EMPIRE OE BEAZIL. 119 



" From December to January the wet season sets in, and with 

 the first rainfalls the rivers, which until then had been almost dry, 

 with only here and there a few pools, which served as watering- 

 places for cattle, or as a refuge for fish, swell immensely. Plants 

 in a few days, as by a charm, reacquire their verdancy ; the soil is 

 covered with parti-colored flowers ; alimentary plants grow quickly 

 and produce abundantly." 



The vegetation of this colossal empire, so richly endowed by 

 nature, is beyond the powers of description. " In the mountain 

 passes not far removed from the sea shore, the conjoint effects of 

 heat and moisture produce a superfluity of vegetable life, which 

 man's utmost efforts cannot restrain. Trees split for paling in 

 the neighborhood of Eio de Janeiro send forth shoots and branches 

 immediately, and this whether the position of the fragments be 

 that in which they originally grew, or inverted. On the banks of 

 the Amazon the loftiest trees destroy each other by their prox- 

 imity, and are bound together by rich and multiform vines. In 

 the proArince of Maranhao, the roots, grasses, and otlier plants, ex- 

 tending from the shores of pools, weave themselves, in time, into 

 a kind of vegetable bridge, along which the passenger treads, un- 

 aware that he has left the firm earth, imtil the jaws of a cayman 

 protrude through the herbage before him." Botanists pronounce 

 the flora of Brazil unsurpassed by that of any other region in 

 the world. There are already twenty thousand species known to 

 scientists, many of which are invaluable as articles of food or 

 medicine. 



Almost every sort of wood can be obtained in the forests ; 

 among the most valuable trees being an uncultured palm grow- 

 ing in several of the provinces, almost every portion of it coming 

 into use, even the leaves giving wax used in the manufacture of 

 candles, the province of Eio Grande do Norte exporting 300,000 

 kilograms (660,000 pounds) over and above home consumption. 

 It is, however, reserved for a foreign plant, Coffcea Arabica, to take 

 the first place as a source of wealth-^to be, in fact, the chief source 

 of the prosperity of the empire. The productiveness of the soil 

 is in some instances wonderful. Grain returns commonly one 

 hundred and fifty fold ; in some localities two hundred and fifty 

 to three hundred, and on one of the coast islands four him- 



