510 A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 
material so provided. Setting aside the woods as timber, 
what shall I say of the mass of fruits, resins, oils, coloring 
matters, textile fibres, which they yield ? When I stopped 
at Pard, on my way home to the United States^ an exhibi- 
tion of Amazonian products, brought together in prepara- 
tion for the World's Fair at Paris, was still open. Much 
as I had admired, during my journey, the richness and 
variety of the materials native to the soil, I was amazed 
when I saw them thus side by side. There I noticed, 
among others, a collection of no less than one hundred and 
seventeen different kinds of highly valuable woods, cut 
from a piece of land less than half a mile square. Of 
these many were dark-colored, veined woods susceptible 
of a high polish, as beautiful as rosewood or ebony. 
i 
There was a great variety of vegetable oils, all remarka- 
ble for their clearness and purity. There were a number 
of fabrics made from the fibres of the palm, and an end- 
less variety of fruits. An empire might esteem itself rich 
in any one of the sources of industry which abound in 
this valley, and yet the greater part of its vast growth 
rots on the ground, and goes to form a little more river- 
mud or to stain the waters on the shores of which its 
manifold products die and decompose. But what sur- 
prised me most was to find that a great part of this 
region was favorable to the raising of cattle. Fine sheep 
are fed on the grassy plains and on the hills which stretch 
between Obydos and Almeyrim, and I have rarely eaten 
better mutton than at Erere, in the midst of these serras. 
And yet the inhabitants of this fertile region suffer from 
hunger. The insufficiency of food is evident ; but it 
arises solely from the inability of the people to avail 
themselves of the natural productions of the soil. As 
