iC6 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 



[September t, 1883, 



the ov/ner of the slaves ig necessary, something similar 

 to the folljwiug : — 



The Government to attempt to raise a loan of. say, 

 f33,00>,000 and apply the same in advancing £30 a 

 slave to the owners as purchase-money, granting, 

 however, to the owner, as further indemnity, the 

 right of using the slaves without any payment in the 

 form of hire for four or live years, after whicli the 

 slave to be considered as free, but as still owing the 

 Government £30, which sum be would have to earn and 

 repay to the Government in a time, say, not exceeding 

 two years, by still working for his former owner, who 

 would be responsible to the Government for the repay- 

 mnt of the loan made by it on behalf of the slave. By 

 some such means a fixed time would be marked for abol- 

 ition ; the slaves also, being the property of the Govern- 

 ment, would be well treated by their hirers, and newly- 

 freed ones themselves would gradually learn the 

 use of freedom and moderation — things they have 

 not the most rudimentary notions of now. Doubtless 

 there are faults in this plan, but, in the shadowing 

 forth of a possible means for accomplishing so vast 

 a scheme, the details which would enter into it when 

 bein" shaped for action cannot, of course, be foreseen. 



That the nations of the world ought not to stand 

 idly by to see this struggle on the part of Brazil is 

 evid;'ut, from the loss which must result if uncon- 

 ditional emancipation come about before the natioi) is 

 prepared with free labour, seeing that the value of the 

 coifie trees of Brazil alone is about £3fi,000, 000, which 

 would be all lost to the world were there no provision 

 made for the keeping up of the plontations after 

 emancipation, as a five years' neglect is sufficient to 

 kill a plantation. 



In the coffee cultivation there are employed about 

 500.000 slaves, who at this work are worth at least 

 £120 a head, or a total of £«0.000,000, which, added 

 to the value of thft trees, makes tae enormous sum of 

 £96,000,000, without taking into account the value of 

 the land, machinery, &c. Again, if the Brazilian people 

 were only to euffer the loss of oae-half their annual 

 revenue, as Ja>.iaioa ditl during the ten years sncceed- 

 ing the emancipation of lS3i, this on cofi'ee alone 

 would amount to £4,500,000 a year — a sum of such 

 respectable dimensions that it can but call the most 

 serious attention of all who have philanthropic, general, 

 or real interest in this great land. 



Should the Brazilian Government undertake some 

 scheme of emauciiiation by part jjaymeut of the value 

 ofthe slaves, it could hardly t)e considered unreasonable 

 were it to try to raise the money in England, 

 seeing that the English are interested in this country 

 to the very great extent ofmany millions sterling, 

 a great part of which money might possibly be lost 

 were further aid refused ; at the hast, this capital 

 would receive no interest for a number of j-ears. 



Here is work, therefore, real and material, for the 

 anti-slavery people and tlicir friends, the enthnsias'ic 

 shouters for emancipation, to do before they can lay 

 claim to any higher title than obstructionists rather 

 than helpers, for bs it borne in mind that the Europ- 

 eans or -Americans who, through the fortune of birth, 

 were not born slave-holders, do not of necessity 

 absorb all the human kindneess there is in man 

 towards slaves, neither are tbeir hearts of softer 

 material ; otherwise we should be spared the pangs 

 of knowing that there are so ne Euglishni'n, French- 

 men and Americans slaveowaers in Brazil at this pre- 

 sent time. Tnat which is b irn in the bono can be 

 expected to come out in the fl^sh, soa man whose earliest 

 days, whose whole moral education is associated with 

 the holding of slaves, must be judt^e 1 fiom a stand point 

 removed from passion, he being lu the case of the man 

 who knew not the law, therefore he conld not ein. 

 One word in conclusion about immigrants. Up to 

 Ills present time a steady current of immigration 



has been prevented chiefly by these causes. One 

 was the most unfortimate circumstance of the Gov- 

 ernment having, at its first essay at colonization, 

 intrusted the care of the immigrants to men without 

 any administrative capacity, whose only object in 

 undertaking the work eeeuis to have been their own 

 enrichment by various means. This sad lesson Brazil 

 has taken sorely to he.irt, so that now everything is 

 being done to give true and real help to immigrants. 

 Secondly the large landed proprietors, little oreaming 

 of impending emancipation, steadily refused to sell one 

 inch of land, thus obliging the immigrants to settle on 

 the poor lands of the Government or eUe find a resid- 

 ence so far from the markets that their labour was to 

 no purpose. This also is altered now, not by common 

 law, but by the stronger law of necessity, the owners 

 beginning at last to find out that if they wish to draw 

 any revenue from their estates they must encourage 

 settling on their lands either by giving or selling them, 

 A third cause is that ambitious and bellicose statesmen of 

 Europe have ever set their faces against and used 

 their power directly or indirectly to prevent emi- 

 gration, as tending to reduce the number of pawns on ' 

 the European chessboard. A fourth obstruction to 

 immigration is due to ignorance in Europe as to the 

 climate and other characteristics of Brazil, which has 

 always beeu considered as an intensely hot place, quite 

 unfit for the bulk of Europeans to live in. This is ex- 

 plicable by the fact that the towns which have the great- 

 est number of foreigners iutbemanl which are best known 

 to travellers who "do Brazil" and write about it too, but 

 who rarelj' "o more than 50 miles inland, are Pari, Per- 

 nambuco, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, and Santos, all of 

 which places are very hob, intensely so in summer : 

 whereas a few miles from the coast, in the highlands, 

 especially in the southern half of the Empire, the 

 climate is similar to that of southern Europe, the 

 nights are always cool and refreshing, and in winter 

 occasional frosts appear. As an instance of the differ- 

 ence of climate in two places, take the city of Sao 

 Paulo, which is about 45 miles from the city of Santos, 

 wliere the heat is at times from 100 d-'g. to lOS deg. 

 Fahrenheit in the shade ; whereas in Sao Paulo pears, 

 apples, and all European fruits can be grown, it being 

 only moderately warm, and situated on a tableland 

 2,400 feet above the sea. The same difference of climate 

 and physical conditions exists between the city of Pe- 

 tropolis aud Kio de Janeiro, from which latter it is 

 not 40 miles distant. As another proof of the mild- 

 ness of the climate, it may be mentioned that the whole 

 of the maintenance of the permanent ways of the 

 railways in South Brazil is doni by Portugu.se, Ger- 

 mans, Italians, and Lamt)ardians,who never tail tlirough 

 the heat of the sun. If, therefore, these men can toil 

 without any shade and can withstand the glare of 

 the refracted rays ofthe ballast of the railroad, how 

 certain is it that they or any other Europeans could work 

 pleasantly in the shady groves of the coffee plantations. 

 A glance, also, at the physical geography of the 

 country is sufficient to prove the fact that there is 

 a great diversity of climate. Parallel with the 

 ocean is a narrow belt of low land, 10 to 20 miles 

 wide, generally mangrove swamps, with here and 

 there a hillock a hundred or two hundred feet in 

 height peeping out of the mirass. Beyond this, in 

 the province of Rio de Janeiro and northward, rise 

 the Organ Mountains, which are backed by the Serra 

 da Mantiqueira, aud from Rio southwards, past Santos, 

 down towards Rio Grande, runs the formidable Serra 

 do Mar. How boldly and grandly tliese monnt-^ins 

 rise is known to all who have passed down t^ coast 

 on board ship. These splendid ridges appear .'Oover's 

 clifl's a hundred tim-s maguinad, anu -ifeVld of , 

 Albion's white walls rise ramp irts of primeval forest, 

 one mass of rolling green from their bases to their 

 siynmite, Overcoming these mouataius, either starting 



