a girth so immense that eleven men stretching their arms in a circle round it could not entirely span it. I was told that it was worth from two to three thousand francs. There would be some expense attached to getting it to the place where it was wanted.
Still, under a gentle sprinkle of rain, that fell like drops of clear light, we proceeded towards the great forest, across which a fair carriage-road has been made. This is not the decaying forest whose timber feeds the factory furnaces, such as that of Santa Ana or of Lulès. This was the forest that had stood for countless centuries, as is shown by Titanesque survivals of those unknown ages, but it remains the forest eternally young, its vital force still unimpaired by time. The grand architectural lines of trunks and boughs, where the sunlight plays tenderly in an unending scale of changing tones upon its depths, offer a feast for the eyes. Creepers entwine themselves among the branches, making a thousand fantastic turns and twists, while slender stems spring like fireworks heavenwards, there to burst into bouquets of rich blossom. Part only of the monstrous tree-trunks are left visible. Beneath its inextricable tangle of boughs the jequiticaba, all in white, its spurs and ramparts high enough to conceal a man, rises high above the rest—a Tower of Babel that has escaped the destruction of the others.