"English," said his father. "The English run a line of steamers from Southampton to Lisbon, and thence to Rio Janeiro. These boats carry a thousand passengers, and are so large that they cannot go through the cut in the breakwater."
"Oh, papa! What a queer building! What is it?" asked Lola, as they passed an odd-looking fort on the rocks.
"That is a relic of Dutch days in Brazil," said the Senhor. "You know the Dutch once laid claim to all this part of the country."
"Did they?" asked Lola in surprise. "How did they get here and what became of them?"
"It is a long story, little one, but quite an interesting one," said her father. "You know Brazil was discovered by a Portuguese, Pedro Alvarez Cabral, who sailed into the Bay of Porto Seguro at Bahia, April 25, 1500, and took possession of the land in the name of the Portuguese crown, naming it Vera Cruz. The Spaniards had made discoveries in the north of South America, the English and French had come in along the Amazon and within the next few years the Dutch entered the river and built forts on the Xingu. Then came a long struggle between the Dutch and the Portuguese as to who should possess the land. In 1624, a Dutch admiral took possession of Bahia, but a handful of Portuguese recaptured the place the next year; then came a succession of battles, first the Dutch being victorious, then the Portuguese. At last the Dutch sent Prince Maurice of Nassau as Governor General of their possessions in Brazil, but he returned to Holland in 1644 and from that time on the Portuguese were successful. They laid siege to Pernambuco (then called Recife) and blockaded the port with sea forces while the land army assaulted it on the other side. The Dutch surrendered in 1654 and Brazil became a Portuguese colony."
"Then I suppose everything was peaceful," said Affonzo, but his father laughed and said,
"There has not been much peace in Brazil since the Portuguese first discovered it. After the foreigners left, the Indians remained unconquered, and the Portuguese sent many expeditions against the natives in the interior. Many adventurers went on these expeditions, and they were called Bandierantes.[9] They treated the Indians cruelly and enslaved many, although the Pope had forbidden making slaves of the Indians.
"Another fight which took place near here was with negro slaves. Some of them escaped and fled to the forest of Palmeiras, in the Province of Alagoas. Here they maintained a colony for sixty years and were only subdued in 1697. Some of their chiefs leaped from a high rock into the sea rather than be captured."
"How did they get slaves in our country?" asked Lola.
"That's a rather big subject for such a little girl," said her father. "The early settlers could not get any one to work for them, so they brought black people from Africa, as did most of the Southern countries. One good thing was that here slavery was abolished without a drop of blood being shed, while in North America they had a terrible war.