7* To the River Plate and Hack 



might have been the issue of a French occupation of 

 Rio dc Janeiro as it is to imagine what might have been 

 the result of a permanent occupation of the coast to 

 the north by the Dutch. Rio de Janeiro during the 

 period of the Napoleonic wars became the refuge of 

 the Portuguese King and court. King John VI. of 

 Portugal fled before the advance of Marshal Junot and 

 his army and on November 27, 1807, accompanied by 

 fifteen thousand people, carrying with them fifty mil- 

 lions of dollars in treasure, sailed away for Brazil, arriv- 

 ing at Rio on March 7, 1808. From that day to this 

 Brazil has been the principal home of the Portuguese 

 race. Brazil is greater Portugal, in the same way that 

 North America is greater England. 



Between the little town upon which Mem da Sa 

 closed his eyes and the great city of to-day with its 

 million of inhabitants there lie nearly three centuries 

 and a half of human history. What changes have 

 taken place in the world during these three hundred 

 and fifty years! London, to-day the largest city on the 

 globe, had in 1560 less than one-fifth the population of 

 the Rio de Janeiro of the present. New York did not 

 exist, and it was not until fifty years after the city of 

 Rio de Janeiro was laid out that Hendrik Hudson in 

 his Half Moon entered the river which bears his name. 

 But in reality everything which makes life worth living 

 to-day seems to have taken place since the discovery 

 of the New World. 



Fig. 7. Dynastes Hercules. 

 i natural size. 



