EMPIEE OF BRAZIL. 123 



and is the trunk of the present system. It starts from Kio de 

 Janeiro, the capital, crosses an important part of the province of 

 Eio de Janeiro, has a branch traversing the province of S. Patdo, 

 and another bringing to the coast the crops of the province of 

 Minas Geraes, while its southern connections open a line to Santos. 

 This road reaches several of the richest provinces of the empire, 

 and its prosperity is chiefly due to its large traffic in coffee. The 

 mania for building railroads has, however, resulted in an exten- , 

 sion of lines into provinces where the traffic is insufficient to 

 make the operating of the roads profitable. Those interested in 

 further studying this subject will find it ably treated in Mr. Her- 

 bert Smith's work on " Brazil : The Amazons and the Coast," and 

 also in the volume lately mentioned, published under the auspices 

 of the Brazilian Government. It is sufficient for our purpose to 

 know that within five or six years the railways have penetrated the 

 large coffee-growing districts, and that the crop finds its way to 

 market rapidly, and at far less cost than when planters sent their 

 product to market on the backs of mules, which mode of con- 

 veyance was made uncertain, and at times impossible, by the bad 

 condition of the roads during the rainy season. It has been suffi- 

 ciently demonstrated that the government and planters of BrazU 

 are alive to the importance of using the great factors that have 

 revolutionized the commerce of the world within twenty years, 

 viz., steam and electricity, and this is the more creditable, for this 

 has been done in instances where it is certain the railways cannot, 

 for many years at least, earn operating expenses, as some of them 

 traverse long stretches of arid land where it is not probable that 

 large quantities of either freight or passengers can ever be fur- 

 nished. These developments have done much to cheapen the 

 price of coffee, and their effect has been felt more during the past 

 year than at any previous time. 



