Cities.—The capital city is Rio de Janeiro, the second largest in South America. Next in importance is the city and seaport of Bahia (230,000), finely placed on an inlet of the Atlantic, the oldest city of Brazil. Pernambuco, also called Recife from a reef of rock which forms the natural breakwater of its harbor, is the fourth in population, being now surpassed by São Paulo, which ranks next to the capital (332,000). Maranhão, on an island of the north coast; Pará, in the Tocantins estuary; Rio Grande, and Santos are the other notable places along the Atlantic. In the interior the principal towns are Ouro Preto, in the gold mining region, and Diamantina, the center of the diamond fields. Cuyabá, in the interior, is important as being at the head of the regular navigation into Brazil by way of the Paraná and Paraguay rivers.
Rio de Janeiro (Ree´o deh Zha-nay´e-ro) stands on the west side of one of the most magnificent natural harbors in the world. An inlet of the Atlantic, the bay of Rio de Janeiro runs fifteen miles northwards, varying in width from two miles to seven; it is girdled on all sides by picturesque mountains (one thousand five hundred to three thousand feet), covered with tropical vegetation. The entrance, less than a mile wide, passes between two bold headlands, one of them called the Sugar-loaf (one thousand two hundred and seventy feet).
The city and its suburbs stretch nearly ten miles along the shore. About three miles southwest of the city stands the precipitous cone of Corcovado (two thousand three hundred and thirty-six feet), with a cog-railway up to the top. Public institutions are the vast hospital of La Misericordia; the national library with three hundred thousand volumes; the national museum; the large lunatic asylum; the botanical gardens, with a celebrated avenue of palms; the observatory; the Geographical and Historical institute; the former royal palace at Sāo Christovão, the arsenal, the naval dockyards, the academy of fine arts, a cadet-school, a school of medicine, a conservatory of music, a polytechnic school, etc. A good water supply, chiefly by an aqueduct twelve miles long, and a new system of sewage draining, much improved the city health; but surrounding hills shut out the breezes, and the heat grows intense in summer.
The population includes many foreigners: Portuguese, British, French, and Germans.
Rio de Janeiro is also the commercial capital, sending out one-sixth of the total exports of Brazil, and bringing in forty-five per cent of the imports. The chief export is coffee.
The whole sea frontage of the city is lined with quays, and has been improved by extensive new harbor works, embracing a dock of seventy-five acres, a breakwater three thousand two hundred yards long, an elevated railway, hydraulic cranes, warehouses, etc.
The city possesses cotton, jute, and silk mills, tobacco and hat factories, machine shops and tanneries.
History of Brazil.—As early as 1480, expeditions sailed from Europe in search of the island of Brasil, rumored to exist in the western seas. Brazil was discovered on January 26, 1500, by Vincent Yañez Pinzon, who landed at Cape St. Augustine, near Pernambuco, and then followed the coast north to the Orinoco. In the same year a Portuguese expedition to the East Indies, under Pedro Alvarez Cabral, discovered the Brazilian coast near Porto Seguro on April 25 (April 22, Cazal). Cabral took formal possession, and named his new discovery “Terra de Vera Cruz.” Two Portuguese expeditions were sent out in 1501 and 1503, the first exploring the coast, and the second planting a colony and bringing back a rich cargo of brazil-wood, which gave a name to Portugal’s new possession.
In 1530 the Portuguese government resolved upon the definite settlement of Brazil. Many of the earliest colonies failed through lack of means, and from inability to hold their ground against the natives. In 1567 a Huguenot colony, established on the bay of Rio de Janeiro twelve years before, was overthrown by the Portuguese, who then founded the present capital of Brazil.
The discovery of gold in Minas Geraes in 1693, and of diamonds in 1729, gave a new impetus to the growth of the country, one result of which was the removal of the colonial capital from Bahia to Rio de Janeiro. The cultivation of cotton, tobacco, and sugar cane had already attained great prominence and prosperity.