136 THE PRAZOES 



generation of the remoter prazo-proprietors, profit- 

 ing by the bitter experience of those who have 

 gone before, seek first of all to attract as large a 

 native population as possible by dint of indulgent 

 treatment, and by making it quite understood that 

 labour will not be required of them to any excessive 

 degree. This once done, and the advantages of 

 residence within his borders sufficiently made public, 

 the happy proprietor will assuredly see his unde- 

 veloped prazo densely populated, and his coffers 

 overflowing with easily collected hut-taxes. Of 

 course, in the prazoes near the sea, where im- 

 portant work has, as we have seen, been carried 

 out, large populations rule in spite of the extensive 

 plantations undertaken ; but it should be remem- 

 bered that these are almost exclusively coconut 

 plantations, and that, therefore, the task of planting 

 once performed, but little care and labour suffice 

 to maintain the groves in a state of comparative 

 order. Moreover, the conditions obtaining upon 

 the coast but little resemble those subsisting in the 

 far interior. Led by men of energy, men of initia- 

 tive, the coast negro to some extent has begun to 

 realise the dignity and necessity of labour. He 

 has created needs for himself which only the fruits 

 of his toil can satisfy. To those pioneers of prazo- 

 farming who in the past were content to sit still 

 and enrich themselves by the sole means of the 

 collection of taxes, has succeeded another genera- 

 tion possessed of capital and the knowledge of how 

 to employ it. To the present workers, as a whole, 

 the mere collection of the native taxes without other 

 sources of revenue would prove insufficient to pay 



