510 



A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 



material so provided. Setting aside the woods as timber, 

 what shall I say of the mass of fruits, resins, oils, coloring 

 matters, textile fibres, which they yield ? When I stopped 

 at Par4, on my way home to the United States, an exhibi- 

 tion of Amazonian products, brought together in prepara- 

 tion for the World's Fair at Paris, was still open. Much 

 as I had admired, during my journey, the richness and 

 variety of the materials native to the soil, I was amazed 

 when I saw them thus side by side. There I noticed, 

 among others, a collection of no less than one hundred and ^ 

 seventeen diffferent kinds of highly valuable woods, cut 

 from a piece of land less than half a mile square. Of 

 these many were dark-colored, veined woods susceptible 

 of a high polish, — as beautiful as rosewood or ebony. 

 There was a great variety of vegetable oils, all remarka- 

 ble for their clearness and purity. There were a number 

 of fabrics made from the fibres of the palm, and an end- 

 less variety of fruits. An empire might esteem itself rich 

 in any one of the sources of industry which abound in 

 this valley, and yet the greater part of its vast growth 

 rots on the ground, and goes to form a little more river- 

 mud or to stain the waters on the shores of which its 

 manifdld products die and decompose. But what sur- 

 prised me most was to find that a great part of this 

 region was favorable to the raising of cattle. Fine sheep 

 are fed on the grassy plains and on the hills which stretch 

 between Obydos and Almeyrim, and I have rarely eaten 

 better mutton than at Erer^, in the midst of these serras. 

 And yet the inhabitants of this fertile region suffer from 

 hunger. The insufficiency of food is evident ; but it 

 arises solely from the inability of the people to avail 

 themselves of the natural productions of the soil. As 



