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, Ceard, 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 



