THE SÃO PAULO RAILWAY, NEAR SANTOS.
I have reserved for the last one of the most important, as well as one of the most interesting railroads in the world, the São Paulo Railway. This line is important, not from the amount of mileage, for it only runs from the port of Santos to Jundiahy, a distance of about one hundred miles, but because of the amount of freight shipped over it. It is the only railroad in the state of São Paulo running to the coast, and all the products of that state are shipped over it. Two-thirds or more of the world’s coffee is produced in Brazil, and of this three-fourths is shipped from this one port, and all of it hauled over this one road. As high as thirteen million sacks of coffee, weighing sixty kilograms each, have been shipped from this port in a single year. It has a monopoly of thirty-one kilometers on each side of the track. This restriction heretofore has prevented any other railroad from entering Santos, although both the Mogyana and the Sorocobana have surveyed routes and projected lines to it, because of the excessive freight rates charged. Both of the other roads are narrow gauge, and the expense of reloading for a short journey, and the rates demanded by this monopolistic line, are a big drain on the revenues of the other railroads.
The São Paulo Railway originally held a seven per cent. guarantee from the government, but this was long ago released. Its earnings have been so great in some years that the company did not know what to do with the surplus. It was allowed to pay only twelve per cent. to the stockholders, and the balance must either be paid to the state or the rates reduced. Unwilling to do either, this company has built fine stations where there are not more than a score of people, and has expended money in every way to keep down the net earnings under that sum. For six miles, soon after leaving Santos, the road climbs the Serra do Mar by means of cables. This is divided into four sections, each with its own power station. The trains are run in sections of three or four cars each, with an engine on each section. One section goes up as another comes down on each cable. A few years ago the traffic became so congested that it was necessary to construct a second roadway over the Serra, the one roadbed being considerably lower than the other. The mountainside is paved in some places to prevent landslides. Water courses and gullys of masonry and cement have been constructed everywhere to carry away the rain, which sometimes falls here with almost the force of a cloudburst. The road is well ballasted with a crushed stone found in the hills which is as hard as granite. The Luz station in the city of São Paulo, belonging to this company, is by far the finest station in South America, and one of the finest in the world. The railroad is owned by an English company, and the engines and equipment are distinctly English, and the entire track is built with the care and precision of an English railroad, with an overhead bridge or tunnel at each station to pass from the station on one side of the track to that on the other. The road has only one little branch in addition to the main line.
CHAPTER XIII
COFFEE
Brazil is not only the land where the nuts come from, but it is also the land where the world’s coffee comes from as well. Two-thirds, and possibly three-fourths, of all the coffee used in the world is produced by this one great country. It matters little whether your grocer labels your coffee Mocha, Java, or any other name, it is a pretty safe guess to say that it was raised in Brazil. Richer than gold have proven the stretches of red soil where this berry grows. This soil occurs at intervals from the state of Pernambuco south almost to Rio Grande do Sul, the southernmost state. Of Brazil’s production three-fourths or more is grown in the state of São Paulo, thus making the production of this one state alone more than half of the world’s production. Considering the enormous quantity of coffee consumed, this product and its cultivation in Brazil becomes of world-wide interest.
The name coffee is derived from Kaffa, a town in Arabia, where it was first grown. Coffee began to be introduced into Europe in the fifteenth century, where coffee houses were established and soon became very popular. In Turkey and England they later came under royal displeasure; in the former country, because the seduction of the beverage kept the people from the services of the mosque, and caused them to ignore the hours for prayer; in the latter, because the coffee houses were believed to be places of sedition, and disloyalty to the crown. In spite of royal displeasure and the restrictions of the government, however, the use of the coffee beverage continually grew, and the restrictive measures seemed to have little effect on its use.
About the middle of the eighteenth century the cultivation was introduced into the New World, in Guatemala, Mexico, the West Indies and Brazil. In the latter country it is said to have been introduced about 1761, by a deserter who came to that country and brought with him a few seeds. Its cultivation was, however, on a very small scale for a number of decades, but was gradually introduced into a number of states where it was found adapted to the soil. It was not until early in the nineteenth century that the cultivation of this plant on a large scale was begun at Campinas, and within a few years the production had reached an important figure. In the first year of that century it is said that two bags were sent to foreign markets from Brazil. A dozen years later the shipment of bags was numbered by the thousands, until, in 1817, the exports are reported to have been in excess of sixty thousand bags. The state of São Paulo from the very first took the lead in production of coffee, as the soil of that state seemed especially adapted to its cultivation. In this state alone, at the present time, it is estimated that there are nearly seven hundred millions of trees, and the annual production will average more than ten million sacks, or one billion three hundred and twenty million pounds of this berry. These figures will not be materially altered for several years, because of the restrictive legislation prohibiting the planting of new trees, which will be explained more in detail later.