Brazil. In presenting an account of this extensive and important country, the only American monarchy we shall give, first, a condensed view of its physical geography, meteorology, and natural products ; secondly, a brief historical sketch of the progressive discovery of its coasts and interior, of its gradual settlement, and of the auspices under which it social institutions have developed themselves ; and thirdly, an account of its existing political and social condition.

Brazil is bounded on the N. by Columbia or New Granada, Venezuela, and the Guianas, British, French, and Dutch ; on the E. by the Atlantic ; on the S. by the republics or Uruguay and the Argentine Confederation ; and on the W. by Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, an Ecuador. It extends from about 4&Mac251;N. lat. To 33&Mac251; 41 _S. lat ., and from 35&Mac251; to 70&Mac251; W. long. Its greatest length is about 2600 British miles, its greatest breadth about 2500 ; and it has a seaboard of about 4000 miles.

The original line of demarcation between the Portuguese and Spanish possessions was fixed by two bulls of Pope Alexander VI., the one of the 2d, the other of the 3d of May 1493. The kings of Castile and Potugal afterwards concluded the treaty of Torrizillas, which was approved by the Pope in 1529. The union of the two crowns in 1580 suspended all discussions about the boundaries. They however, recommenced after the revolution and independence of Portugal. The treaty of Utrecht in 1777 regulated many points, but the treaties always referred to rivers, mountains, and other positions passing through deserts, the names of which not well established. For sometime past the Government of Brazil has taken great pains to establish amicably with the neighbouring states the boundary lines of the empire. In 1851 these were established with the republic of Uruguay, 1857 with the Argentine Republic, in 1858 with Peru, in 1859 with Venezuela, in 1867 with Bolivia, and in 1872 with Paraguay ; the lines determined on have in some cases been already surveyed and marked out on the actual frontier, while at present mixed commissions from Brazil and each neighbouring country are employed in tracing out the other lines agreed upon.

With Uruguay the frontier has been marked out along a line passing from the coast in 33&Mac251; 41_ S. lat. Through the southern portion of Lake Mirim and along the River Jaguarão, which falls into its most southerly source stream, thence by a line crossing the head of the Rio Negro to the dividing ridge called the Cuchilla Sta. Anna, and afterwards down the stream of the Cuarein or Quarahim to the River Uruguay.

The Uruguay River, from the mouth of the Quarahim upwards to the confluence of the Pepiry on its right bank in 27&Mac251; 10_ lat. divides Brazil from the Argentine Republic, the remainder of the mutual frontier of these countries being formed by the Pepiry to its soure and the São Antonio from its rise to its union with the Y-Guasú or Curityba, which river marks the boundary to the Paraná.

Between Paraguay and Brazil the frontier runs from the mouth of the Y-Guasú up the Alto Paraná to the great fall of Guayrá, called Sete Quedas by the Brazilians, and from that westward along the water-parting of the Cordillera of Marajú, southward of the basin of the Igatimi, to the heights of Amambah_, and along these to the source of the Rio Apa-Estrella, following it down hence to the Paraguay.

With Bolivia the boundary lies along the Rio Paraguay from the mouth the of the Apa in 22°, upwards to 20º11´, where the Bahia Negra joins it ; along the Bahia Negra, and thence in a line to the lake of Cáceres, cutting through the midst of this lagoon, and passing onward to Lakes Mondioré, Baiba, and Uberaba, and from the last to the south end of the ridge called Corixa Grande ; from this in a direct line to Morro de Buenavista (Boavista), and to the sources of the Rio Verde ; along the middle of that stream to its mouth in the Guapore, and along that river and the Mamore to the Beni, where the Madeira begins in 10º 20´ S.; a direct line thence to the source of the Yavari River (found by Chandless in 1887 to be a little south of 7º S. lat.), forms the limit of Brazil with Northern Bolivia and Central Peru. The Yavari continues the boundary between Brazil and Peru down its channel to the confluence with the Amazon at Tabatinga, and the limits commisions has been at work during 1874 and 1875 in determining the position of this line. Farther on, the boundary of Brazil with Northern Peru has been described as a line passing northward from Tabatinga towards the mouth of the Rio Apaporis in the River Japura, the frontier with Peru terminating on this line where it intersects the Rio Putumayo, and that with Ecuador beginning there. From the mouth of the Apaporis the continuation of the limit with Columbia or New Granada to that with Venezuela follows a line drawn along the water-parting of the range called the Collina do Guaicia or Serra Aracuara, which divides the streams flowing to the Guainia, or Rio Negro, above the Casiquiáre, from those which join it below the anastomosis of that natural canal. This line meets the Rio Negro about 20 miles below the separation of the Casiquiáre. From the Sierra Cucuhy, or Pão d’ Azucar, on the opposite or left bank of the Rio Negro, the limit continues eastward over the level ground to the middle of the natural canal called the Maturacá, which in times of flood unites the Cababoris tributary of the Rio Negro with the Barria, a sub-tributary of the Casiquiáre channel. Hence the limit is drawn from the Maturacá to the hill of Cupi, the first of the long range of Serras which divide the waters flowing to the Amazon from those tributary to the Orinoco, and those passing through British, Dutch, and French Guiana to Atlantic. This boundary follows the curves of the water-parting eastward along the Tapirapecó and Parima ; eastward again along the Merevary and Pacaraima heights ; southward between the rivers Tacutu and Rupununy, and again generally eastward along the Serras of Acarahy and Tucuumuraque to the source of the River Oyapok. This river, from its source to the Atlantic in 4º 22´N. lat., is the present eastward limit of French Guiana. Several islets in the Atlantic belong to Brazil ; among them that of Fernanado Noroha, 250 miles from Cape S. Roque, high, and having about 6 square miles of area, is important as a penal settlement of the empire.

The immense territory comprised within the line just described and the Atlantic is upwards of 3,288,000 English square miles in area, or not far short of the extent of Europe.

The great river of the lowlands of Brazil, the Amazon, has been called the Mediterranean of South America, and is the largest stream of the globe in every respect, affording, with its great tributaries, free navigation over not less than 30,000 miles within Brazilian territory (see AMAZON).

After the Amazon the Tocantins is the great river of the northern watershed of Brazil. Rising in the Serra das Vertentes in Central Brazil, the Araguaya, its longer head stream, and the Tocantins flow nortward for 900 miles, separated by the Cordillera Grande of Goyaz, and unite at about 300 miles from their wide estuary, called the Rio Pará, formed between the island of Marajo and the mainland. Midway in its course the Araguaya forms the remarkable island called the Ilha Bananal or Santa Anna, which is encompassed by branches of the river 220 miles in length, and contains a central lake of 80 miles in extent.

The Araguaya is navigable, but the upper Tocantins is barred by falls, and there is a rapid at some distance below their confluence round which road has been recently made to unite the navigable portions.

The Turyassú, Maranhão, and Paranahyba are the largest of the other rivers of the north-eastern slope. The last named flows for the greater part of its course of 700 miles through level swampy lands, receiving many tributaries from eastward, but few from the west ;it is without obstructions, and navigable for a great distance.

The São Francisco occupies a wide enclosed basin of the eastern highland. Rising in the Serra do Espinhaço and the Vertentes of Minas Geraces, it flows north and eastward in a course of 1800 miles. But for a few obstacles the greater part of the river would be navigable, since it has great volume. The chief barrier is in the Falls of Paulo Affonso, about 168 miles from the sea, where the river is contracted between rocks, and plunges in a series of cascades into a narrow rock-impeded channel. Immediately below this, however, it spreads out as a broad clam river, which is regularly navigated by steamers from the Porto das Piranhas to the sea.

Among the rivers of the coast slope south of the São Francisco the chief are the Paraguasú, the largest stream of the province of Bahia, obstructed by many falls ; the Rio de Contas or Jussiapé, a considerable river in the south of the province, also innavigable ; the Belmonte or Jequitinhonha from the high mountains of Minas Geraes, interrupted by many rapids and cascades, and forming a series of magnificent falls over the eastern edge of the plateau, in which it descends at least 300 feet ; the Rio Doce or Chopotó in the province of Espiritu Santo, affording a considerable length of navigation, with portages at its reefs ; and the Parahyba do Sul, flowing between the Serra de Mantiqueira and the coast ranged of Rio de Janeiro, navigated regularly by steamers from its mouth for 60 miles to São Fidelio. Though these coast streams are among the little rivers of Brazil, every one of them is two or three times the length of the Thames.

The great rivers of the southern watershed are the Paraná and Parguay. The former has its rise in a broad basin, extending for a width of nearly 700 miles across southern Brazil, enclosed by the coast range of the south, the Serra da Mantiqueira, the Vertentes, and its southward interior branch running down into Paraguay. The main and longest head stream of the Paraná is called the Rio Grande or Pará, which rises in the Serra da Mantiqueira, one of its sources being on the slope of Itatiaiossú, the highest point of the whole empire, 110 miles north-west of Rio de Janeiro. The Paranahyba joins the Grande on the right from the Pireneous range in the north, and further on the Paraná-Panema, with its tributary the Tibagy, comes in on the left bank from the inner slopes of the south coast ranged ; the Rio Pardo, Ivinhima, and Igatimi are smaller tributaries on the left bank form the interior ranges. After the confluence of the Grande and Paranahyba the Paraná takes its proper name and flows southward out of Brazil in forming the limit between the empire and the republic of Paraguay. The fall of Urubupunga, 40 miles below the confluence of the Grande and Paranahyba, is an obstacle to the navigation of the upper river ; but thence to the great "salto" of Guayrá on the frontier of Parguay, in quedas, or Seven Falls, is the greatest cataract of Brazil. Immediately above it and below the large island which the Paraná forms between 23° and 24º the river is about 2_ miles in width ; its channel is contracted first in passing through a diagonal line of seven islands which stretches across it, and then between the walls of a rocky gorge only 65 yards in breadth, into which the whole mass of water plunges with terrific fury, descending over a slope inclined about 50º, and for a perpendicular height of about 60 feet. The roaring of the cataract may be heard for many leagues round. Below the fall, the river rushed down in a narrow bed with high cliff-the banks, only becoming less rapid and navigable with difficulty as it leaves the Brazilian frontier at the confluence of the Y-Guasú. This tributary, also named the Curityba, has a westward course to the Paraná, from many heads in the inner side of the south coast range, and like all the tributraries of the Paraná between it and the great fall, descends into the deep gorge of the main river by a fine waterfall of 66 feet.

The River Paraguay, the upper basin of which lies in a much lower region of continent, in the south-western interior of Brazil, is far superior to the Paraná in respect of its navigable qualities, and in the grand natural outlet it affords to the southward. Its sources are in several small lakes on the southern slope of the Serra das Vertentes, between 13º and 14º S., immediately opposite the head streams of the Tapajos, and it flows thence southward, fed by many lateral streams from the range. Its important tributary the Cuyabá, or São Lourenço, rises not far east of the Parguay, but does not join it until both have passed about 400 miles south. The Taquari, the Mondego, and the Apa, the boundary river of Brazil and Paraguay, are important tributaries from the range which divides the basins of the Paraguay and Paraná ; and from the hills of eastern Bolivia the San Juan and bahia Negra join the Paraguay on the right bank. Throughout its course the Paraguay affords uninterrupted navigation, and is regularly traversed by large Brazilian steamers from the Rio de la Plata to Curumbá, in the province of Matto Grosso, and distance of about 1000 miles in direct line from Buenos Ayres. Thence smaller vessels carry on a regular traffic for 300 miles further, by the São Lourenço tributary, to Cuyabá in the very heart of inner Brazil. An immense tract of the low country on each side of the upper Paraguay, called the Xarayes, between 17º and 19º lat., is subject to inundation in times of flood.

While the Amazon begins to rise in February on March, and is at its highest flood in June, the Paraná is irregular in its rising, but has its greatest volume in December, and the Paraguay, regularly swelling and falling, is highest in June.

The surface of Brazil in respect to its elevation is divided into the higher region of plateaus, ridges, and broad open valleys, occupying the whole of the country south of the parallel of Cape S. Roque, and the vast lowland plain of the Amazon, extending inland to the base of the Andes of Peru, Equador, and Columbia, and rising again in the extreme north to the ranges form the boundary with Venezuela and Guiana.

The nucleus of the mountains and plateaus of southern Brazil is not centrally placed, but is formed by the chains named the Serra da Mantiqueira and Serra do Espinhaço which extend between 18º and 23º south lat., at a varying distance of from 100 to 200 miles from the south-east coast. These are the highest and most important mountains of Brazil, from which the other ranges and plateaus radiate outwards north, west, and south ; one of the summits of the Serra a Mantiqueira is the Pico do Itatiaiossú, which is almost certainly the culminating point of Brazil, but the elevation of its peak has been very variously estimated and measured at from 6250 to 8900 and 10,300 feet. Itacolumi, near the town of Ouro Preto, reaching about 5700 feet, and Itambe in the north of the Serra do Espinhaço, 4300 feet, are the other high points of these ranges. The southern coastall ranged, or the Serra do Mar, begins immediately north of the Bay of Rio de Janeiro, where the Orãgos or Organ Mountairrns, with sharp peaks, rise to perhaps 7500 feet, and follows the line of the shore southward at varying distances from it to near the 30th parallel. The line of the Serra de Espinhaço is prolonged norhtward by another maritime chain or plateau edge, more distant from the ocean, forming the eastern barrier of the great valley of the Rio São Francisco, and terminating where the river turus eastward to reach the sea.

A range of high plateaus, probably from 3000 to 4000 feet in general elevation, and named collectively the Serra das Vertentes, or the range of the watersheds, but bearing a multitude of different names in its sections and branches, extends westward from the Serra do Espinhaço, nearly at right angles to its direction, traversing the entire country in curving lines inland for upwards of 2000 miles to where the plateaus of Brazil terminate on the great bend, and the cataracts, of the Rio Madeira. This very extensive ranges divides the waters flowing northward to the lower Amazon and to the Atlantic shores of the north-east, from those tributary to the great basins of the Paraguay and Paraná in the south. Its highest known portion is that called the Montes Pyreneos, between the heads of the Tocantins and Paranahyba in the province of Goyaz, one of the summits of which has been found to be perhaps 9600 feet above the sea (H. R. Dos Genettes, 1868). Long branches ramify northward and southward from the Vertentes ; the principal of those trending northward is that which, leaving the main line of division at the Pyreneos, curves round the basin of the São Francisco, terminating in many minor branches on the coast on each side of Cape S. Roque. A lateral branch from this divides the streams of the Tocantins and of the northern Paranahyba. Farther west the Cordillera Grande of Goyaz runs north from the Vertentes, separating the Araguaya and Tocantins, and still more inland minor ranges mark out the basins of the Xingu and Tapajos. A southward arm of the Vertentes, or rather a series of plateaus extending from it, divide the Paraguay from the Alto Paranã, and run into Paraguay as the heights of Amambah_, which have an elevation of little over 2000 feet above the sea where they cross the frontier. These are the main lines of height, but over the whole of the plateau of Southern Brazil a great number of lesser ridges run out from these between each of the tributary river basins.

The extremely level character of the great northern lowlands may be judged of by this, that banks of the Amazon where it enters Brazil at Tabatinga, more than 1500 miles in a direct line from the sea, are not more than 250 feet above the ocean level, and a continuous navigation is afforded by its tributary the Rio Negro, the Casiquiare, and the Orinoco, the northern coast of the continent.

The great constituent of all the mountains ranges of the southern highlands of Brazil appears to be gneiss, varying from schistose to coarse-grained and porphyritic, or homogeneous and granitic ; and though much of it if seen in a small specimen would be and has been described as granite, the larger masses are always stratified. These rocks are of great thickness in the province of Rio, and the Serra do Mar and Serra da Mantiqueira are wholly composed of them ; not only does gniess form the great coast belt from Maranhão to the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, but it sends off a band into Minas Geraes and Goyaz, where the Pyreneos range and a great part of the mountain region are composed of it. The same rock shows itself in the cataracts of the Tocantins, Xingu, Tapajos, and Madeira, as well as in the Parima Mountains north of the Amazon basin, showing that the high land of Brazil is probably everywhere underlaid by it. Clay-slates with auriferous veins occur in Minas Geraes and in the vicinity of Cuyabá in Matto Grosso, everywhere so metamorphosed that all trace of fossils has been obliterated. True Carboniferous strata occur in Brazil, the coal basins lying just south of the tropic, and being a coast-formation not known northward of Rio. Carboniferous rocks also occur on the Guapore, a tributary of the Madeira on the Bolivian frontier. Red sandstones occupy a large area in the province of Sergipe, underlying the Cretaceous formation. The Jurassic rocks, which extend on the Andes from Chili to Peru, appear to be altogether wanting in Brazil. Cretaceous rocks very probably underlie the great plain of the Amazon ; they do appear on the coast south of the Abrolhos rocks in 18º S., but they occur at intervals northward, and have been examined on an affluent of the River Purus in the upper basin of the Amazon. These appear to have been deposited at a period when the northern part of Brazil was more depressed, while the southern may have been higher than it is now. Tertiary clays and ferruginous sandstone, in horizontal and undisturbed beds, overlie the Cretaceous rocks unconformably on the coast plains outside the plateaus and in the Sao Francisco valley ; the horizontal deposits of the plateau of São Paulo evidently belong to the same group.

Surface "drift" deposits, ascribed with the greater amount of probability to the agency of glacial ice, though the hypothesis has been much disputed, occur as a great sheet of pebbles and overlying clay, extending over an immense area of the empire,— over the whole of the provinces south of Rio, over Minas Geraes in the north-eastern coast provinces, and in the valley of the Amazon westward to the confines of Peru, and not only on the hills but over the lower "campus." Deposits of immense boulders of trap and gneiss, evidently the moraines of former local glaciers, were first described by Professor Agassiz, who found them at many points along the coast land.

True coral reefs occur at irregular intervals along the northern Brazillian coast from the Abrolhos islets, which rise on the submerged border of the continent from a less depth than 100 feet, as far as the shores of Maranhão. They lie in patches at short distances from the coast, leaving navigable channels between them and the mainland. Another class of reefs, also termed "recifes," but of totally different origin, are the consolidated stone beaches, such as those seen at Porto Seguro, Bahia, and Pernambuco (where the reaf forms the breakwater of the harbour) ; these are of precisely uniform character, and have been described by Professor Hartt as the consolidated cores of an ancient beach which has been separated from the mainland by the encroachment of the sea. (Geology and Physical Geography of Brazil, by Ch. Fred, Hartt, 1870.) The limestones of the upper São Francisco basin have celebrated bone caverns, which have been made a special object of study by the Danish naturalist Lund. In some of these remains of extinct animals of high antiquity have been found, such as those of the mastodon, glyptodon, mylodon, toxodon, and megatherium ; and with these the stone implements and remains of main, so buried with the bones of the extinct fauna as to leave no doubt that man was contemporaneous with them.

No volcanic appearances have been observed in Brazil. Warm springs occur in several provinces ; those of Itapi curú in the provinces of Bahis have temperatures varying from 88º to 106º Fahr. and are saline ; the hot springs of pure what in Santa Catharina ranged from 96º to 113º Fahr., and there are a great number of alkaline springs about the district of Santa Cruz, in the provinces of Goyaz, ranging up to 119º in temperature. Near the village of Caldas in Minas Geraes the hot wells are very voluminous, and their somewhat sulphurous waters have temperature between 106º and 113º Fahr. These are at an elevation of about 6000 feet above the sea. The metallic and mineral products which occur in the geological formations above described are very various Diamonds were first discovered in the Serra do Espinhaço, in the vicinity of Diamantina, about 300 miles north of Rio, in 1786. In this neighbourhood there are shales, sandstones, and conglomerates ; upon the sandstone there is or was a stratum of quartzite, still very distinct in many places, and among the sands created by the disintegration of this rock, diamonds are found. This district is named the Chapada of Diamantina, a term applied to small elevated plateaus, usually consisting of horizontal deposits, and separated by deeply eroded valleys. The diamond-producing soil extends along the Serra do Espinhaço as far as the northern borders of the provinces of Minas, along the valley of the upper Belmonte, and in the interior of the provinces of Bahia, as well as in the mountains that lie south-west of the sources of the São Francisco, Diamonds of smaller value have also been found in the province of Goyaz (on the Rio Claro) ; in Matto Grosso, where the valley of the Paraguay about Cuyabá and Diamantino has diamonds in considerable abundance ; in Paraná, on the Rio Tibagy, a tributary of the Paraná-Panema ; in São Pedro do Rio Grande do Sul ; and in São Paulo ;—but the area of their distribution is far from being well ascertained. The diamonds are generally obtained by washing ; an excavation is made to reach the stratum called cascalho, a gravel composed principally of quartz and fragments of different rocks of the neighbourhood, and mixed with a reddish clay. The washers are seated either by a pond or running stream, and a portion of the gravel, being thrown into a large shallow wooden pan, is mixed with water and stirred about in the current, so that the muddy water escapes and the gravel and sand remain. This is now passed through a sieve, which separates the larger gravel from the smaller ; the pebbles are the picked out, and the overseer examining the sand easily selects any diamonds that may be present. The diamonds are often of considerable size. Burton mentions one found in the Chapada of Bahia weighing 76 _ and carats, which when cut into a dropshaped brilliant proved to possess extraordinary play and lustre. Emeralds, sapphires, rubies, topazes, beryls, tourmalines (black, blue, or green), and amethysts are found, especially in the provinces of Minas Geraes. Garnets occurs in great profusion, though of inferior quality. Rock crystals, perfectly pure and of large size, are obtained in Minas, Goyaz, São Paulo, and Paraná ; opals, chalcedonies, agates and carnelians are found nearly throughout the country, but have become an article of export chiefly from the banks of the Uruguay, in the province of Rio Grande do Sul.

One of the Brazilian coal basins lies in the province of Santa Catharina, between the plateau and the sea ; and along the banks of the Tubarão, beds of bituminous coal of fair quality are exposed, and were first noticed in 1841. Three separate coal-fields have been traced in the province of Rio Grande do Sul : the largest is situated in the valley of the Jaguarão (the boundary river with Uruguay), and in that of the Candiota, covering an area of about 50 miles by 30 miles ; the second occurs in the valley of a tributary of the Rio Jacuahy, near the centre of the province ; and a third near the village of São Jeronymo, on the bank of the Jacuahy. The Candiota field is now being worked by an English company. At the Arroyo dos Ratos in the same province, mines have been worked on a small scale, the coal from which is used by the steam-boats which is used by the steam-boats which ply on the Lagoa dos Patos, or on the rivers. Bitumen is found in most of the provinces, and is worked near the south coast of the province of Bahia.

Sulphur exists in a native state in the provinces of Rio Grande do Norte, and in small quantity in Rio Grande do Sul, as well as at Furquim and Corrego do Ouro, in the district of Minas Novas in Minas Geraes. Saltpetre occurs with salt over a large are of Minas Geraes and Bahia, but is also abundantly formed in the floors of the calcareous caves of the Rio São Francisco valley from the city of Ouro Preto downwards. Saline efflorescence is observed at innumerable localities in the drier portions of the Brazilian plateau ; efflorescences of nearly pure sulphate of magnesia are also to be found in the valley of the Rio das Velhas in the São Francisco basin, and in the province of Ceará, where chloride of sodium also appear.
Gold in Brazil is found in quartz veins traversing the old metamorphic rocks, such as clay-slate, mica-slate, or iron schist, in drift gravels and clays, and in alluvial sands and gravels derived from the wear of these. Most gold is afforded by the clay-slates traversed by auriferous quartz lodes, by the rock called Itacolumite (metamorphic rock of Lower Silurian age), and by certain iron ores known as Itabirite and Jacutinga, the latter described by Burton as a substances composed of micaceaus iron schist and friable quartz, mixed with specular iron oxide of manganese and fragments of talc. Over a very large are of the province of Minas Geraes, in the vicinity of Ouro Preto, the country is auriferous, and here are the richest gold mines of Brazil. The celebrated Morro Velho mine is situated on the western side of the valley of the Rio das Velhas, not far from Sabará, and was at first worked by native miners, but afterwards with great success by a company. The mines of Gongo Soco lie about 20 miles east of Morro Velho, on the opposite side of the Velhas, and were at one time very productive. Another company owns a tract of 21 square miles, not far from the Morro Velho. Other mines have been worked in this neighbourhood at the Morro de Sta Anna, at Maquiné near it, and in the Serra of Cata Branca, 2 miles east of the village of Corrego Seco. These mines with two exceptions have proved failures in working, after a period of success, and this notoriously from bad management. The mines, however, are very far from being exhausted ; indeed the underground wealth of the country is as yet almost untouched. Much of the remaining portion of the province of Minas, and especially the upper basin of the São Francisco, is auriferous. In Northern Brazil the only gold mine yet opened is that of Tury-assú in the province of Maranhão ; but concessions for working gold have been granted by Government in many parts of the provinces of Bahia, Pernambuco, Parahyba, Piauhy, Goyaz, Ceará, and S. Paulo. In southern Brazil gold is known at Caçapava, Rio Pardo, Sta. Maria, and Cruz Alta, in the provinces of Rio Grande do Sul ; and at the first-named locality a Brazilian company is carrying on the work of mining. Gold washings occur in almost every province, but especially in the district of Minas Novas, 200 miles north of Ouro Preto, where the metal in found in grains or nuggets in a cascalho of quartz pebbles, often cemented into a conglomerate by iron oxide. They are carried on, however, in the rudest and most irregular way, and with more modern appliances might prove very remunerative.

The gold of Brazil is always alloyed with silver, and this metal is preset in many of the galenic formations which are known in almost every province, as well as with the copper in the mines of Rio Grande do Sul. At the hill of Araçoiva, in the municipality of Sorocaba in São Paulo, silver was extracted nearly two centuries ago. Rich mines of mercury occur in the province of Paraná not far from the capital. Copper is abundant in the provinces of Matto Grosso, Goyaz, and Minas, near the capital of Bahia, in Maranhão and Ceará, but chiefly in Rio Grande do Sul, where at Santo Antoino das Lavras, in the municipality of Caçapava, there are the richest copper mines of Brazil, the mineral from which yields 60 per cent. of pure metal.

Manganese exists in abundance in the vicinity of Nazareth, at the head of estuary of the Jaguaripe, adjoining the bay of Bahia. Galena mines are in operation in many parts of the empire ; the chief are those of Iporanga, Sorocaba, Iguapé in the province of São Paulo, and those of the Rio Abaeté and Sete Lagõas, the mostr productive of all, in the province of Minas. Lead mines also exist along the whole coastal region from Santa Catharina to Maranhão, those of the hill Ibiapaba on the borders of Ceará and Piauhy being important.

Every part of Brazil contains iron, in or in other forms, and an almost unlimited quantity appears to exist in the mountains of Minas Geraes. At São João de Ipanéma, in S. Paulo, there are heavy deposits of magnetic iron, which are mined and smelted almost on the spot ; and other seams of like character appear in the provinces of Alagõas, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, and Parahyba. Some of the Brazilian mines are quit free from pyrites. In 1810 a company of Swedish miners and founders settled at Ipanéma, and erected two small refining furnaces. In 1817 they produced nearly 4000 of iron, which was manufactured on the spot into horses shoes, nails, locks, and other articles. There is now a very considerable establishment, at which moulding and refining is carried on, the woods of the neighbourhood furnishing an abundant supply of charcoal. A railway is projected to unite the works with S. Paulo and its port. Not far from these mines there are extensive quarries of marble of valuabel sorts.

A country so extensive as Brazil, and so diversified in its surface, necesaril exhibits a considerable variety of climate. The great northern lowland lying entirely within the tropics has great heat, and its divided between the simple wet and dry seasons. The elevations of the central and southern highland of Brazil introduces great variety in the seasons and climates of the intertropical protion of that region ; and towards the south beyond the tropic a temperate zone is which four seasons are marked, though not so distinctly as in central Europe. The whole wide plain of the Amazon basin has its rainy season from January or December till May or June, the remaining half of the year being dry, though intervals of fine weather may occur within the wet period, and of showers in the dry season. The fall during the rainy months is excessive, raising the level of the great full 40 feet, and much thunder and lightning always accompanies the heavy rain. This belt of single rainy and dry season appears to terminate about the line of the River Parahyba, between the provinces of Maranhão and Piauhy ; at the town of Maranhão the annual fall has been found to be on an average 280 inches . Inland, across the higher southern watershed of the Amazon, from the interior of the provinces of Maranhão and Piauhy, over Goyaz and northern Matto Grosso as far as the falls of the Madeira, the rainy seasons follow the passage of the sun towards and away from the southern tropic, and occur from October or November to March or April, with more or less marked intervals of drier weather.

In lower Maranhão showers also occur in October, and are called the ‘Cashew rains.’ On the north-east coast slope, in the provinces of Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, and northern Bahia, the rains appear to be governed by the prevalence of the north-east winds from the Atlantic, and occur from March or April to June, July, or August. The coastal region from southern Bahia to São Paulo and the double rainy season between October and April or May ; the heaviest rains occur in the São Francisco valley from January to May, the highest freshets of the river being in March ; the coast rivers, such ads the Rio Doce, rise first in December, and again to an almost equal swelling in March. At Pernambuco the amount of the annual rainfall is upwards of 100 inches ; at Rio de Janeiro it has decrease to 59 inches, and a gradual diminution of the quantity is observed from the Amazon southward. In São Paulo the rainy season is, in summer, from November till April the greatest quantity of rain falling in January. In Sta. Catharina the rains begin to be irregular, and from this to the southward over Rio Grande do Sul four seasons of the temperate zone begin to be distinguishable. The whole country is, as a rule, abundantly watered, the only portion which many suffer from drought being that of the interior between the São Francisco and the Paranahyba, where extraordinary dryness has sometimes prevailed.

In temperature the vast Amazon basin is remarkable for the small seasonal variation of heat, accounted for by its equatorial position and immense surface of water and forest ; within its limits the thermometer at its highest readings averages 90º and the lowest 75º. At Pará the register kept by Costa Azevedo between 1861 and 1867 gave a mean temperature of 80º, a maximum of 95º, and a minimum of 68º. Observations are very deficient for the greater portion of the empire. About the Falls of the Madeira, Keller estimates the mean annual temperature 77º, with but small variation in the seasons. In the latitude of Rio de Janeiro the summer or January temperature near the sea-level has an average of about 75º, that of July descending to about 65º ; and in the extreme southern provinces the corresponding figures may fall to 70º and 50º Fahr. in summer and winter. But an immerse variety of temperature and climatic condition are found on the central and southern table-lands and mountains ranges of Brazil, from the hot and humid air of the coast to the mountains where in winter it frequently snows, and where lakes may be coating of ice. In the high plains of Rio Grande and São Paulo the thermometer may also fall to below the freezing point.

The prevalent winds of the greater portion of Brazil are the trade-winds from the east, which, gathering the vapours from the whole breadth of the equatorial Atlantic, give out their excessive moisture over the northern forest plains of the Amazon, reaching inland as far as the high wall of the Andes. The east winds are strongest in the Amazon valley from July till November, mitigating the heat of the dry season. On the maritime regions of central Brazil the north-east or south-east trades prevail according to season. In the interior the general winds take a more north and south direction, blowing usually from the south when the sun is in the northern tropic and from the north during summer. Land and sea breezes are very constant along the coasts. At the mouth of the São Francisco, for example, the morning is still and calm ; about nine o’clock a breeze steals over the water, rippling its surface and gradually increasing to a stiff wind about noon ; the breeze continues steadily till night-fall, when it again falls calm.

With the exception of the marshy banks of some of the rivers and the lowlands and swamps, where intermittent fevers are very prevalent, the country is generally healthy. On the sea-coast and inland in some of the maritime provinces, epidemics of yellow fever and cholera morbus have been experienced since 1850. The mortality in the most populous towns of Brazil is not, however, above but rather below that of the large cities of Europe.

The broadly-marked features given to the landscape by the vegetations of different characters in Brazil are distinguished by several names. Mattas or heavy forests cover the immense northern lowland which is watered by excessive rains, and these occur also in belts of greater or less width over the lower portions of the central and southern region. Catinga is the general name applied to the lower growing and open woods of the slopes of the Brazilian highland which lose their leaves in the dry season. These merge into the wide open plains or gently rounded hills and ridges, covered with grass of scattered bushes, which are called the Campos geraes. The systematic burning over of these great grass lands, to allow the young crop to appear, has completely destroyed in them all trees and shrubs which cannot bear the scorching, and so has wrought a great alternation in the flora of these regions. The name Sertão, meaning originally the interior as distinguished from the maritime country, has come to be applied to dry, hilly, and stony districts of the campos only suited for pasture. To the agricultural coast belt of the eastern provinces the name Beira mar is given.

Except on the loftiest mountains, and on the wide sertãos, the vegetation of Brazil is luxuriant beyond description. In the mountain passed in the neighbourhood of the sea-shore, the conjoint effects of heat and moisture produce a superfluity of vegetable life, which man’s utmost efforts cannot restrain. Trees split for paling in the neighbourhood of Rio Janeiro send forth shoots and branches immediately, and this whether the position of the fragments be that in which they originally grew, or inverted. On the banks of the loftiest trees destroy each other by their proximity, and are bound together by rich and multiform lianes. In the province of Maranhão, the roots, grasses, and other plants extending from the shores of pools, weaves themselves in time into a kind of vegetable bridge, along which the passenger treads, unaware that he left the firm earth, until the jaws of a cayman protrude through the herbage before him. The vegetable productions of Brazil have a strong analogy with those of Guiana. The most common are the Compositae, Leguminosae, Euphorbiaceae, Rubiaceae, Aroideae, and ferns of the most varied forms. The vegetation of the valleys differs from that of the campos, as it again does from that which occurs in the sertãos. Along the coast, the mangroves are the most numerous and prominent species. The most marked peculiarity of this class of plant is, that the seeds begin to shoot before they drop from the parent plant, and that the drooping branches strike roots into the soil. They are never found inland except where the surface is scarcely elevated above the level of the sea. They flourish from Rio Grande do Sul to Maranhão, converting the land into a morass wherever they are allowed to flourished unmolested. Immediately behind them numerous families of palms raise their graceful heads. The underwood in the neighbourhood of Rio Janeiro consists principally of crotons. Every large river of Brazil has its own appropriate to its banks. The vegetation of the Amazon may be divided into three classes ;—(1) that which we find on the islands, (2) the vegetation upon the banks overflowed at regular intervals by the stream, and (3) that which stands high and dry. The difference between them consists in the character of the bark and the species of the plants. Brushwood and herbage are nowhere to be seen ; everything tends to the gigantic in size. The most various forms group awkwardly together, crossed and intertwined with leaves. The preponderance of trees with feathery foliage, and with glossy, flesh leaves, lends alternately a tender and a luxuriant character to the scene, which is in every other respect painful from its monotony. Representatives of the respect painful from its monotony. Representatives of the most estranged natural families grow side by side. It is only on the islands, where the willow and some other plants are found in numbers, that we are reminded of the uniformity of our northern vegetation. Cocoa trees and the vanilla, Capsicum frutescens, and different kinds of pepper, the cinnamon trees, and Brazilian cassia abound. The flora of all the tributaries of the Amazon is similar to what we have described, until the traveller ascends above the falls, and finds himself in another region. The sources of the Madeira alone offer a partial exception, retaining a vegetation indicative of extensive plains, lakes, and morasses. The vegetation of the southern campos (corresponding to the North American prairies) is widely different. On the plains of the southern provinces we find scattered about strong tufts of greyish-green and hairy grasses, springing from the red clay. Mingled with these are numerous herbaceous flower, of the most varied colours and elegant forms. At intervals small groves of trees, seldom exceeding 20 feet in height, so distant that the individual form of each is easily recognized, with spreading fantastic branches and pale green leaves, break the monotony of the scene. Solitary myrtles, numerous varieties of pleasing fruits and now and then a cactus, add to the variety. A similar vegetation, but with a richer variety of plants, occurs in the diamond district. On the western declivity of the Serra do Mar, and along the upper banks of the Rio São Francisco, extends a wooded "catinga" country, of a character entirely different from that which is found in the valleys below. Malvoe, Euphorbiaceae, Mimosoe, and the like, are the prevailing types on the Rio Francisco ; cactuses, palms, and ferns abound on the Serra do Mar. In this latter district the ipecacuanha flourished best. It is, however, in the glowing steppes of Pernambuco that we find the cactus predominant. In the valley of the Paraguay the most striking feature is presented by the water plants, which in one river are sufficiently strong to impede the navigation of a stream both deep and broad.

The forests of Brazil contain almost every species of useful and ornamental wood. The coca-tree is found in great quantities in the provinces of the sea-shore, and furnishes one of the important items of internal commerce. A considerable surplus of cocoa is annually exported. One of the most valuable sorts of timber is furnished by the Ibiripitanga or Brazi-woo (Coesalpinia brasiliensis), which yields a fine red dye. The wooed itself is very hared and heavy and takes a beautiful polish. It grew at one time in great abundance along the coast ; but being a Government monopoly (thence called pao da rainho, Queen’s wood), it was cut down in a reckless manner, and is now by no means so abundant as it once was. The other trees most worthy of mention are the jaracandá or rosewood tree, the trumpet-tree (Secropia peltata), the laurel, the soap-tree the tapia or garlic pear-tree, and the whole family of palms. Of these the Carbauba Palm (Copernicia cerifera), which grows in the north-east coastal province, is perhaps the most useful tree of Brazil ; every part of it is valuable, an the wax yielded by its leaves is now a considerable article of trade. Not least important is the Siphonia elastica, or caoutchouc tree, which during the season is tapped every day, and furnishes in considerable quantities a gum which is poured into moulds ; the export of this product from Brazil averages a value of more than £1,000,000 annually. The banana is one of the most useful of all the trees that grow in Brazil, and its fruit is the chief food of the native Indians. The fruit is the chief food of the native Indians. The fruits of Brazil are numerous and excellent. The best of these are the pine-apple, the mango, the custard-apple, the guava, and the various kinds of melons and nuts.





In an empire of such vast extent as Brazil, embracing as it does every variety of temperature and elevation, the value and importance of the agricultural products cannot fail to be very great. So small, however, is the number of farmers, compared with the extent of the soil, that it is believed that not one acre in 200 is under cultivation. In some provinces, especially those near the sea the quantity of grain raised is not sufficient to supply the demand, and thus large quantities of wheat are annually imported from the United States. The reason of this is that the soil under tillage is occupied in the production of articles for foreign markets. The chief products of Brazil are coffee, sugar, cotton, manioc or cassava flour, tobacco, rice, maize, fruits, and spices. Of these by far the most important now is coffee, while sugar ranks next in value, and cotton after sugar. The coffee plant, introduced from Arabia into the French colony of Cayenne in 1722, was soon after brought to Brazil ; but it was not until 1810 that Brazilian coffee came to be highly valued in the European markets. In the year, however, Dr Lecesne, a planter, expelled by the revolution from San Domingo, settled near Rio, and introduced the most improved methods of rearing the coffee-plant. So successful has the result of the new system been, that its cultivation now extends from the Amazon to São Paulo ; and whereas in 1818 the annual exports of coffee did not amount in value to £240,000, in 1873 the exports were worth nearly £13,000,000. The cultivation of sugar has nor increased nearly in the same proportion as that of coffee, and in recent years a disease of the cane has affected the cultivation seriously. It is produced in greatest quantity in the districts adjoining Bahia. The quantity of sugar exported in 1850 was 16, 299 bales, representing a value of about £1,700,000 ; in 1873 the value of the exports was £3,120,000. Cotton is found to thrive best in the dry table-lands of the northern provinces, especially in Maranhão and Pernambuco. Its quality considered excellent ; but the rude and expensive method of its culture, and the high rates of carriage in these districts, operate very unfavourbly for this branch of traffic. The annual value of cotton exported is not much above £3,000,000. The Ilex curitibensis, and other varieties of the holly, which yields the yerba maté, or Paraguay tea, are indigenous to the southern provinces of Rio Grande, Santa Catharina, and Paraná. Some attempts have been made towards the cultivation of this product, but the greater part of the tea is rudely made from the tree in its wild state in the woods. The amount annually exported to the River Plate averages between £300,000 to £400,000 in value. Tobacco is chiefly cultivated in the provinces of Bahia, Minas, S. Paulo, and Pará, and in some localities of Rio de Janeiro. Though it is inferior in quality to that of the West Indies, it is exported to the value of between £700,000 and £800,00 annually. The cultivation of cocoa, hitherto obtained from the valleys of the Amazon and Tocantins, is increasing in the provinces of Bahia and Ceará. Rice grows in considerable quantities, and not being much used by the natives for food, a large surplus remains for exportation. The cassava or manioc is extensively grown and forms the staple food of the lower classes. The root, which is the part of the plant used for this purpose, contains a deadly poison. It is easily expelled, however, by the action of fire, and the residuum is ground into a wholesome and nutritious flour or farina. Tapioca, which is extensively used in Europe, is a preparation of the starch from the root of the cassava.

The varieties of animated life in Brazil are more numerous perhaps than in any other region in the world. Of beasts of prey, the most formidable are the jaguar or South American tiger, the ocelot, the tiger-cat, the puma, the guará or red wolf, and the Brazilian fox or wild dog. Large herds of the peccary roam in the forests, in which is to be found the tapir or anta, the largest South American mammal. The capivara, or water hog, abundant on the river banks, in the largest known rodent. Diverse species of deer inhabit the campos ; representing the Edentata there are several species of armadillos and ant-eaters, and the sloths ; and the Marsupialia, several species of opossum occurring over the whole of Brazil. The varieties of the monkey tribe that abound in the forests appear to be almost infinite. The largest belong to the genus Stentor, including the guaribas or howling monkeys. The Simia jacchus has never been seen elsewhere. There are several varieties of bats, of which the Vespertilio leporinus and the V. spectrum are the largest. No less immense is the variety of birds, from the ouira, an eagle far larger than our most powerful birds of prey, to the humming-bird, no larger than a bee. The rhea, a species of ostrich, is found in Brazil. The Brazilian birds are celebrated for the beauty of their plumage. "Red, blue, and green parrots," says Malte-Brun, "frequent the tops of trees. The gallinaceous jacús, the hocos, and different kinds of pigions, haunt the words. The orioles resort to the orange groves ; and their sentinels, stationed at a distance, announce with a screaming noise the approach of man. Chattering manakins mislead the hunter ; and the metallic tones of the uraponga resound through the forest like the strokes of a hammer on a anvil. The toucan (Ramphastos) is prized for its feathers, which are of a lemon and bright red colour, with transverse stripes reaching to the extremities of the wings. The different species of humming birds are more numerous in Brazil than in any other country of America. One sort is called by the people the Gnanthe engera or winged flower." Snakes of every kind abound in the marshy districts, some of which, such as the rattlesnake and the jararaca, are remarkably venomous ; while others, such as the boas, attain an enormous size and strength. A vast number of troublesome insects infest the margins of all the great rivers. Of these the most formidable is the puim, which is so small as to be scarcely visible, and inflicts a most painful and even dangerous bite. The red ant is peculiarly destructive to vegetation, and whole districts are sometimes laid waste by its ravages. The spider here attains an enormous size, but is not so venomous as might be expected from its appearance. The gavest butterflies flutter the air,—the blue shining Menelaus, the Adonis, the Nestor, and the Laertes. More than ten species of wild bees have been observed in the woods, and the greater number produce honey. The Cactus coccinellifer, and the insect peculiar to it, are found in the province of S. Paulo. Lizards and caymans abound. The quantity of turtle in the Amazon and its principal tributaries is almost incredible. The waters swarm with fish in thousands of species, many of which have not yet been described. Among the largest is the Pira rucú, the principal food of large numbers of the people of Pará and Amazonas. Of domestic animals, the most important are the horse, the ox, and the sheep. Vast numbers of horses, sprung from the original European stock, roam at large over the extensive plains of the southern provinces. They are generally found in droves of twenty or thirty. Oxen are also allowed to wander half wild. They are hunted down with the lasso in great numbers, and the valued chiefly on account of their hides, horns, and tallow, which are exported in immense quantities. The chief cattle-breeding districts of Brazil are the island of Marajo in Pará, Goyaz, Matto Grosso, Piauhy, S. Paulo, Minas, Paraná, and Rio Grande dol Sul. Sheep do not thrive in Brazil at al so well as the larger kinds of cattle.



Brazil was discovered in 1499 by Vincent Yañez Pinçon, a companion of Columbus. He described the land near Cape St Augustine, and sailed along the coast as far as the River Amazon, whence he proceeded to the mouth of the Orinoco. He made no settlement, but took possession of the country in the name of the Spanish Government, and carried home, as specimens of its natural productions, some drugs, gems, and Brazil-wood. Next year the Portuguese commander, Pedro Alvarez Cabral, appointed by his monarch to follow the course of Vasco de Gama in the East, was driven by adverse winds so far from his track, that he reached the Brazilian coast, April 24, and anchored in Porto Seguro (16º S. lat.) on Good Friday. On Easter day an alter was erected, mass celebrated presence of the natives, the country declared an apanage of Portugal, and as stone cross erected in commemoration of the event. Cabral despatched a small vessel to Lisbon to announce his discovery, and, without forming any settlement, proceeded to India on the 3d of May. On the arrival of the news in Portugal, Emanuel invited Amerigo Verspucci to enter his service, and despatched him with tree vessels to explore the country. This navigator’s first voyage was unsuccessful; but in a second he discovered a safe port, the site of which is not accurately known, to which he gave the name of All-Saints. He remained there five months, and maintained a friendly intercourse with the natives. Some of the party travelled forty leagues into the interior. Vespucci erected a small fort, and leaving twelve men, with guns and provisions, to garrison it, embarked for Portugal, having loaded his two ships with Brazil-wood, monkeys, and parrots.

The poor and barbarous tribes of Brazil, and their country, the mineral riches of which were not immediately discovered, offered but few attractions to a Government into the coffers of which the wealth of India and Africa was flowing. Vespucci’s settlement was neglected. For nearly thirty years the kings of Portugal pain no further attention to their newly-acquired territory than what consisted in combating the attempts of the Spaniards to occupy it, and dispersing the private adventurers from France who sought its shores for the purposes of commerce. The colonization of Brazil was prosecuted, however, by subjects of the Portuguese monarchy, who traded thither chiefly for Brazil-wood. The Government also sought to make criminals of some use to the state, by placing them in a situation where they could do little harm to society, and might help to uphold the dominion of their nation.

The first attempt on the part of a Portuguese monarch to introduce an organized government into his dominions was made by João III. He adopted a plan which had been found to succeed well in Madeira and the Azores,—dividing the country into hereditary captaincies, and granting them to such persons as were willing to undertake their settlement, with unlimited powers of jurisdiction, both civil and criminal. Each captaincy extended along fifty leagues of coast. The boundaries in the interior were undefined. The first settlement made under this new system was that of S. Vincente Piratininga, in the present province of S. Paulo. Martim Affonso de Sousa, having obtained a grant, fitted out a considerable armament, and proceeded to explore the country in person. He began to survey the coast about Rio de Janeiro, to which he gave that name, because he discovered it on the first of January 1531. He proceeded south as far as La Plata, naming the places he surveyed on the way from the days on which the respective discoveries on the way from the days on which the respective discoveries were made. He fixed upon an island, in 24_º S. lat., called by the natives Guaibe, for his settlement. The Goagnazes, or prevailing tribe of Indians in that neighbourhood, as soon as they discovered the intentions of the new comers to fix themselves permanently there, collected for the purpose of expelling them. Fortunately, however a shipwrecked Portuguese, who had lived many years under the protection of the principal chief, was successful in concluding a treaty of perpetual alliance between his countrymen and the natives. Finding the spot chosen for the new town inconvenient, the colonists removed to the adjoining island of S. Vincente, from which the captaincy derived its name. Cattle and the sugarcane were at an early period introduced from Madeira, and here the other captaincies supplied themselves with both.

Pero Lopes de Sousa received the grant of a captaincy and set sail from Portugal at the same time as his brother, the founder of S. Vincente. He chose to have his fifty leagues in two allotments. That to which he gave the name of S. Amaro adjoined S. Vincente, the two towns being leagues asunder. The other division lay much nearer to the line between Paraiba and Pernambuco. He experienced considerable difficulty in founding this second colony, from the strenuous opposition of a neighbouring tribe, the Petiguares ; but at length he succeeded in clearing his lands of them ; and not long ; afterwards the perished by shipwreck.

Rio de Janeiro was not settled till a later period ; and for a considerable time the nearest captaincy to S. Amaro, sailing along the coast northwards, was that of Espiritu Santo. It was founded by Vasco Fernandes Countinho, who having acquired a large fortune in India, sunk it in this scheme of colonization. He carried with him no less than sixty fidalgos. They named their town by anticipation, Our Lady of the Victory ; but it cost them some hard fighting with the Goagnazes to justify the title.

Pedro de Campo Tourinho, a nobleman and excellent navigator, received a grant of the adjoining captaincy of Porto Seguro. This, is will be remembered, is the spot where Cabral first took possession of Brazil. The Tupinoquins at first offered some opposition ; but having made peace, they observed it faithfully, notwithstanding that the oppression of the Portuguese obliged them to forsake the country. Sugar-works were established, and considerable quantities of the produce exported to he mother country.

Jorge de Figueiredo, Escrivam da Fazenda, was the first donatory of the captaincy of Ilhéos, 140 miles S. of Bahia. His office preventing him from taking possessionion person, he deputed the task to Francisco Romeiro, a Castilian. The Tupinoquins, the most tractable of the Brazilian tribes, made peace with the settlers, and the colony was founded without a struggle.

The coast from the Rio S. Francisco to Bahia was granted to Francisco Pereira Coutinho ; the bay itself, with all its creeks, was afterwards added to the grant. When Countinho formed his establishment, where Villa Velha now stands, he found a noble Portuguese living in the neigbourhood who having been shipwrecked, had, by means of his fire-arms, raised himself to the rank of chief among the natives. He was surrounded by a patrrirchal establishement of wives and children ; and to most of the distinguished families of Bahia still trace their lineage. The regard entertained by the natives for Caramuru (signifying man of fire) induced them to extend a hospitable welcome to his countrymen, and for a time everything went on well. Coutinho had, however, learned in India to be an oppressor, and the Tupinambas were the fiercest and most powerful of the native tribes. The Portuguese were obliged to abandon their settlement; but several of them returned at al later period, along with Caramuru, and thus a European community was established in the district.

Some time before the period at which these captaincies were established, a factory had been planted at Pernambuco. A ship from Marseilles took it, and left seventy men in it as a garrison ; but being captured on her return, and carried into Lisbon, immediate measures were taken for reoccupying the place. The captaincy of Pernambuco was granted to Don Duarte Coelho Pereira as the reward of his services in India. It extended along the coast from the Rio S. Francisco, northward to the Rio de Juraza. Duarte sailed with his wife and children and many of his kinsmen, to take possession of his new colony, and landed in the port of Pernambuco. To the town which was there founded he gave the name of Olinda. The Cabetes, who possessed the soil, were fierce and pertinacious ; and, assisted by the French, who traded to that coast, Coelho had to gain by inches what was granted him by leagues. The Portuguese managed, however, to beat off their enemies ; and, having entered into an alliance with the Tobayanes, followed up their success.

Attempts were made about this time to establish two other captaincies, but without success. Pedro de Goes obtained a grant of the captaincy of Paraiba between those of S. Vincente and Espirito Santo ; but his means were too feeble to enable him to make head against the aborigines, and the colony was broken up after a painful struggle of seven years. João de Barros, the historian, obtained the captaincy of Maranhão. For the sake of increasing his capital, he divided his grant his Fernan Alvares de Andrada de Aires da Cunha. They projected a scheme of conquest and colonization upon a large scale. Nine hundred men, of whom one hundred and thirteen were horsemen, embarked in ten ships under the command of Aires da Cunha. But the vessels were wrecked upon some shoals about one hundred leagues to the south of Maranhão ; the few survivors, after suffering immense hardships, escaped to the nearest settlements, and the undertaking was abandoned.

By these adventurers the whole line of Brazilian coast from the mouth of La Plata to the mouth of the Amazon, had become studded at intervals with Portuguese settlements in all of which law and justice were administered, however inadequately. It is worthy of observation, that Brazil was the first colony founded in America upon an agricultural principle, for until then the precious metals werer the exclusive attraction. Sufficient capital was attracted between the year 1531 (in which De Sousa founded the first captaincy) and the year 1548 to render these colonies an object of importance to the mother country. Their organization, however, in regard to their means of defence against both external aggression and internal violence, was extremely defective. Their territories were surrounded and partly occupied by large tribes of savages. Behind them the Spaniards, who had an establishment at Asuncion, had penetrated almost to the sources of the waters of Paraguay, and had succeeded in establishing communication with Peru. Orellana, on the other hand, setting out from Peru, had crossed the mountains a d sailed down the Amazon. Nor had the French abandoned their hopes of effecting an establishment on the coast.

The obvious remedy for these evils was to concentrate the executive power, to render the petty chiefs amenable to one tribunal, and to confide the management of the defensive force to one hand. In order to this the powers of the several captains were revoked, whilst their property in their grants was reserved to them. A governor-general was appointed, with full powers, civil and criminal. The judicial and financial functions in each province were vested in the Ouvidor, whose authority in the college of finance was second only to that of the governor. Every colonist was enrolled either in the Milicias or Ordenanzas. The former were obliged to serve beyond the boundaries of the province, the latter only at home. The chief cities received municipal constitutions, as in Portugal. Thome de Sousa was the first person nominated to the important post of governor-general. He was instructed to build a strong city in Bahia and to establish there the seat of his government. In pursuance of his commission he arrived at Bahia in April 1549, with a fleet of six vessels, on board of which were three hundred and twenty persons in the king’s pay, four hundred convicts, and about three hundred free colonists. Care had been taken for the spiritual wants of the provinces by associating six Jesuits with the expedition.

Old Caramaru, who still survived, rendered the governor essential service by gaining for his countrymen the good will of the natives. The new city was established where Bahia still stands. Within four months one hundred house were built, and surrounded by a mud wall. Sugar plantations were laid out in the vicinity. During the four years of Sousa’s government there were sent out at different times supplies of all kinds, female orphans of noble families, who were given in marriage to the officers, and portioned from the royal estates, and orphan boys to be educated by the Jesuits. The capital rose rapidly in importance and the captaincies learned to regard it as a common head and centre of wealth. Meanwhile the Jesuits undertook the moral and religious culture of the natives, and of the scarcely less savage colonists. Strong opposition was at first experienced from the gross ignorance of the Indians and the depravity of the Portuguese, fostered by the licentious encouragement of some abandoned priest who had found their way to Brazil. Over these persons the Jesuits had no authority ; and it was not until the arrival of the first bishop of Brazil in 1552, that anything like an efficient check was imposed upon them. Next year Sausa was succeeded by Duarte da Costa, who brought with him a reinforcement of Jesuits, at the head of whom was Luis de Gran, appointed, with Nobrega the chief of the first mission, joint provincial of Brazil.

Nobrega’s first act was one which has exercised the most beneficial influence over the social system of Brazi, namely the establishment of a college on the tehn unreclaimed plains of Piratininga. It was named S. Paulo, and has been at once the source whence knowledge and civilization have been diffused through Brazil, and the nucleus of a colony of its manliest and hardiest citizens, which sent out successive swarms of hardy adventurers to people the interior. The good intentions of the Jesuits were in part frustrated by the opposition of Duarte the governor ; and it was not until 1558, when Mem de Sa was sent out to supersede him, that their projects were allowed free scope.

Rio de Janeiro was first occupied by French settlers. Nicholas Durand de Villegagnon, and bold and skilful seaman, having visited Brazil, saw at once the advantages which might accrue to his country from a settlement there. In order to secure the interest of Coligny, he gave out that his projected colony was intended to serve as a place of refuge for the persecuted Huguenots. Under the patronage of that admiral, e arrived at Rio de Janeiro in 1558 with a train of numerous and respectable colonists. As soon, however, as he thought his power secure, he threw off the mask, and began to harass and oppress the Huguenots by every means by could devise. Many of them were forced by his tyranny to return to France ; and ten thousand Protestants, ready to embark for the new colony, were deterred by their representations. Villegagnon, finding his force much diminished in consequence of his treachery, sailed for France in quest of recruits ; and during his absence the Portuguese governor, by order of his court, attacked and dispersed the settlement. For some years the French kept up a kind of bush warfare ; but in 1567 the Portuguese succeeded in establishing a settlement at Rio.

Mem de Sa continued to hold the reins of government in Brazil upon terms of the best understanding with the clergy, and to the great advantage of the colonies, for fourteen years. On the expiration of his power, which was nearly contemporary with that of his life, an attempt was made to divide Brazil into two governments; but this having failed, the territory was reunited in 1578, the year in which Diego Laurenço da Veiga was appointed governor. At this time the colonies, although not yet independent of supplies from the mother country, were in a flourishing condition ; but the usurpation of the crown of Portugal by Philip II. changed the aspect of affairs. Brazil, believed to be inferior to the Spanish possessions in mines was consequently abandoned in comparative neglect for the period intervening between 1578 and 1640, during which it continued an apanage of Spain.

No sooner had Brazil passed under the Spanish crown, than English adventurers directed their hostile enterprises against its shores. In 1586 Witherington plundered Bagia ; in 1591 Caverndish burned S. Vincente ; in 1595 Lancaster took Olinda. These exploits, however, were transient in their effects. In 1612 the French attempted to found a permanent colony in the island of Marajò, where they succeeded in maintaining themselves till 1618. This attempt led to erection of Maranhão and Pará into a separate Estado. But it was on the part of the Dutch that the most skilful and pertinacious efforts were made for securing a footing in Brazil ; and they alone of all the rivals of the Portuguese have left traces of their presence in the national spirit and institutions of Brazil.

The success of the Dutch East India Company led to the establishment of a similar one for the West Indies, to which a monopoly of the trade to America and Africa was granted. This body despatched in 1624 a fleet against Bahia. The town yielded almost without a struggle. The fleet soon the after sailed, a squadron being detached against Angola, with the intention of taking possession of that colony, in order to secure a supply of slaves. The Portuguese, in the meanwhile, began to collect for the purpose of expelling the permanent intruders, and the hearty co-operation of all the natives against the invaders having been obtained through the descendants of Caramaru, the Dutch were obliged to capitulate in May 1625. The honours bestowed upon the Indian chiefs for their assistance in this war broke down in a great measure the barrier between the two races ; and there is at this day a greater admixture of their blood among the better classes in Bahia than in to be found elsewhere in Brazil.

In 1630 the Dutch attempted again to effect a settlement ; and Olinda yielded after a feeble resistance. They were unable, however, to extend their power beyond the limits of the town, until the arrival of Count Maurice of Nassau in 1630. His first second, to send to the African coast one of his officers, who took possession of a Portuguese settlement, and thus secured a supply of slaves. In the course of four years, the limited period of his government, he succeeded in confirming the Dutch supremacy along the coast of Brazil from the mouth of the S. Francisco to Maranhão. He promoted the amalgamation of the different races, and south to conciliate the Portuguese by the confidence he reposed in them. His object was to found a great empire ; but this was a project at variance with the wishes of his employers—an association of merchants, who were dissatisfied because the wealth which they expected to see flowing into their coffers was expended in promoting the permanent interests of a distant country. Count Maurice was recalled in 1644. His successors possessed neither his political nor has military talents, and had to contend with more energetic enemies.

In 1640 the revolution which placed the house of Bragança on the throne of Portugal restored Brazil to masters more inclined to promote its interests and assert its possession than the Spaniards. It was indeed high time that some exertion should be made. The northern provinces had fallen into the power of Holland ; the southern, peopled in a great measure by the hardy descendants of the successive colonists who had issued on all sides from the central establishment of S. Paulo, had learned from their habits of unaided and successful enterprize to court independence. They had ascended the waters of the Paraguay to their sources. They had extended their limits southwards till they reached the Spanish settlements on La Plata. They had reduced to slavery numerous tribes of the natives. They were rich in cattle, and had commenced the discovery of the mines. When, therefore, the inhabitants of S. Paulo saw themselves about to be transferred, as a dependency of Portugal, from one master to another, they conceived the idea of erecting their country into an independent state. Their attempt, however, was frustrated by Amador Bueno, the person whom they had selected for their king. When the people shouted "Long live King Amador," he cried out "Long live João IV.," and took refuge in a convent. The multitude, left without a leader, acquiesced, and this important province was secured to the house of Bragança.

Rio and Santos, although both evinced a desire of independence, followed the example of the Paulistas. Bahia, as capital of the Brazilian states, felt that its ascendency depended upon the union with Portugal. The Government thus left in quiet possession of the rest of Brazil, had time to concentrate its attention upon the Dutch conquests. The crown of Portugal was, however much too weak to adopt energetic measures. The tyranny of the successors of Nassau, by alienating the minds of the Portuguese and natives, drove them to revolt before any steps taken in the mother country for the reconquest of its colonies. João Fernandes Vieyra, a native of Madeira, organized the insurrection which broke out in 1645. This insurrection gave birth to one of those wars in which a whole nation, destitute of pecuniary resources, military organization, and skilful leaders, is opposed to a handful of soldiers advantageously posted and well officered. But brute forces is unable to contend with scientific valour. Vierya, who had the sense to see this, repaired to the court of Portugal, and discovering the weakness and poverty of the executive, suggested the establishment of a company similar to that which in Holland had proved so successful. His plan, notwithstanding the opposition of the priests, was approved of, and in 1649 the Brazil Company of Portugal sent out its first fleet. After a most sanguinary war, Vieyra was enabled in 1654 to present the keys of Olinda to the royal commander, and to restore to monarch the undivided empire of Brazil. After this, except some inroads on the frontiers, the only foreign invasion which Brazil had to suffer was from France. In 1710 a squadron commanded by Duclerc, disembarked 1000 men, and attacked Rio de Janeiro. After having lost half of his men in a battle, Duclerc and all his surviving companions were made prisoners. The governor treated them cruelly. A new squadron with 6000 troops was intrusted to the famous admiral Duguay Trouin to revenge this injury. They arrived at Rio on the 12th September 1711. After four days of hard fighting the town was taken. The governor retreated to a position out of it, and was only awaiting reinforcements from Minas out of it, and was only awaiting reinforcements from Minas to retake it ; but Duguay Trouin threatening to burn it, he was obliged on the 10th October to sign a capitulation, and pay to the French admiral 610,000 crusados, 500 cases of sugar, and provisions for the return of the fleet to Europe. Duguay Trouin departed to Bahia to obtain fresh spoils ; but having lost in a storm two of his best ships, with an important part of the money received, he renounced this plan and returned directly to France.

After this the Portuguese governed undisturbed their colony. The approach of foreign traders was prohibited, while the regalities reserved by the crown drained the country of a great proportion of its wealth.

The important part which the inhabitants of São Paulo have played in the history of Brazil has been already adverted to. The establishment of the Jesuit college had attracted settlers to its neighbourhood, and frequent marriage had taken place between the Indians of the district and the colonists. A hardy and enterprising race of men had sprung from this mixture, who, first searching whether their new country were rich metals, soon began adventurous raids into the interior, making excursions also against the remote Indian tribes with a view to obtaining slaves, and from the year 1629 onwards repeatedly attacked the Indian reductions of the Jesuits in Paraguay, although both provinces were then nominally subject to the crown both provinces were then nominally subject to the crown of Spain. Other bands penetrated into Minas and still farther north and westward, discovering mines there are in Goyaz and Cuyabá. New colonies were thus formed round those districts in which gold had been found and in the beginning of the 18th century five principal settlements in Minas Geraes had been elevated by royal charter to the privileges of towns. In 1720 this district was separated from São Paulo, to which it had previously been dependent. As early as 1618 a code laws for the regulation of the mining had been drawn up by Philip III., the executive and judicial functions in the mining districts being vested in a provedor, and the fiscal in a treasurer, who received the royal fifths and superintended the weighing of all the gold, rendering a yearly account of all discoveries and produce. For many years, however, there laws were little more than a dead letter. The same infatuated passion for mining speculation which had characterized the Spanish settlers in South America now began to actuate the Portuguese ; labourers and capital were drained off to the mining districts, and Brazil, which had hitherto in great measure supplied Europe with sugar, sank before the competitions of the English and French. A new source of wealth was now opened up ; some adventurers from Villa do Principe in Minas, going north to the Seria Frio, made the discovery of diamonds about the year 1710, but it was not till 1730 that the discovery was for the first time announced to the Government which immediately declared them regalia. While the population of Brazil continued to increase, the moral and intellectual culture of its inhabitants, was left in great measure to chance ; they grew up with those robust and healthy sentiments which are engendered by the absence of false teachers, but with a repugnance to legal ordinances, and encouraged in their ascendency over the Indians to habits of violence and oppression. The Jesuits from the first moment of their landing in Brazil had constituted themselves the protectors of the natives, and though strenuously opposed by the colonists and ordinary clergy, had gathered the Indians together in many aldeas, over which officials of their order exercised spiritual and temporal authority. A more efficacious stop, however, was put to the persecution of the Indians by the importance of large numbers of negroes from the Portuguese possessions in Africa, these found more active and serviceable than the native tribes.

The Portuguese Government, under the administration of Carvalho, afterwards marquis of Pombal, attempted to extend to Brazil the bold spirit of innovation which directed all his efforts. The proud minister had been resisted in his plants of reform at home the Jesuits, and, determining to attack the power of the order, first deprived them of all temporal power in the state of Maranhão and Pará. These ordinances soon spread to the whole of Brazil, and a pretext being found in the suspicion of Jesuit influence in some partial revolts of the Indian troops on the Rio Negro, the order was expelled from Brazil under circumstances of great severity in 1760. The Brazilian Company founded by Vieyra, which so materially contributed to preserve its South America possessions to Portugal, had been abolished in 1721 by João V. ; but such an instrument being well suited to the bold spirit of Pombal, he established a chartered company again in 1755, to trade exclusively with Maranhão Pará ; and in 1799, in spite of the remostrance of the British Factory at Lisbon, formed another company for Paraiba and Pernambuco. Pombal’s arrangements extended also to the interior of the country, where he extinguished at once the now indefinite and oppressive claims of the original donatories of the captaincies, and strengthened and enforced the regulations of the mining districts. The policy of many of Pombal’s measures is more than questionable ; but his admission of all races to equal rights in the eye of the law, his abolition of feudal privileges, and the firmer organization of the powers of the land which he introduced, power-fully co-operated towards the development of the capabilities of Brazil. Yet on the death of his king and patron in 1777, when court intrigue forced him from his high station, he who had done so much for his country’s institutions was reviled done on all hands.

The most important feature in the history of Brazil during the thirty years following the retirement of Pombal was the conspiracy of Minas in 1789. The successful issue of the recent revolution of the English colonies in North America had filled the mines of some of the more educated youth of that province ; and imitation, a project to throw off the Portuguese yoke was formed,—a cavalry officer, Silva Xavier, nicknamed Tira-dentes (tooth-drawer), being the chief conspirator. But the plot being discovered during their inactivity, the conspirators were banished to Africa, and Tira-dentes, the leder, was hanged. Thenceforward affairs went on prosperously ; the mining districts continued to be enlarged ; the trading companies of the littoral provinces were abolished, but the impulse they had given to agriculture remained.

Removed from all communication with the rest of the world except through the mother country, Brazil remained unaffected by the first years of the great revolutionary war in Europe. Indirectly, however, the fate of this isolated country was decided by the consequences of the French Revolution. Brazil is the only instance of a colony becoming the seat of the Government of its own mother country, and this was the work of Napoleon. When he resolved upon the invasion and conquest of Portugal, the Prince Regent, afterwards Dom João VI., having no means of resistance, decided to take refuge in Brazil. He created a regency in Lisbon, and departed for Brazil on the 29th November 1807, accompanied by the Queen Donna Maria I., the royal family, all the great officers of state, a large part of the nobility, and numerous retains. They arrived at Bahia on the 21st January 1808, and were received with enthusiasm. The regent was requested to establish there the seat of his government, but a more secure asylum presented itself in Rio de Janeiro, where the royal fugitives arrived on the 7th of March. Before leaving Bahia Don John took the first step to emancipate Brazil, opening its parts to foreign commerce, and permitting the export of all Brazilian produce under any flag, the royal monopolies of diamonds and Brazil-wood excepted. Once established in Rio de Janeiro, the government of the regent was directed to creation of an administrative machinery for the dominions that remained to him as they existed in Portugal. Besides the ministry which had come with the regent, the council of state, and the departments of the four ministries of home, finances, war, and marine then existing, there were created in the course of one year a supreme court of justice, a board of patronage and administration of the property of the church and military orders, an inferior court of appeal, the court of exchequer and royal treasury, the royal mint, bank of Brazil, royal printing-office, powder-mills on a large scale and a supreme military court. The maintenance of the court, and the salaries of so large a number of high officials, entailed the imposition of new taxes to meet these expenses. Not-withstanding this the expenses continued to augment, and the Government had recourse to reprehensible measure of altering the money standard, and the whole monetary system was soon thrown into the greatest confusion, a state of things from which country suffers even at the present day. The bank, in addition to its private functions, farmed many of the regalia, and was in the practice of advancing large sums to the state, transactions which gave rise to extensive corruption, and terminated some years later in the breaking of the bank.

Thus the Government of the prince regent began its career in the new world with dangerous errors in the financial system ; yet the increased activity which a multitude of new customers and the increase of circulating medium gave to the trade Rio, added a new stimulus to the industry of the whole nation. Numbers of English artisans and shipbuilders, Swedish iron-founders, German engineers, and French manufacturers sought fortunes in the new country, and diffused industry by their example.

In the beginning of 1809, in retaliation of the occupation of Portugal, an expedition was sent from Pará to the French colony of Guiana, and after some fighting this part of Guiana was incorporated with Brazil. This conquest was, however, of short duration ; for, by the treaty of Vienna in 1815, the colony was restored to France. Its occupation contributed to the improvement of agriculture in Brazil ; it had been the policy of Portugal up to this time to separate the productions of its colonies, to reserve sugar for Brazil, and spices to the East Indies, and to prohibit the cultivation of these in the African possessions. Now, however, many plants were imported not only from Guiana but India and Africa, cultivated in the Royal Botanic Garden, and thence distributed. The same principle which dictated conquest of French Guiana originated attempts to seize the Spanish colonies of Monte Video and Buenos Ayres, Portugal being also at war with Spain. The chiefs of these colonies were invited to place them under the protection of the Portuguese crown, but these at first affecting loyalty to Spain declined the offer, then thew off the mask and declared themselves independent, and the Spanish governor, Elio, was afterwards defeated by Artigas, the leader of the independents.

The inroads made on the frontier of Rio Grande and São Paulo decided the court of Rio to take possession of Monte Video ; a force of 5000 troops was sent thither from Portugal, together with a Brazilian corps ; and the irregular of Artigas, unable to withstands disciplined troops, were forced, after a total defeat, to take refuge beyond the River Uruguay. The Portuguese took possession of the city of Monte Video in January 1817, and the territory of Missiones was afterwards occupied. The importance which Brazil was acquiring decided the regent to give it the title of kingdom, and by decree of the 16th January 1815, the Portuguese sovereignty thenceforward took the title of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and Algarves. Thus the old colonial government disappeared even in name. In March 1816 the Queen Donna Maria I. died, and the prince regent became king under the title of Dom João VI.

Although Brazil had now become in fact the head of its own mother country, the government was not in the hands of Brazilians, but of the Portuguese, who had followed the court. The discontent arising among Brazilians from this cause was heightened by a decree assigning a heavy tax on the chief Brazilian custom houses, to be in operation for forty years, for the benefit of the Portuguese noblemen who had suffered during the war with France. The amiable character of the king preserved his own popularity, but the Government was ignorant and profligate, justice was ill administered, negligence and disorder reigned in all its departments. Nor was discontent less in Portugal on account of its anomalous position. These causes and the fermentation of liberal principles produced by the French Revolution originated a conspiracy in Lisbon in 1817, which was, however, discovered in time to prevent its success. A similar plot and rebellion took place in the province of Pernambuco, where the inhabitants of the important commercial city of Recife jealous of Rio and the sacrifices they were compelled to make for the support of the luxurious court there. Another conspiracy to establish a republican government was promptly smothered in Bahi, and the outbreak in Pernambuco was put down after a republic had been formed there for ninety days. Still the progress of the republican spirit in Brazil caused Dom João to send to Portugal for bodies of picked troops, which were stationed throughout the provincial capitals. In Portugal the popular discontent produced the revolution of 1820, when representative government was proclaimed—the Spanish constitution of 1812 being provisionally adopted. In Rio, the Portuguese troops with which the king had surrounded himself as defence against the liberal spirit of the Brazilians, took p arms on the 26th February 1821, to force him to accept the system proclaimed in Portugal. The prince Dom Pedro, heir to the crown, who now for the first time took part in public affairs, actively exerted himself as a negotiator between the king and the troops, who were joined by bodies of the people. After attempting a compromise the king submitted, took the oath, and named a new ministry. The idea of free government filled the people with enthusiasm, and the principles of a representative legislature were freely adopted, the first care being for the election of deputies to the Cortes of Lisbon to take part in framing the new constitution. As the king could not abandon Portugal to itself he determined at first to send the prince thither as regent, but Dom Pedro had acquired such popularity by his conduct in the revolution, and had exhibited such a thirst for glory, that the king feared to trust his adventurous spirit in Europe, and decided to go himself. The Brazilian deputies on arriving in Lisbon expressed dissatisfaction with the Cortes for having begun the framing of the constitution before their arrival, for Brazil could not be treated as a secondary part of the monarchy. Sharp discussions and angry words passed between the Brazilian and Portuguese deputies, the new of which excited great discontent in Brazil. An insulting decree was passed in the Cortes, ordering the prince Dome Pedro to come to Europe, which filled the Brazilians with alarm ; they foresaw that without a central authority the country would fall back to its former colonial state subject to Portugal. The Provisional Government of São Paulo, influenced by the brothers Andradas, began a movement for independence by asking the prince to disobey the Cortes and remain in Brazil, and the council of Rio de Janeiro followed with a similar representation, to which the prince assented. The Portuguese troops of the capital at first assumed a coercive attitude, but were forced to give way before the ardour and military preparations of the Brazilians, and submitted to embark for Portugal. These scenes were repeated in Pernambuco, where the Portuguese, after various conflicts, were obliged to leave the country ; in Bahia, however, as well as in Maranhão and Parã, the Portuguese prevailed. In Rio the agitation for independence continued. The two brothers Andradas were called to the ministry ; and the municipal council conferred upon the prince regent the title of Perpetual Defender of Brazil. With great activity he set off to the central provinces of Minas and São Paulo to suppress disaffected movements and direct the revolution. In São Paulo, on the 7th Septermber 1822, he proclaimed the independence of Brazil. On his return to Rio de Janeiro on the 12th of October he was proclaimed constitutional emperor with great enthusiasm.





The Cortes as Lisbon chose Bahia as a centre for resisting the independence, and large forces were sent thither. But the city was vigorously besieged by the Brazilians by land, and finally the Portuguese were obliged to re-embark on the 2d of July 1823. A Brazilian squadron, under command of Lord Cochrane, attacked the Portuguese vessels, embarrassed with troops, and took several of them. Taylor, another Englishman in Brazilian service, followed the vessels across the Atlantic, and even captured some of the ships in sight of the land of Portugal. The troops in Monte Video also embarked for Portugal, and the Banda Oriental remained a part of Brazil of 1823 the authority of the new emperor and the independence of Brazil were undisputed throughout the whole country.

Republican movements now begun to spread, to suppress which the authorities made use of the Portuguese remaining in the country ; and the disposition of the emperor to consider these as his firmest supporters much influenced the course of his Government and his future destiny. The two Andradas, who imagined they could govern the young emperor as a sovereign of their own creation, encountered great opposition in the constitutional assembly, which had been opened in Rio in May 1823, to discuss the project of a new constitution. In July the emperor resolved to dismiss them and form a new ministry, but against this the brothers raised a violent opposition. In November the emperor put an end to the angry debates which ensued in the assembly by dissolving it, exiling the Andradas to France, and convoking a new assembly to deliberate on a proposed constitution more liberal than the former project. The proclamation of a republic in the provinces of Pernambuco and Ceará, with the rebellion of the Cisplatina province, faveoured by Buenos Ayres and its ultimate less to Brazil, were the result of the coup d’état of November 1823. The Brazilians were universally discontented,—on one side fearing absolutism if they supported the emperor, on the other anarchy if he fell. Knowing the danger of an undefined position, the emperor caused the councils to dispense with their deliberations, and adopt, as the constitution of the empire, the project framed by the council of state. Accordingly, on March 25, 1824, the emperor swore to the constitution with great solemnity and public rejoicings. By this stroke of policy he saved himself the Brazilian and Portuguese plenipotentiaries, treating for the recognition of the independence of Brazil and on the 25th of August 1825 a treaty was signed by which the Portuguese king, Dom João VI., assumed the title of Emperor of Brazil, and immediately abdicated in favour of his son, acknowledging Brazil as an independent empire, but the treaty obliged Brazil to take upon herself the Portuguese debt, amounting to nearly two millions sterling.

The rebellion of the Banda Oriental was followed by a declaration of war with Buenous Ayres which had supported it, and operations by sea and land were conducted against that republic in a feeble way. Meanwhile the well-deserved popularity of the emperor began to decline. He had given himself up to the influence of the Portuguese ; the most popular men who had worked for the independence were banished ; and a continual change of ministry showed a disposition on the part of the sovereign to prosecute obstinately measures of which his advisers disapproved. His popularity was regained, however, to some extent, when, the death of his father, he was unanimously acknowledged king of Portugal, and especially when he abdicated that crown in favour of his daugther, Donna Maria; but his line of policy was not altered, and commercial treaties entered into with European states conceding them favours, which were popularly considered to be injurious to Brazilian trade, met with bitter censure.

During the year 1827 the public debt was consolidated, was consolidated and a department was created for the application of a sinking fund.

The year 1828 was a calamitous one for Brazil. It began with the defeat of the Brazilian army by the Argentine forces, and this entirely through the incapacity of the commander-in-chief; and misunderstandings, afterwards compesensated by humbling money-payments on the part of Brazil, arose with the United States, France, and England, on account of merchant vessels captured by the Brazilian squadron blockading Buenos Ayres. Financial embarrassments increaed to an alarming extent ; the emperor was compelled by the British Government to make peace with Buenos Ayres and to renounce the Banda Oriental ; and to fill the sum of disasters Don Miguel had treacherously usurped the crown of Portugal. It was under these unlucky auspices that the elections of new deputies took place in 1829. As was expected the result was the election everywhere of ultra-liberals opposed to the emperor, and in the succeeding year people everywhere exhibited their disaffection. During the session of 1830 the chambers adopted a criminal code in which punishment by death for political offences was abolished. It was openly suggested Brazil into independent federal provinces, governed by authorities popularly elected, as in the United States. Alarmed at length at the ground gained by this idea in the provinces, the emperor set off to Minas to stir up the former enthusiasm in his favour recollection of the independence, but was coldly received. On return to Rio in March 1831 scenes of disorder occurred, and great agitation among the Liberal party. Imagining himself sure of a brilliant destiny in Europe if he lost his Brazilian crown, the emperor attempted to risk a decisive attack against the Liberals, and to form a new ministry composed of men favourable to absolutism. This stem caused excited the troops, and deputations went to ask the emperor to dismiss the unpopular ministry. He replied by dissolving the ministry without naming another, and by abdicating the crown in favor of the heir apparent, then only five years of age. Dom Pedro immediately embarked in an English ship, leaving the new Emperor Dom Pedro II. and the princesses Januaria, Francisca, and Paula. The subsequent career of this unfortunate prince belongs to the history of Potugal.

A provisional and afterwards a permanent regency, composed of three members, was now formed in Brazil, but scenes of disorder succeeded, and struggles between the republican party and the Government, and a reactionary third the succeeding years. In 1834 a reform which was well received consisted in the alternation of the regency from that of three members elected by the legislative chambers, to one regent chose by the whole of the electors in the same manner as the deputies; and the councils of the provinces were replaced by legislative provincial assemblies. Virtually, this was a republic government like that of the United States, for no difference existed in the mode of election of the regent from that of a president. The ex-minister Feijoó was chosen for this office. With the exception of Pará and Rio Grande the provinces were at peace, but were in open rebellion ; the former was reduced to obedience, but in the latter, though the imperial troops occupied the town, the country was ravaged by its warlike inhabitants. The regent was now accused of conniving at this rebellion, and the opposition of the Chamber of Deputies became so violent as to necessitate his resignation. Araujo Lima, minister of the home department, who strove to give his government the character of a monarchial reaction against the principles of democracy, was chosen by a large majority in his stead. The experiment of republican government had proved so discreditable, and had so wearied the country of cabals, that men hitherto known for their sympathy with democratic principles became more monarchical than the regent himself ; and under this influence a movement to give the regency into the hands of Princess Donna Januaria, now in her 18th year, was set on foot. It was soon perceived, however, that if the empire could be governed by a princess of eighteen it could be managed better by the emperor himself, who was then fourteen.

A bill was accordingly presented to legislature dispensing with the age of the emperor and declaring his majority which after a noisy discussion was carried. The majority of the Emperor Dom Perdo II. was proclaimed on the 23d July 1840. Several ministries, in which various parties predominated for a time, now governed the country till 1848, during which period the rebellious province of Rio Grande was pacified, more by negotiation than force of arms. In 1848 hostilities were roused with the British Government through the neglect shown by the Brazilians in putting in force a treaty for the abolition of the slaves trade, which had been concluded as far back as 1826 ; on the other hand the governor of Buenos Ayres, General Rosas, was endeavouring to stir up revolution again in Rio Grande. The appearance of yellow fever in 1849, until then unknown in Brazil, was attributed to the importation of slaves. Public opinion declared against the traffic ; severe laws were passed against it, and were so firmly enforced that in 1853 not a single disembarkation took place. The ministry of the Visconde de Olinda in 1849 entered into alliances with the governors of Monte Video, Parguay, and the states of Entre Rios and Corrientes, for the purpose of maintaining the integrity of the republics of Uruguay and Paraguay, which Rosas intended to re-unite to Buenos Ayres, and the troops of Rosas which besieged Monte Video were forced to capitulate. Rosas then declared war formally against Brazil. An army of Correntine, Uruguayan, and Brazilian troops, under General Urquiza, assisted by a Brazilian naval squadron, advanced on Buenos Ayres, completely routed the forces of Rosa, and crushed for ever the power of that dictator. From 1844 Brazil was free from intestine commotions, and had resumed its activity. Public works and education were advanced, and the finances rose to a degree of prosperity previously unknown.

In 1855 the emperor of Brazil sent a squadron of eleven men-of-war and as many transports up the Paraná to adjust several questions pending between the empire and the Republic of Paraguay, the most important of which was that of the right of way by the Paraguay River to the interior Brazilian province of Matto Grosso. This right had been in dispute for several years. The expedition was not permitted to ascent the River Paraguay, and returned completely foiled in its main purpose. Though the discord resulting between the state on account of this failure was subsequenly allayed for a time by a treaty granting to Brazil the right to navigate the river, every obstacle was thrown in the way by the Paraguayan Government, and indignities of all kinds wree offered not only to Brazil but to the representatives of the Argentine and the United States. In 1864 the ambitious dictator of Paraguay, Francisco Solano Lopez, without previous declaration of war, captured a Brazilian vessels in the Paraguay, and rapidly followed up this outrage by an armed invasion of the provinces of Matto Grosso and Rio Grande in Brazil, and that of Corrientes in the Argentine Republic. A triple alliance of the invaded states with Uruguay ensued, and the tide of war was soon turned being an offensive one on the part of Paraguay to a defensive struggle within that republic against the superior number of the allies. So strong was the natural position of Paraguay, however, and so complete the subjection of its inhabitants to will of the dictator, that it was not until the year 1870, after the republic had been completely drained of its manhood and resources, that the long war was terminated by the capture and death of Lopez with his last handful of men by the pursuing Brazilians. From its duration and frequent battles and sieges this war involved an immense sacrifice of life to Brazil, the army in the field having been constantly maintained at between 20,000 and 30,000 men, and the expenditure in maintaining it was very great, having been calculated at upwards of fifty millions sterling. Large deficits in the financial budget of the state resulted, involving increased taxation and the contracting of loans from foreign countries.

Notwithstanding this the sources of public wealth in Brazil were unaffected, and commerce continued steadily to increase. A grand social reform was effected in the law passed in September 1871, which enacted that from that date every child born of slaves parents should be free, and also declared all the slaves belonging to the state or to the imperial household free from that time. The same law provided an emancipated fund, to be annually applied to the ransom of a certain number of slaves owned by private individuals. Since that time the emancipation of slaves has gone on rapidly, the work having been promoted largely by the slaves owners and by private philanthropy. It is estimated that since the cessation of the importing of slaves in 1853, and especially after the enactment of 1871, not less than a million of slaves have obtained their freedom ; and the total extintion of slavery within the empire is not far distant. From the extremely rapid progress of this movement difficulties have been experienced in a considerable degree in procuring a sufficient supply of labour for the Brazilian plantations, but the general effect of the law has been to give new directions to the employment of capital, and the construction of railroads and telegraphs, and the improvement o internal communication by roads and rivers have been largely promoted. Attention has also been strongly directed towards the further development of the provinces by the increase of European immigration. Enterprises of all kinds have multiplied, and public instruction has received a vigorous impulse.

The Emperor Dom Pedro II. and the empress, a sister of the king of Naples, are universally beloved and respected for their intellectual and moral endowments, and their affectionate interest in the welfare of their subjects. Princess Isabel, born in July 1846, and her son born in October 1875, are their only surviving offspring.

Until after the year 1872, when a complete census of the empire was begun, every estimate of the population of Brazil was based upon the official returns of 1817-18, and these have consequently been mere approximations, varying very considerably in the hands of different authors. In the first census referred to the whole number of people was 4,396,000, including an estimated number of 800,000 Indians ; in 1850 the total was reckoned roundly at 7,000,000 ; and in 1860 at 8,000,000.

In the folowing table the results of the census of 1872 have been incorporated, as far as these have yet been published, the remiaing figures being made up from the estimates formerly given for each of the provinces. The Indeans ; and in table also contains the area of each of the provinces, from planimetric calculations made in Gotha in 1872, the official returns on this subject being most obviously exaggerated, and claiming for the empire an area equal to that of Brazil with all the surrounding republics on the north and west taken together.

TABLE

*The population figures marked thus are the results of the census began in 1872 ; the others are made up from the most recent provincial estimates.

The population of Brazil presents a number of district types as well as many varieties blended from these. The aboriginal Indians of the country have to a large extent become amalgamated with the settled population, especially in the eastern or maritime provinces ; but in the vast forests and grass plains of the interior they remain in a more or less completely savage condition. In general description the Indians are of copper colour, of middle height, thick-set, broad –chested, and muscular, with well-shaped limbs and small hands and feet. The hair is black, thick, and straight ; the features broad, cheek bones not generally prominent, eyes black and sometimes oblique, like those of the Tatar races of Eastern Asia ; they are of apathetic and undemostrative nature. Their tribes and subdivisions, scattered over the enormous interior area, are countless ; though these may very somewhat in physical characteristic, in language, and customs, they belong apparently to one original stock, called by ethnographers, the Tupi-Guarani. Most of the semi-civilized Indians of Brazil, especially those of the eastern provinces, speak the Lingoa-Geral, a language adapted by the Jesuit missionaries from the original idiom of the Tupinambaras, one of the larger eastern tribes. The less civilized and savage Indians are termed collectively Gentios (heathens) by the Brazilians. The only tribe of the eastern coastlands which has resisted civilization in some portion of its numbers is that of the Botocudos, inhabiting the forests between the Rio Doce and Rio Pardo, sunk in the lowest barbarism and fast disappearing. From the European—chiefly Portuguese—immigrants, by mixture with the native Indians, are descended the Mamelucos, a variety which first made itself prominent in inland raids and conquests in the southern provinces, especially from the neighbourhood of São Paulo, whence they were named Paulistas. The negroes, introduced from Africa in immense numbers, constitute one of the largest elements of population. From these, by intercourse with the white race, have sprung the mulattoes, and the descendants of these, becoming progressively whiter. The Brazilian creoles, who call themselves Brazileiros, descendants of these mixed races, prove little inferior in capacity, physical strength, or intelligence to the pure race of Portuguese. The rapidly progressing emancipation of the African slaves in Brazil has been referred to previously. A strong desire pervades those of the slaves not born in Brazil, even though they may have been made captives when mere infants, to return to Africa. Associations have been formed among them in many parts both for the purchase of the freedom of those still in bondage and for sending the freedom back to their native country, a movement which has actually taken place to a considerable extent. A result of the emancipation and consequent deficiency of labour, chiefly felt in the neighbourhood of Rio and the provinces to the south of it, has northern to the more southerly provinces.

An increase in the population of Brazil being one of the prime requisites for the advancement of the country, the state encourages immigration by every possible means, and especially of late years, since the labour question began to be serious, has made great efforts to entice European colonists. For this end an official agency was established at Rio de Janeiro in 1864, to provide for the conveyance and landing of colonists and for forwarding these to the various localities. The passage from whatever country to Brazil, and thence to the special colony inland, is also defrayed by Government, and other advantages are held out. Notwithstanding the zeal with which the many schemes of state or private colonization in Brazil have been promoted, the results have been far from satisfactory ; as far as British, German, and Swiss experience goes these have been in many instances very disastrous ; and whatever seductive representation of advantages may be held out, any scheme for the introduction of north European colonist into Brazil cannot be too strongly deprecated. Not only is the climate and soil, except perhaps of the extreme southern province, unsuited to the Anglo-Saxon race, but the abandonment of nationality and of language of customs and laws, and the obnoxious surroundings, prove fatal success.

The chief state colonies are at the following places. Santa Leopoldina, thirty-three miles distant from the capital of the province of Espiritu-Santo, having free access to it by the Sta. Maria River,—is chiefly, Swiss and Dutch colony. Rio Novo is in the same province. Mucury, in the province of Minas Geraes, is also a German colony. Canarea in the province of São Paulo, 14 miles from the sea-coast and near the town of the same name, is mainly English. Assungay, 62 miles from the capital of the province of Paraná, Itajahy, 29 miles from the port of the same name in the province of Sta. Catharina, and Blumenau, also in that province of the navigable River Itajahy, are chiefly German. Sta Maria de Solidade, near São Leopoldo, in Rio Grande do Sul, is also a state colony. Several places long colonized have passed out of the colonial régime, and have been formed into municipalities. Such are São Leopoldo in Rio Grande, Santa Isabel in the province of Sta. Catharina, Nova Friburgo and Petropolis in elevated districts of the Organ Mountains in Rio de Janeiro.

Private and provincial colonies are rather numerous. Of these there are eight in Rio Grande do Sul, the chief being that of Sta Cruz ; Sta Catharina has two ; Minas Geraes and Bahia, each one. Taken together the state, provincial, and private colonies embraced in 1873, upwards of 40,000 people. During the past two years the unsettle condition and financial difficulties of the La Plata states have thrown large numbers of foreign—chiefly Italian—settlers into destitution, and many hundreds of these have been induced, by the offer of free passage and land, to seek a new home in Brazil.

The Brazilian monarchy derives from the ancient monarchy of Portugal the principle of hereditary succession the crown. The laws of succession are defined with great distinctness in the constitution, and are the same as in England.

In Brazil there is no privileged aristocracy, but descent from the noble families of Portugal, length of time in the service of the country or large fortune, gives a certain claim to the privileges of aristocracy readily admitted by the Brazilians. The emperor rewards services, according to their difficulty or importance, with the titles of marquis, count, baron, or knight (moços fidalgos). Titles are not hereditary, but if a son prove himself worthy of his father, he inherits his title. There are in the empire six orders of chivalry ; those of the Southern Cross, the order of Dom Pedro I., and of the Rose, created by the first emperor between 1822 and 1829 ; and those of Christ, St Benoit of Axiz, and St Theodoric, adopted by Dom Pedro II. The senate represents the only element of aristocracy recognized by the constitution, and the democratic element preponderates, but its action is modified by the complicated system of election. The constitution established four powers,—the moderating, the legislative, the executive, and the judicial.

The moderating power is vested exclusively in the emperor as chief representative of the nation, that he may maintain the equilibrium and harmony of the other powers. He exercises this function with regard to the legislature by being empowered to choose the senators, to convoke or adjourn the general assembly, to dissolve the chamber of deputies, and to sanction the decrees of the assembly ; as regards the executive, by appointing or dismissing at will the ministers of state ; and over the judicial power, by suspending the magistrates, pardoning or commuting penalties, and granting amnesties. The person of the emperor is sacred, inviolable, and irresponsible.

The legislative power is vested, for the affairs of the empire, in the general legislative assembly with the sanction of the emperor, and for the provincial affairs in the provincial assemblies with the sanction of the president (governor) of the province. The general legislative assembly consists of two chambers, that of deputies and that of senators. The deputies are nominated by indirect election. Citizens, and even manumitted slaves, born in the empire, who possess an income of £22,10s., choose the electors in parochial assemblies, and these electors nominate the deputies. The qualification for an elector is an annual income of £45 ; that of a deputy an income of £90. Minors, monks and servants, are debarred from voting ; naturalized foreigners, and persons not professing the religion of the state, are incapable of being elected deputies, but they can be senators. The deputies to the number of 122 are elected for four years, and must hold an annual session of four months, opening on the 3d of May. The senators (58 in number) are elected for life. Every province has a number of senators, equal to half its number of deputies ; but they are nominated in triple lists, from which the emperor selects one-third. A senator must be forty years of age, and must possess a clear annual income of £180. The allowance of a senator is one-half more than that of a deputy. Each house nominates its own officers. When the two houses sit in general assembly, as at the opening and close of the session, to hear the emperor’s speech, &c., the president of the senate presides, and the senators and deputies sit promiscuously. They sit apart and proceed by way of bill, when they make laws interpret, and suspend them ; they determine the public charges, and assess the contributions, &c. The chamber of deputies has the initiative in taxes, in recruiting, and in the choice of a new dynasty. The senate has the exclusive privilege of taking cognizance of offences committed by members of the imperial family, councillors of state, senators, and deputies, during the sessions ; of enforcing the responsibility of secretaries and councillors of state ; of convoking the assemb;y in the case the fail to do so within two months after the period fixed by law ; and also of calling it together on the death of the emperor.

The executive power is vested in the emperor, assisted by his ministers and secretaries of state, who are responsible for treason, corruption, abuse of power, acts contrary to the liberty, security, or property of the citizens, and waste of public property. From this responsibility they cannot escape upon the plea of orders from the emperor. The executive functions are such as the convocation of the general ordinary assembly ; the nomination of bishops, presidents, governors of provinces ; commanders by sea and land, and ambassadors ; the formation of alliances, and all foreign negotiations ; the declaration of peace and war ; an the granting letters of naturalization.

The ministers are seven, one for each of the departments of the empire and ecclesiastical affairs ; justice ; war ; marine ; finances ; foreign affairs ; and agriculture, commerce, and public works. One of these is president or premier. To these is superadded a council of state composed of twelve ordinary members, besides which it may have as many as twelve extraordinary members, all of them appointed for life. The council is divided into sections corresponding to the seven ministries, or sits in full meeting, presided over by the emperor. The prince or imperial, on attaining the age of eighteen, has a seat in this assembly. The council is merely consultative, and though its use is optional it is always heard on any important public question or appeal to the crown. The provincial government are entrusted to a president in each, appointed by the executive power and immediately under its control : he is the supreme representative of government in the province, sanctions the resolutions of the provincial assemblies, and appoints provincial functionaries. The provincial assemblies, elected every two years by the same citizens who elect members of the chamber of deputies, deal only with matters immediately relating to the private or local interests of the province.

Every city, town, and village, with the surrounding district has a municipal council composed of nine or seven members, elected directly by the citizens who possess an annual income of £22,10s. This council is charged with all that concerns the good of the district, meets four times year, besides extraordinary sessions, and every meeting may last as many days as may be found necessary for the expedition of business. They impose fines to a certain amount, and ever enforce their decrees by a penalty of thirty days’ imprisonment. They annually draw up a municipal budget, which is submitted to the provincial legislative assembly for approval. It their revenue and the produce of fines be not sufficient to defray expenses, an allowance from the provincial treasury is granted. Their decrees are called posturas, and the penalties imposed by them are enforced by the justices of peace. Their enactments can be annulled by the provincial legislative assembly.

The judicial power is independent ; the judges hold their office for life, and cannot lose them except by a condemnatory sentence. They are, however, responsible for any abuse of authority, and may be summoned before a supreme court of judicial ministers. In criminal cases all proceedings are public after the indictment. In civil cases arbitrators may be appointed, whose decisions are without appeal, and no civil lawsuit can be carried on without previous declaration that conciliatory means were tried in vain and political rights. Individual liberty is subject only to law, and in the same way liberty of thought and of the press are guaranteed. No one may be persecuted on account of religious belief, and every kind of labour or industry is free which does not interfere with public well-being. No one can be arrested without written orders from lawful authority.

For purposes of elections the empire is divided into districts, each of which elects a fixed number of deputies for the general and provincial assemblies. There are again divided into colleges and parish assemblies. There are 46 electoral districts, 408 colleges, and 1451 parish assemblies. For administrative purposes the Brazilian territory is separated into 20 provinces, comprising 642 municipalities, including that of the capital ; from various causes the number of municipalities is fluctuating. The ecclesiastical jurisdiction is exercised in 12 diocesses, one of which, that of São Salvador, comprehending the province of Bahia and Sergipe, is a metropolitan archbishopric. The whole of the dioceses are divided into 1473 parishes and 28 curacies. The diocese of São Salvador is the seat of a metropolitan court of appeal (Relaçao), composed of judges of appeal (desembargadores), who decide clerical matters finally. The diocese of São Sebastião comprises the municipality of Rio de Janeiro, its province, those of Espiritu Santo and Sta. Catharina, and the eastern side of Minas Geraes. The provinces of Alagõas, Pernambuco, Parahyba, and RioGrande de Norte form the bishopric of Orlinda ; Maranhão and Piauhy the bishopric of the former name ; Pará and Amazonas the diocese of Belem do Pará. The diocese of São Paulo includes that province, Paraná, and southern Minas Geraes ; that of Goyaz its province and western Minas ; the remainder of Minas forms the bishoprics of Marianna in the central, and of Diamantina in the northern part of the province. The diocese of Cuyabá consists of the province of Matto Grosso. The provinces of São Pedro do Rio Grande do Sul and Ceará correspond to their respective bishoprics.

The judicial divisions of the empire is into eleven districts, each having a court of a appeal competent to try all questions affecting the judges and military commander. From the sentences of these courts there is but one appeal to a supreme court of justice, the members of which are denominated ministers, and by the constitution are counsellors to the emperor : this highest court takes cognizance of offences or errors committed by its ministers, by the judges of appeal. Or by archbishops in non-ecclesiastical matters.

The districts of the Courts of Appeal are groups of provinces as follows :—s

Pará and Amazonas …………….. with the seat at Belém.

Maranhão and Piauhy ……………… " }S. Luiz do Maranhão.

Ceará and Rio Grande do Norte …… " Fortaleza.

Pernambuco, Parahyba, and Alagoas " Recife.

Bahia and Sergipe…………………. " S. Salvador.

Rio and Espiritu Santo ……………. " S. Salvador.

S. Paulo and Paraná ………………. " S. Paulo.

Rio Grande do Sul and Sta. Catharina " Porto Alegre.

Minas Geraes ……………………… " Ouro Preto.

Matto Grosso ………………………. " Cuyabá.

Goyaz ………………………………. " Goyaz.



Causes which do not ascend above a certain value, determined by law, are judged by juizes de direito within certain minor territorial limits, termed comarcas, again divided into termos or boroughs, which may include one or more municipalities, each of which has a municipal judge.

The civil laws, originally the same with those of Portugal, have been greatly modified by a number of new ones A criminal code was organized in 1830 on the principles of Jeremy Bentham, and is considered very perfect and clear. The new form of procedure, and the new organization of justices, is embodied in a code decreed in 1832. Finally, a new code commerce, nearly copied from that of France was decreed in 1850.

To carry on the war of Independence, and to crush a subsequent revolution in the northern provinces, the Government contracted tow loans in 1824-5, of the normal amount of £3,686,200 ; and on the recognition of its independence by Portugal in 1825, it undertook the liability of a loan of £1,500,000. The war with Buenos Ayres, and the assistance rendered by Dom Pedro to the constitutional party of Portugal, lod to two farther loans in 1829, of the nominal amount of £769,200. Internal difficulties in 1839 compelled the regency to contract of another loan of the nominal amount of £411,200. The dissensions in Portugal caused a temporary suspension in the payment of the dividends on the Portuguese loan, and in 1842, £732,600 stock were delivered to the Portuguese agents in settlement of this claim. The debt contracted and assumed by Brazil between 1823 and 1843, therefore, amounted to £7,099,200 nominal ; and throughout all its difficulties and embarrassments the Imperial Government punctually and honourably provided for the dividends as they became due.

By the renewal in 1844 of the sinking fund, the operation of which had been suspended since 1828, the Portuguese and other loans were becoming gradually reduced. The long war with Paraguay from 1864 to 1870, however, very considerably augmented the public debt, costing the empire more than 460,000 contos of reis, or nearly £52,000,000. The public debt is now divided into the consolidated foreign and internal debts, and the floating debt. The foreign debt proceeds from loans negotiated in the London Exchange in 1865, 1871, and 1875 ; the internal debt from policies authorized in 1827, but mainly from a home loan of 1868. The floating debt consists of the small remaining portion of that contracted previously to 1827, of loans borrowed from various internal sources, of exchequeri bills, and paper money. Under these heads the debt of the empire was officially stated on the 31st of March 1875 as follows :—



External Debt (at 5 per cent. interest), 177,166 : 222 contos.

Internal " " 285,592 :200 "

Floating " " 201,980 : 973 "

---------------------------___________

Total Debt, 664,739 : 395=£74,783,000.

(177, 166 : 222 = 177,166 contos, 222 milreis ; a contos or million of reis, gold = £112, 10s., or £1 = 8·890 milreis. 1 milreis = 2s. 3d. The financial accounts are kept in paper reis, of depreciated value, in proportion varying from 194 to 214 reis paper to 100 reis gold.)

For a few years previously to the declaration of the emperor’s majority, the imperial expenditure had not been largely in excess of the revenue, and in 1836-37, the deficit only amounted to £53,600 ; but in 1840-41, the year of the emperor’s majority, it rose to £408,000, and in consequence of a revolution in Rio Grande do Sul it went on increasing till in 1845 it had reached nearly treble that sum of £400,000 after 1853. On the outbreak of the war in 1864, increased taxation was necessary to enable the exchequer to meet the extraordinary expenses, but on the close of the ministerial account the revenues of the upwards of £6,000,000.

The financial account of the year 1872-73, presented to the Chambers in May 1875, was as follows :—



Revenue…………………………£3,390,800

Customs Taxes ………………….. 32,000

Export Duties …………………… 1,087,700

Railways ………………………... 390,900

Posts …………………………….. 47,700

Telegraphs ………………………. 7,700

Stamps …………………………… 227,000

Inlands Taxes ……………………. 756,000

Extraordinary receipts from bonds,

issue of paper money, and deposits….281,800

___________

Carry forward …………… £6,221,600

Brought forward ………… £6,221,600

Fund for emancipation of slaves… 86,200

__________

Total state revenue 112, 131 : 104 contos paper,1 or £6,307,800

Provincial receipt ………………………………… 1,210,000

Municipal receipt ………………………………… 256,000

____________

Total (138,195 : 180 contos) £7,773,800

Expenditure.

Home Department………………………………… £405,800

Justice …………………………………………….. 224,700

Foreign Affairs …………………………………… 58,900

Marine ……………………………………………. 1,006,600

War……………………………………………….. 1,358,300

Finances ………………………………………….. 2,375,000

Commerce ……………………………………….. 1,426,000

__________

Total (121, 874 : 462 contos) £6,855,300

___________

In the Budget for 1876-77 the receipts are estimated at 107,133 : 070 contos or £6,026,200 ; the expenditure at 105,378 : 914 contos or £5,927,600.

There are twenty-three custom houses, the amount of duties collected being largest in that of the capital, next in order those or Pernambuco, Bahia, and Pará.

The effective strength of the army and navy is every year fixed by the general legislative assembly, upon the data furnished by the ministers of the two departments. The army was originally organized on the principles established by Marshall Beresford when in the service of Portugal. It is principally from the northern provinces that the infantry is recruited, and from the southern that the best cavalry is obtained. A board, presided over by H. R. H. the Comte d’Eu, marshal of the army is charged with the reformation of military legistation, and has been in session for some years. The actual army is thus composed, on a peace footing :—

a. Special corps, staff engineers and sanitary corps 427

b. Infantry, 21 battalions ……………………….. 9,864

c. Cavalry, 5 regiments and 2 battalions ……….. 2,484

d. Artillery, 3 regiments and 4 batteries, with 1

Battalion of engineers………………..} 3,280

e. A division stationed in Paraguay, of various arms 1,894

_______

17,949

On a war footing the army is raised to 32,000 men. Besides the regular army there is a national guard, which was organized in 1831, and comprised nearly 750,000 men in the latest returns, in cavalry, artillery, infantry, and reserve. This force has been disbanded for the present, to be re-organized on the completion of the census begun in 1872.

The police service of the empire is performed by city guards under military organization, under the provincial legislatures. The provinces or Pará, Pernambuco, Bahia, Rio Grande de Sul, and Matto Grosso posses military arsenals, recently reorganized. Military colonies for disciplinary or penitentiary objects, and also for protection of the frontiers, and dotted round the outskirts of the empire.

The navy is under the control of the minister of marine assisted by a naval council instituted in 1855, organized after the plan of the French admiralty. There are six arsenals, and a pyrotechnical laboratory was established near Rio in 1868.

The navy is principally manned by civilized aborigines and negroes, organized in bodies called imperial sailor, with a certain military discipline. The aborigines have a peculiar aptitude for a maritime life. Officers destined for the Brazilian navy receive a suitable education in the naval school of Rio, and for some years the Government introduced the practice of sending the more apt scholars to serve in the British, French, and American navies. In this way a body of efficient naval officers has been formed.

FOOTNOTES (p. 238)

1 Assumed to be at 200 paper for 100 gold.



In 1875 the naval force was thus constituted:—

a. Steam-vessels— Number Guns

Armour-plated ships …………….19 73

Frigate ……………………… .. 1 12

Corvettes …………………………8 61

Gun-boats ……………………….23 47

Transports ……………………… 7

b. Sailing-vessels—

Corvette…………………………. 1 22

Sloops and smaller vessels……… 2 15

___ ____

61 230

These vessels were manned by 4136 seamen, including gunners and marines. One armoured vessedl and four corvettes were on the stocks in 1875.

The Roman Catholic is the established religions of the empire. All other forms of worship are tolerated, but many only be practised privately. Dissenters enjoy all political and civil rights, with the sole exception of being elected into the chamber of deputies. The peculiarity of the ecclesiastical organization of the Brazilian church is, that the clergy do not receive the tithes. As a conquest of the military and religious order of Christ, all the churches of Brazil belonged the beginning to that order, whose grand-masters appointed the bishops, and submitted them directly to the approbation of the Pope. The order became so powerful that the king obtained the union of the grand mastership of the crown, and so disposed of all the livings and other benefices of the order, and paid from his treasury the salaries of the clergy, receiving the tithes from the people as a civil tax. The tithes were afterwards abolished as oppressive. This organization is still recognized by the Holy See, in the capacity of grand-master of the order of Christ the emperor appoints all the bishops and other ecclesiastical functionaries. There are converts of Franciscans, Carmelites, and Benedictines. These are very rich, are generally very learned men, who are usefully employed in teaching the sciences. They pay double annual taxes as a compensation to the treasury for not paying taxes upon transfers of property, as theirs is not transferable.

Primary and public schools, supported by the state through the provincial and municipal legislatures, for gratuitous instruction, have been established throughout the empire, under the general control of the ministry of the interior. In some of the provinces instruction has been made obligatory. Besides these, in which the teaching is limited to moral and religious instruction, reading and writing, the elements of grammar and arithmetic, there is a second or higher order of schools in most of the provinces, either public or private, in which such subjects as the elements of history and geography, especially that of Brazil, the principles of the physical sciences, elementary mathematics, drawing, Portuguese, French, and English are added. The Dom Pedro II. Imperial College of the capital has twenty-two professors, and provides a course of study of seven years, at the termination of which a degree of B. A. may be gained. Each diocese has a seminary for theological instruction, and these, with the exception of that of S. José in the capital, are subsidized by Government. Military training is under the care of the war department, and is carried on in preparatory and regimental schools, and further in military academies in the capital and in Rio Grande do Sul. A practical school of gunnery is established in the Campo Grande, near the capital ; a central college with eleven professors also educates in the higher branches of military science and engineering.

An imperial astronomical observatory has been appended to the central college for the instruction of observers, and the recording the astronomical and meteorological phenomena. There is also a state observatory in Pernambuco. The naval college is established on board a war vessel,—the cadets being drafted to it from a preparatory naval school. A practical school of artillery is attached, and naval construction is taught in some of the higher national schools ; but students are also sent to the best European navy yards. There are two faculties of medicine, one at Rio de Janeiro, and another at Bahia, each having a curriculum of six years, and conferring degrees. The faculties of law are seated at São Paulo and Recife in Pernambuco. An institute of commercial instruction is presided over by a Government commissioner in Rio. Other remarkable institutions are those for the education of the blind in Rio, and a deaf and dumb institute. An academy of fine arts is established, with schools, in Rio as well as a conservatorium of music. A national museum of natural was created in Rio in 1817, and is the most important of South America. Other of like character have been founded in Pará, in Ouro Preto, and in Ceará. The national public library in Rio is the most important establishment of its kind, having more than 100,000 volumes on all subjects. Extensive libraries are also attached to all the colleges and academies ; and popular libraries have been created in each of the provincial capitals. The press is represented by six daily newspapers in the capital, of which the Diario do Rio is the oldest, having been founded in 1817. The provincial towns together have nearly 200 newspapers.

The most important of the scientific societies of the empire is the Historical, Geographical, Ethnographical Institute of Brazil, founded in 1838. There are besides this twenty larger scientific associations in Rio and the provincial capitals. With all these appliances, however, owing to the immense territory over which the population is scattered, the spread of instruction is exceedingly difficult, and the grossest ignorance in the interior of almost every province.

It is obvious, from the insufficient establishments for general education, that the intellectual development of individuals must have been for a long period achieved in a great measure by unaided exertions. Now things are better, but in the more thinly inhabited districts devotion to such pursuits must not be expected in men exclusively occupied in procuring subsistence and securing self-defence. Even where the population is more dense, a lazy feeling of animal comfort represses the exertions of the majority. It is among the more aspiring class, who aim at the learned professions or state employment, and who are consequently obliged to cultivate their minds, that we must look for that attachment to intellectual pursuits which is rarely acquired except from habit. In the theological seminaries, established at the seat of each bishop, little more war inculcated than a knowledge of the classics, an outworn scholastic system of logic, and a knowledge of the routine duties of a priest. The schools of medicine in Rio Janeiro and in Bahia, from the attention bestowed upon practical surgery and anatomy, have done more to awaken the mind. The situations under Government requiring a certain proficiency in practical mathematics and natural history have also diffused a knowledge of and a taste for these pursuits. The number of foreign engineers and naturalists encouraged to settle in Brazil has rendered the natives in some measure acquainted with all that has been of late achieved in Europe in the mathematical and experimental sciences.

In parliament and by the press the most delicate political questions have been discussed with success, and the progress of the Government and of legislation evinces a certain administrative foresight and prudence rarely displayed by other new states.

The Brazilians who frequent the university of Coimbra in Portugal often distinguish themselves among their fellow-students ; and notwithstanding the difficulties they have to contend against, not unfrequently rise to the highest offices of the state.

The most remarkable writers in the Portuguese language on political economy and commercial law were Couttinho, bishop of Pernambuco, and Silva Lisboa, afterwards Viscount de Cayron, a senator of the empire, both Brazilians. Among historians the Brazilian Rocha Pita is distinguished and Moraes the lexicographer of the Portuguese language belonged to Pernambuco. Portugal is poor in dramatic literature, but one of her most distinguished comic poets was the Brazilian Silva, who afterwards fell a victim to the inquisition of Lisbon. In epic poetry, on the other hand, Portuguese literature is rich. Brazil claims the authorship of two of its most beautiful poems of this class, the Caramuru of Durão, and the Uruguay of Gama. The best of the minor poets is Gonzaga, whose collection of lyrics is well known under the title of Marilia de Dirc¬o. Little inferior to him is Souza Caldas, whose translation of the Psalms donotes a talent of the first order. Claudio, Avarenga, Gregorio de Mattos, Euzebio de Mattos, Gusmão, in former times ; and more recently, Odorico, Mendes, Borges de Barros, Domingos Magalha¬s Marquis of Paranaguá, A. de Macedo, Porto-Alegre, Barbosa, and others are well worthy of notices as lyric poets.

Religious eloquence was formerly much cultivated in Brazil, and Vieira is one of the most original and eloquent preacher known. In more recent times Antonio Carlos and Montalverne deserve perticular notice. In the natural sciences Frei Leandro, Arruda, Camara, and José Bonifacio de Andrade are known for their works and discoveries.

In sacred music José Mauricio, a mulatto, left compositions of merit that were executed in the chapel of D. John VI.

The Brazilians have a natural taste for music, and an Italian theatre, maintained with but little interruption in Rio de Janeiro, has assisted in improving and refining this taste. The old-fashioned Brazilian instrument, which was a particular kind of guitar, has almost disappeared from the large cities, but is still frequently employed in the provinces to Brazil, and which have a particular style.

The school of the fine arts of Rio de Janeiro has produced some ggod but no remarkable painters. Of late, however the most promising artists have been annually sent to Italy at the public expense to prosecute their studies in that country.

The Brazilians are in general hospitable, generous, and charitable, endowed with great pride and vanity, and susceptibility of character, and the easily led away the African slaves, and the colonial system from which they have but a short time been freed, the imperfect religious education, the facility with which they can live in abundance at small cost, while the climate enables them to dispense with many things necessary in other countries, the enervating effects of the hot atmosphere, all combine to stimulate the qualities and vices which we must expect in this people.

There is in the Brazilian national character, with great mildness and generosity, a certain tendency to vindictiveness. Homicides of the sake of vengeance alone are proportionally as numerous in Brazil as in certain countries of Europe ; while the crimes against property are much fewer. The greatest number of homicides, however, takes place in the most backward provinces of the centre and north.

The Roman Catholic religion predominates in Brazil and although there are enlightened men among the clergy, a great number of the priests are ill educated, and the institution of celibacy keeps the members of the principal families from entering the profession. Such is the want of priest that the Government finds itself obliged to send to Italy for them. Among educated classes the spirit of materialism of the French writers of the 18th century made great progress, but a considerable reaction has lately taken place. The lower classes, above all in the interior are still deplorably superstitious.

In several of the provinces contentions have arisen of late years between the church and freemasonry, and the excommunication of the members of the craft and the closing of the churches to which they belonged have awakened religious discussions and agitations. The Jesuit priests were expelled from the province of Pernambuco in 1875, and the bishop of that diocese, tried before the lay tribunal, was condemned to fine and imprisonment.

Brazil is not specially a manufacturing country, and its national industries of mining (with smelting of the metals), collecting and polishing precious stones, and polishing precious stones, and salt making, already referred to, with tanning and hide working, have the widest range. The state has, however, encouraged and in some case subsidized special manufactures which were of value in developing the resources of the country. Among these seventeen foundries, manufacturing engines and agricultural implements, have supplied a great national want. The home hat factories of Brazil have now all but superseded the imported hats by their products. In almost every city there are manufactories of soap, oil, and candles, which are made, not only stearine and tallow, but of wax, and in the north from the valuable Carnauba palm. Rum distilling is largely carried on in the sugar districts, and cigars are extensively made, especially at Bahia. Gold and silver smiths and jewel workers are foremost among the delicate handicraftmen, and excel in their workmanship.

There are now two cotton-cloth factories in Rio, five in Bahia, two in Minas, and several in S. Paulo, and this branch of industry is extending.

Ship-building is diligently prosecuted in many of the ports, and Rio has launched several fine iron-clad vessels from the navy yard. A law passed in 1871 enabled Government to subsidize companies for the construction of more commodious docks, and these have been begun in Rio, Bahia, and Maranháo, at Santos in S. Paulo, and at Paranaguá in Paraná.

Whale-fishery is carried on to some small extent from the ports of Bahia and Sta. Catharina. The fine coastal fisheries are not yet taken advantage of to nearly their full power ; on the other hand, large quantities of dried cod-fish are imported. On the upper Amazon and its tributaries a considerable quantity of oil is collected from the eggs of the turtle, and is sent down in earthen pots containing 50 to 60 lb weight each.

Jerked beef, an important article of general consumption, is chiefly prepared in the "Charqueadas" of Rio Grande do Sul.

The coastal and fluvial communications of the empire are maintained by eighteen lines of steam-vessels, which receive an annual subsidy from the state (amounting to £150,000 in 1875). A North America company, keeping up a regular traffic between the ports of Brazil and the United States, is also aided by Government. Besides these the ocean lines of vessels from Britain, Germany, and France, touch regular steam packets. The Amazon has been navigated by steam for nearly twenty years ; and since the passing of the decree of September 1867, by which its waters were opened to the trading ships of all nations, direct commerce from foreign countries with the interior ports on its banks has begun to be developed.

Within recent times the construction of railroads has been progressing very rapidly under the Government and in private hands. In 1867 there were but six short lines working ; in 1873 there were fifteen distinct railways. Three main trunk lines being actively extended by the state : the first called the Dom Pedro II. line, passing from Rio de Janeiro to Minas Geraes, is being extended thence to the head of the navigation of the São Francisco, and is planned to reach the valley of the Tocantins and Pará; the second trunk line is designed to unite the navigation of the Amazon with that of the Paraguay, through the head of the valley of the Tocantins and Araguaya ; the third line, already partly executed, beginning at Rio will pass through the capital of S.Paulo and Paraná to Porto Alegre in Rio Grande do Sul. Many other lines have been begun or are projected under the superintendence of the provincial assemblies. The ordinary roads are in an exceedingly backward condition throughout the empire, and those with are mosre than rude tracks are of very small extent. A fine macadamized road, however, called the "Union and Industry," joins the capital with Minas Geraes, and the others extend for short distances from the chief towns. There are also a few canals. It is but seventeen years since the first small line of telegraph was stretched in Brazil within the capital, but now a double line unites the maritime towns from Pernambuco to Rio Grande do Sul. Many other lines are being constructed, and in June 1874 submarine telegraphic cable was completed from Europe to the Brazilian ports.

The commerce of Brazil, despite the disadvantages against which it has had at various times to contend, has been on the whole uniformly progressive. These disadvantages consisted chiefly in the restrictions originally imposed on the young colony by the jealousy of the mother country, which refused to admit the Brazilian products except a certain stated seasons of the year. The exportation of native productions to the Old World was limited to the ports of Rio, Bahia, Olinda, and Paraiba. These restrictions continued in force long after analogous measures had been exploded in the commercial systems of other countries, and were not repealed till the beginning of the present century. In 1810, all the ports of Brazil were thrown open to British goods on the payment of duty at the greatly increased by the tariff of 1844, the average annual value of manufactured goods imported into Brazil from Great Britain alone, chiefly cotton, iron, woolen, and linen goods, amount to nearly £4,500,000.

The value of the imports and exports of Brazil in 1808 was estimated at £2260 ; it has gradually increased, with little fluctuation, till at the present time the annual value of trade is not less than £40,000,000. The trade of the empire is mainly with Great Britain (which sends more than a third of the imports, and receives a great share of the exports), France, the United States, Portugal, Germany, the Argentine Republic, and Belgium. In the order of their value the chief exports are coffee, hides, sugar, cotton, india-rubber, tobacco, yerba-mate, diamonds, and rum. Since 1853 the value of the exports from the country has in most years been somewhat in excess of that of the imports. The whole number of ships entering and leaving the Brazilian ports in recent years averages about 30,000.

See Brazil and the Brazilians, Rev. D. P. Kidder and J.C. Fletcher, 1857; The Naturalist on the River Amazons, H.W. Bates, 1863; Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro, Alfred R. Wallace, 1853; The Amazon and Madeira, translated by Church, Keller, 1874; Explorations of the Highlands of Brazil, Capt. R. F. Burton, 1869; Journey in Brazil, Professor Louis Agassiz, 1868; Scientific Results of a Journey in Brazil by Professor Louis Agassiz, by Professor C. F. Hartt, 1870; Climat, géologie, faune, et géographie botanique du Brésil, Emmanuel Liais, 1872; Notions on the Chorography of Brazil, J. Manoel de Macedo, translated by Le Sage, 1873; The Empire of Brazil at the Vienna Exhibition, Rio de Janeiro, 1873; The coast of Brazil, and trade of its ports, Lieut-Commr. H. H. Gorringe, Washington, 1873; Atlas do Imperio do Brazil, por Candido Mendes de Almeida, Rio de Janeiro, 1868. (K. J.)



The above article was written by Alexander Keith Johnston, F.R.G.S.; Assistant Curator, Royal Geographical Society, 1872-73; conducted expedition to Lake Nyassa, 1878; author of 'Africa' in Stanford's Compendium, and other geographical works.