Brazil today and tomorrow

by L. E. Elliott Joyce

Frontin’s daring scheme to build a line from Pirapora (due west from Caravellas in Bahia) along the valley of the Tocantins to Pará has already been mentioned: the scheme lags for want of money. Another conception is that of a railroad which would run almost parallel with the Pirapora-Pará line: it would extend from Cuyabá in the middle of the diamond district of Matto Grosso almost due north along the valley of the Tapajoz river to the town of Santarem, a pretty trading point at the junction of the black river with the yellow Amazon. A third ambitious project is a railroad to run from Manáos northwards, along the valleys of the Negro and the Branco into British Guiana.

None of these schemes is less justified than the Transandine line farther south, the transcontinental lines across the United States and Canada or that conception of Cecil Rhodes, the Cape-to-Cairo road of Africa. In no case were those pioneer tracks built to serve an existing population—they brought population and consequent production along their trail over the prairie and the veldt, and these new Brazilian lines would bring people and agriculture into the sertão. The climate is unhealthy only in the swamp regions, and railroad construction with accompanying drainage accomplishment would be the best means of sanitizing the country; it is no worse than many parts of India, East and West Africa, and the low-lying borders of the Caribbean where successful railroads have brought malarial jungle into such a condition that white men dwell there with safety, and a hardy native race can cultivate the rich soil.

Engineering difficulties are probably least in the Cuyabá-Santarem plan. There is less matto (thick woodland) country, no important system of serras to climb; much of the track would run on the high level land of the Matto Grosso interior. The regions served could be expected to produce meat and hides from the enormous pastures of the State; minerals from the mountains of Goyaz; hardwoods from the northerly forests; rubber from the same forestal lands, together with dyes and drugs; the line would greatly encourage cattle-raising and cereal planting. The packing industry is yet in its infancy in Brazil, for the first frigorificos were only opened in the latter part of 1914, and the world has not yet realized the extent to which it may attain. Brazil has more head of cattle than has the Argentine, and almost illimitable space for scientific breeding; she has areas for cereals which could make her a rival granary of the world. She has room and to spare for one hundred million population.

But her two great interior states, Matto Grosso and Goyaz, the heart of Brazil, with their two million, one hundred and twenty-five thousand square kilometers of land, are traversed by less than five hundred kilometers of railroad. Small wonder that their combined population is only about half a million.

A new influx of bandeirantes is needed. They need the same big imagination of their antecessors, the same grit and indomitable will: they should carry gold in their pockets, surveying instruments in their hands, and behind them they should bring an army of workmen, in lieu of the earlier bandeirante’s sword and slaves. Some day the task will be accomplished: it rests with the capitalist of today to say whether he or his successors will take it up.

III. Shipping

The rivers of Brazil, highways of necessity, and a wonderful penetrating system in themselves, are quite well served; the Amazon river with its tributaries comprises a fluvial network of over forty thousand miles, and the producing areas are served partly by steamers and also by small launches and native embarcações which fearlessly traverse narrow water lanes almost closed by verdure, darkened from the sun by walls of tropic green, and negotiate the runs and cascades of the more distant reaches. The excellent steamers of the Amazon Steam Navigation Company are now part of the interests of the Farquhar syndicate, but formerly belonged to a British firm which acquired the rights of the early Brazilian operators. To force the sale of the Amazon company, a few years ago, a number of new steamers were brought from the United States and put into use; when rubber boomed there was freight for most of them. But today, with the object of their introduction attained and at the same time a shrinkage of commerce upon the Amazon, many are idle. In lines outside the Port of Pará these vessels are lying, empty, motionless, just so much good money thrown away for lack of foresight.

Besides the ships of the “Amazon Steam” serving the route between Pará, and intervening ports (Santarem, Itacoatiara, Obidos, etc.) to Manáos, ships run up another thousand miles to Iquitos, and also up the Madeira to the hither side of the Falls, where the railroad ends. The English Booth line and the Lloyd Brasileiro also run up from Pará to Manáos, and there is a service on the Tapajoz and Tocantins by small steamers. The Amazon has all the riverine service that is called for, and chiefly feels the need of more ocean-going steamships.

The São Francisco river is served by a line belonging to the State of Bahia, the Navigação Bahiana, which runs up and down the navigable stretch between the headwaters and the Paulo Affonso Falls, touching one railhead at Pirapora in Minas Geraes and another at Joazeiro in Bahia. The Paraná river is served by the ships of a Paulista company, running up and down from Itapura to the Tibiriça ferry, and up various affluents, while every coastal town traverses its nearby rivers with small steamboats privately owned. One of the most actively traversed water regions of Brazil is the Lagôa dos Patos in southern Rio Grande, where communication between the towns at each end of the lagoon is carried on entirely by boat. The Brazilian has been in the forefront of enterprises helping in the water communication between port and port in Brazil, and, as the thriving condition of the Lloyd Brasileiro demonstrates, is able to go abroad and compete with foreign companies.