The museum is very imposing, as it stands on an eminence that overlooks the country for miles around. It is built of marble, but the red sand of the country has given it a very peculiar effect, almost like that of old ivory. It contains much that is of scientific interest. Especially fine is the collection of humming birds, beetles and butterflies. There are several specimens of the Louvadeus grasshopper, which raises its feelers and poses itself almost in the attitude of prayer. The name means “praise God.” One of the principal objects of interest is a large painting representing the scene when the prince pronounced the watchword “independence or death.”
GENERAL VIEW OF THE IMMIGRANT STATION AT SÃO PAULO.
The governments of several different states are endeavouring to induce immigrants to come in. The efforts of São Paulo have been most successful, and their methods are copied by other states. This state maintains a splendid immigration office in the city of São Paulo, which is strictly up to date. The immigrants upon landing at Santos are taken by special train to this station, and here they are kept for a week or ten days at government expense. During this time they are housed in excellent quarters, given good food, and kept under the supervision of doctors. Many have had their entire expenses from their homes paid by the government. In these buildings are offices where immigrants are secured employment on the various fazendas. A record is kept of each fazendero to see if he carries out his contracts. Notices are posted up where labour is wanted on fazendas or railroads. Written contracts are made and signed between employer and employee in legal form. The wages generally received are from $.90 to $1.25 per day for such labourers. Interpreters are kept who are able to converse in the many languages that will be required. The labourer is then forwarded to his destination in the interior at government expense. It is far different from the way they are received in our own land, and I only wish that a few hundred thousand of those seeking the shores of the United States each year would turn their steps down this way. They would be better off there than they are in our own great cities.
When I visited this immigration station there were about nine hundred immigrants there who had just been landed. Of this number four-fifths were Spaniards, with a sprinkling of Russians, Poles, Austrians, Hungarians and Italians. A few days later I saw a couple of hundred more of the same varied nationalities landed at Santos, and loaded on a special train for São Paulo. I always pity these poor immigrants who come to a new country with no money, few clothes, many children, and nothing else but a big hope of something, or faith in somebody, in their breast. The total number of immigrants reaching all Brazil in the past year, the excess over those leaving, would not exceed eighty thousand.
The government of São Paulo has established a number of colonies in the state, one or two of which I visited. In these colonies the land is platted in tracts of about fifty acres, which are sold to the colonists at $500 per tract, payable one-tenth each year. The colonist is allowed to live one year free of charge in the colony house, but within this time he must construct his own home. Some of these colonies have proven quite successful, and many immigrants have thus been able to acquire a home with their own vine and fig tree surrounding it. It is certainly the best thing for the colonist, for he has a chance to secure his own home and that ought to be a stimulus to bring out the best there is in a man. In the less developed part of the state, lands will be given the colonist practically free.
The Italian element in Brazil is large, and is increasing each year by immigration. In all of the cities of southern Brazil the Italians are numerous, but they probably reach their largest percentage in the state of São Paulo, where they number about forty per cent. of the population. Of the two and a half millions of people in that state there are perhaps one million of Italian birth. Everywhere one can see evidences of these children of sunny Italy, who have sought homes in the new land because of the overcrowding at home. Most of them come from northern Italy, and they are said to make better workmen than those from Southern Italy. It would be difficult for the coffee planters to work their plantations were it not for these people, and every plantation has one or several colonies of these labourers. They are generally preferred to the negro labourers by the planters. The most of them are industrious and frugal. Many of them eventually join one of the government colonies, and purchase a small tract of land; others become tradesmen, and open a small store to cater to those of their own nationality; still others travel from door to door selling small household articles needed by the housewives. One will hear the same street cries, see the same characteristic packs and bundles, and observe the same styles of dress that are common in the northern provinces of Italy. In recent years the number of Italians coming to Brazil has because of restrictions of the Italian government.
There is still an abundance of soil in this state, nearly three times as large as all New England, awaiting development. The entire western half, which is composed of fertile virgin soil, is practically unexploited. The recent completion of the railroad, which follows the Tieté River to its junction with the Paraná, will open that section to emigration. Along this river, and the other water courses of the state, much fine hardwood timber is found that is well adapted for finishing lumber. Some of the woods are similar to and will take as fine a polish as mahogany. The difficulty is in marketing them. The logs will not float, so that it is necessary to build rafts on which to transport them. As none of the streams flow direct to the Atlantic, the logs must be sent down through the La Plata system, and the many waterfalls make this impracticable. Cheap railroad rates furnish the only solution to this problem.
The water power awaiting development in this state is almost incredible. As the rainfall is large and frequent the volume of water is constant and reliable. On the Tieté River alone there are hundreds of feet of hydraulic falls that could furnish thousands of horsepower energy for practical purposes. The same might be said of the Piracicaba, the Rio Grande, the Paranapanema, and the Mogy-Guassu Rivers, as well as the mighty Paraná itself, which forms the western boundary of São Paulo.
One of the most interesting trips made by me in Brazil was to Riberão Preto, which is in the very centre of the richest coffee district in the world. The route first led over the tracks of the São Paulo Railway to the town of Jundiahy. This line runs through the hills and gradually reaches a lower level. No villages of importance are passed until Jundiahy is reached, and that is interesting only as a railroad junction point. Here a change was made to the Paulista Railway, over which a ride of an hour takes the traveller to Campinas, a city once very flourishing because the centre of the coffee trade. During the past few years this town has declined, because the coffee production in this neighbourhood has greatly decreased. The city probably contains twenty-five thousand people, and is a typical Brazilian town—far more representative than its more successful rival of São Paulo. There are hundreds of acres of coffee trees still producing in the Campinas district, but they are not well kept, as it seems to be the general intention of abandoning it when the present trees cease to bear. I visited one plantation in this neighbourhood, the Fazenda da Lapa, and it was very interesting, because it was the first one that I had examined, but it cannot compare with the ones later to be described. The charming hospitality of these fazenderos is most captivating. On the visit to this plantation the owner served us a meal of fruit fit for a king’s table. It was in the early days of January, and we had oranges, bananas, figs, mangoes, pineapples, strawberries, plums and several varieties of grapes, all of them raised on the plantation, and most of which we had ourselves assisted in picking.