508 A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 
steady progress ; even the cessation of the slave-trade did 
not interrupt this advance. Indeed, it is a striking fact, 
which may well be mentioned in this connection, that the 
statistics of Brazilian agriculture have been steadily rising 
ever since the abolition of the slave-trade. When the 
Rebellion broke out in our Southern States, Brazil thus 
found herself prepared to give a considerable impulse to 
the cultivation of a product as much sought for as bread 
in time of famine. Spite of the want of population, which 
is an obstacle to all industrial enterprises in Brazil, she 
found labor, and, what was still more important, free labor, 
for this object. It seemed as if it were a point of national 
honor to show what could be done. Provinces like San 
Paolo, where a foot of ground had never before been 
planted with cotton ; others, as for instance Alagoas, 
Parahyba do Norte, Ceara, where the cultivation of cotton 
had been abandoned, produced extraordinary quantities, 
so large, indeed, that two lines of steamers were estab- 
lished, and have prospered, between Liverpool and the 
above-mentioned ports, chiefly for the transport of this 
crop. It will be remembered that during the whole of 
this time Brazil was in want of laborers, that she received 
no foreign capital for this undertaking, that she imported 
neither Coolies nor Chinese, that almost immediately after 
the movement began her war with Paraguay broke out, 
and yet her production of cotton has quadrupled and 
quintupled. This fact assumed such importance in the 
estimate of industrial interests at the late Paris Exposition, 
that an exceptional prize was awarded to Brazil, on the 
ground that, in supplying the European market so largely 
with this indispensable staple, she had rendered it, inde- 
pendent of the former monopoly of the United States. It 
