INTRODUCTION. 
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Cotton, several varieties of wliicli are indigenous to tlie soil, and u'ore 
cultivated liy the Indians long before the discoveiy of America, flourishes 
in the Jvortli (where, however, the quality is second-rate), as well as in 
the South, where it is acquiring greater importance as an article of 
export, in spite of the considerable tluctuations in price to which it has 
been subject. 
Spread over almost as wide a range is the sugar-cane, which 
was introduced by the Portuguese as early as the beginning of the 
sixteenth century; as sugar, and pao brazil, the Avell-kuown dyowood 
which gave the whole country its name,* were the articles first exported 
by them. The work in the sugar-cane fields is said to he very laborious 
and irksome ; and Brazilians will he found to assort that sugar-cane culture 
Avill come to a smhlen stop, upon the abolition of slavery, as free workmen 
never would undertake it. 
Another indigenous plant, of exceedingly Avide range, wliosc cidture 
might bo much improved and increased, is the tobacco, which is held in 
high esteem to tlie jwesent day by many of tlic Avdld Indian tribes. Tlie 
big cigars, more than two feet long, Avith Avhich their Pajes (usually the 
cleAmrest of the tribe, uniting the treble dignity of priest, magician, and 
medicine-man) besmoke tlicir patients, certainly are the originals of the 
“ weeds,” which no Christian gentleman can do Avithout noAAmdays. 
Some attempts to cultivate Chinese tea in Sao Paulo and Minas 
proved a sad failure, as the quality produced Avas a Amry inferior one; 
Avhether from the effect of the climate or bad management, I cannot tell. 
Certainly the patient, slender-fingered son of the “Celestial Empire” 
seems to be better suited to the subtle work of gathering and sorting the 
leaves than the negro. But they have an excellent equivalent for it in 
Brazil — the Paraguay tea [Ilex Puraguaijenm), also called Ilcrva Mate, 
or Congonha, growing Avild CAmrywhere in the Southern provinces, and 
forming already a considerable ai-ticle of export. An infusion of the 
dried and pounded leaves, imbibed through a delicately plaited little tube 
(bombilha), is the indispensable national beverage of all classes in the La 
Plata States, Paraguay, and the South of Brazil, while the N'orth has 
cacao and guarana instead. Of these and other lu’oductions of the forests 
of the I^orth, such as the cacao and the caoutchoAic, hereafter. 
* The first discoverers called it Terra da Vera Cruz, or Terra da Santa Cruz (Land 
of the True, or of the Holy Cross), and not till long after Avas this donomiuation 
changed for the name of the mnoh-appreciatod Avood. 
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