VII 



IN THE DESERT 



Oertao, "or desert," is the name the Brazihans give to the dry 

 inner area of the northern States of their country. 



Lonely and barren indeed are the wide, sun-steeped table-lands, 

 and the traveller is oppressed by a sense of desolation. For the 

 Sertao is not only empty of human life, but fresh, living Nature 

 seems to have deserted it. Leafless the branches of the grey trees 

 rise against the sky, and from the thorn-covered hillsides bare, 

 round, weathered rocks emerge, and the distant ranges of hills 

 remind one of the dead mountains of the moon. 



Nevertheless, the Sertao engraves itself on the heart of those who 

 travel through it. Like the African desert, the interior of Brazil 

 has an indescribable atmosphere of its own, which is so individual 

 that nothing can efface it from the memory. It is precisely in the 

 melancholy of the desert that its attraction lies, for the human heart 

 is more deeply moved by sadness than by gaiety, and not in vain 

 are the greatest works of the poets tragedies. 



And so we can well understand that the inhabitants of the desert 

 — for example, the desert of the State of Ceara — are accounted the 

 most loyal of the Brazilians. In the work of a native of Ceara, Jose 

 de Alencar, the atmosphere of the Sertao and the yearning of the 

 exile are admirably harmonized, for the author wrote his Iracema 

 far from his home, and it was his longing for the Sertao that inspired 

 him to write it. The book, of course, describes Brazil at a period 

 when European industry had not as yet disturbed the peace of the 

 country, when the land and the people were still one; and this 

 unity is most delightfully expressed in the heroine, Iracema, the 

 young and lovely Indian girl who gives her name to the book. 



The German word Hinterland has been naturalized in Brazil. 

 Whatever name is given to the Sertao emphasizes the contrast 

 between the interior and the coastal belt. And this difference is 

 explained by the geology of Brazil. The interior of the country is 

 always higher than the coastal region. In the north-east the land 

 rises gradually from the coast ; the yellow line of the shore is bordered 

 by the slopes of the low green hills, which increase in height towards 

 the interior, until they merge into a vast undulating upland, some 

 three thousand feet in altitude, traversed by ridges and scattered 



H 113 



