Hunting a home in Brazil

by James McFadden Gaston

His dwelling and all its appliances present an air of substantial comfort, and even of elegance in some respects. The parlor is a large, well-furnished apartment, and has a piano of the bureau order, which is very fashionable in this country. His wife performs well upon this instrument, and has also the accomplishment of speaking French and Italian, though she has forgotten most of her English. She is very sprightly, and appears quite young for the wife of a gentleman of fifty-five years, as I take Senor Miguel to be from his appearance. He is originally from Spain and retains much of the harsh accent of that country in speaking the Portuguese, so that I do not understand him with the same facility as I do his wife or his son. The only fruit of the present marriage is one pretty little girl, who is quite a prattler. By a former marriage he has this son and two others, one a lawyer at Ignape, and the other a Catholic priest at Bahia.

Senor Miguel has at this place extensive machinery with water-power, for treating rice and sugar-cane, from the latter of which the rum (cachaça) is the chief yield, as it is found to pay better than the sugar or molasses.

I was struck with the convenience of his rolling scaffolds for sunning the rice, there being three or four of different elevations, so that one goes under the other, and each having its separate track, they can be compactly stored under a house or drawn out to be exposed to the sun. A similar plan to this would be well suited for drying coffee, yet nothing of the kind was seen in the coffee establishments, and they should profit by the suggestion. Upon these a few of the women and children about the house can draw out or run under shelter, as may be required, a large amount of rice or coffee.

There is also a saw-mill in operation here which seems to be of long standing, and has a perpendicular saw that works rather slowly.

The water-power used for these several purposes is a stream of no great magnitude, that comes into the Ribeira at this point, and by throwing a dam across some short distance above, he secures sufficient water for his purposes.

The residence and other buildings are located upon the bank of the river within a short distance of the water, and sundry large canoes supply the means of transportation to and from this place, which is called Caiacauga.

These canoes are of various sizes, made out of a solid log of wood. The one in which we all came down last night is forty-five feet long, thirty-two inches deep and thirty inches across the mouth. But there are others larger than this in all respects, and some measuring three feet across the mouth.

The largest canoes will carry ten thousand pounds of freight upon this river, and are worth about one hundred dollars; those of eight thousand pounds capacity may be bought for ninety dollars; while those of five thousand pounds capacity are valued at fifty dollars. From this down to the size capable of carrying two men and their baggage, the price ranges even as low as five dollars. This is found to be a very economical means of transportation, and those who employ their canoes for the public charge but twenty cents per head from Xiririca to Ignape, a distance of between ninety and one hundred miles. The steamboats adopt the same scale of rates; and from Ignape to Rio de Janeiro the rate of transportation is forty cents per head, making the entire freight from Xiririca to Rio de Janeiro only sixty cents per head when transported by water.

In comparing this with the table of published rates from Santos to Rio Claro, or any of the interior towns in the direction of Araraquara, it is found the latter is two dollars and forty cents per head without including the further item of shipment to Rio de Janeiro from Santos. So much for the difference of water and pack-mule transportation. We may reasonably calculate that the transportation to Rio from Araraquara will be five-fold greater than from Xiririca, even when the line of railroad is completed from Santos to Campinas. The pack-mules being placed on the upper part of the line will continue to exact a heavy tariff before articles reach the cars, and the rate of freight by railroad must exceed very much that by water.

This matter is of great consequence in the profits of a crop; and while many articles are entirely precluded from market, by the rates of transportation on pack-mules from the interior of this province, even coffee and cotton cannot be forwarded to any advantage, except when the prices of these commodities are very high. On the other hand, there is scarcely any thing marketable which could not afford to pay the freight from Xiririca and leave a margin of profit; and all that is saved upon coffee and cotton is clear gain to the planter in this region.