179 
September i, '890.] THE TROPECAL AGRICULTURIST. 
dance, but such is the force of habit^ — after a long 
residence in these parts— coffee with milk seems a 
tame drink, compared with the black enervating 
beverage well-sugared — which is the “ eye-opener” 
for everyone, rich and poor senator and beggar, in 
this part of the world. 
While seated in the refreshment-room one is 
visited now and then by well dressed young men, 
who seem of the class employed during the day as 
clerks in wholesale houses or retail dealers’ assis- 
tants— and is asked in a whisper to buy from the 
visitor the unexpired half of a return ticket to Sao 
Paulo. The ticket lasts for a month and has date 
of issue stamped on it. Negotiations are continued 
in a whisper, and the ticket may be bought for 
some ten or twelve shillings less than one can 
buy a single ticket for. From the numbers of those 
who present themselves afterwards one is inclined 
to think a better bargain could have been struck 
by exercising a little patience. The clandestine 
nature of the transaction leads one to believe that 
it is illegal. This however those who benefit by 
the affair do not care to inquire into. Tickets 
are not given out until a short time before 
time of train leaving, and the gates leading to the 
platform are not opened until that time. The 
waiting-rooms seem ample, but as the approaches 
are well covered, most of the passengers prefer 
waiting about the doors, no doubt looking for those 
whom they expected to accompany them or to see 
them off. There is not much pushing and crowding. 
The newsboys and shoe-blacks are kept outside, 
and your business with them is done before you 
enter. Luggage is a thing that does not bother the 
passenger much, for the day before the passenger 
intends to leave, it can be sent to an office of the 
railway department in the centre of the city of 
Eio de Janeiro and by giving particulars as to desti- 
nation, and paying according to weight, he has only 
to present the card or receipt received at the end of 
his journey. Small parcels or such as do not inoon- 
venience|other passengers are allowed into the carriage. 
While waiting for the train to leave, one is struck 
with the costly fashionable dresses of both ladies 
and gentlemen of the better class, but all are well 
protected from dust while travelling, the science 
represented by Worth is even exercised in the for- 
mation of ladies’ ” dusters ” from unbleached linen 
or silk. Gentlemen protect their French-tailor-made 
suits by long over-coats of a material similar to the 
ladies',* and they put a white washable cover on 
their felt hats. Only 1st and 2nd class carriages are 
run ; this being a fast train there are few of the 
latter, and what there are of varied colour, position, 
and dress. 
Emancipation does not seem to diminish the 
retinue of coloured people of both sexes, which those 
included in the upper ten require when travelling 
in this country ; a few German, Portuguese and 
Italian girls are seen accompanying families, but 
the balk of lady’s maids and children’s nurses are taken 
from those who were formerly slaves. The dresses 
of some of these which before the 13th May 1888 were 
supplied by their masters and mistresses are not 
muchinferior in either out or material to theirs, and 
more costly than those of the same class in Europe. 
No one seems to bo allowed to enter by the regular 
platform entraneo without a ticket, and I cannot 
explain why before the train leaves so many people 
are there to take leave of friends and these seam 
as many as the passengers, the carriages get filled 
up, and the stranger thinks he cannot get a seat, 
* In Melbourne there is an enormous consumption of 
“China silk” for male and female “dust coats” in 
summer time. The protecting dresses look, in the case 
of ladies, almost as nice as the drosses they cover. — 
Ed, I. A. 
but the checking of the tickets soon undeceives him. 
Then the parting 1 Ladies give a kiss to each other 
on both cheeks and gentlemen embrace each other, 
some tears are shed by those on the platform, 
by-and-by the whistle of the locomotive blows, the 
train begins to move, white handkerchiefs are waved 
from carriage windows in reply to those on the plat- 
form, the speed increases, the beautiful suburban 
villas are passed, we pass through the wide ex- 
panse of fodder-grass fields, and off we are at forty 
or fifty miles an hour, and but for the splendidly 
convenient carriage arrangements we have here, one 
might fancy he was on one of the London and North- 
Western, the Great Northern, or Midland fast trains; 
Gradually all settle down to our seats and morn- 
ing newspaper. A great many small stations are 
passed, but the train does not stop until it has run 
for more than an hour, and this it does at a place 
called Belem (pronounced B6-leng*). Here one can 
get coffee and some passengers stretch their legs on the 
platform. There is a refreshment-room ; all take 
coffee ; ladies and those who had not slept enough 
before leaving get it handed in at the windows. 
So as not to have to mention it again I may 
notice that this custom of coffee drinking is repeated 
every time the train stops : boys come with the cups 
on trays, the passenger helps himself and pays two- 
pence-halfpenny for a cup. 
After leaving Eio the country is flat. The hills 
to the south of Eio where the Tijuca, the Corcovado, 
the Gavea, on the sides of all of which up to near the 
summit are some beautiful private residences, hotels 
&c. are gradually left behind, and in front we see the 
lofty ranges forming the Serra do Mar through the 
defiles of which the train has to pass. In this low 
country there is very little cultivation. Here and 
there are to be seen cane-fields, but the juice is 
turned into rum. The costliness of machinery for 
sugar-making prevents the farmer with small 
capital from making anything else of it, and the 
low price ruling for sugar for some years past 
prevents large capitalists from assisting by 
means of central sugar factories. Patches planted 
with mandioca, maize and beans are also seen. 
Land seems in the hands of people who do not 
care to rent it, or to sell it, else a great deal of it 
could be covered by market gardens, and small 
farms worked by European colonists, who could find 
a ready market for their produce in the city of 
Eio de Janeiro. With the exception of a few small 
dry looking knolls covered with grass, the soil 
looks as if it could grow anything suited for a 
latitude of 22-J degrees and a country having an 
average supply of rain distributed more or less all 
the year through of 120 inches. At Belem the 
ascent of the Serra do Mar commences. The gra- 
dient of the line is one in fifty, some thirteen tunnels 
cut out of solid gneiss are passed through. I am 
not poetical enough to offer to describe the grand 
views to be seen from many parts of this pass, but 
steep hills covered with virgin forest amongst 
which are trees of enormous size, and smaller shrubs 
showing flowers of every hue and filling the air with 
their fragrant scent, grassy hills, and grassy 
valleys, near and far are to be seen ; while silvery 
streaks of waterfalls rushing over high rocks and 
disappearing, as if ending in spray, in the forest 
valleys below, and these brightened up by the sun ; 
streaks of cloud showing pieces of mountain below 
and pieces above; showing a tremendous height, 
for a short time to the Peaks, but these snowlike 
masses are soon to be dispersed by Sol’s influence; 
These and a great deal more are to be seen and 
enjoyed, and then, as enjoyment heightens, 
* And meaning Bethlehem : 
form ‘Bedlam,’— Ed. T.A, 
compare the Engii&lj, 
