BRAZIL.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 8637, 25 November 1889, Page 2

BRAZIL.

Brazil, the country wherein a revolution, probably long in process of preparation, has just resulted — so cablegrams announce — in the deposition and exile of one of the most high-minded and enlightened of modern rulers, and, it would appear, in the esiablishment of yet another of the numerous family of Republics, occupies an area considerably larger than the whole of Australia, and one half that of South America. Its inhabitants, descended in the main from the once enterprising and powerful j people of Portugal who, early in the sixteenth century, were the principal explorers along the south-eastern coast of that continent, may be estimated at between thirteen and fourteen millions, of whom about two millions are emancipated slaves. The settled population of Brazil is still, after the lapse of nearly four centuries, almost entirely confined to the district reaching from the Atlantic coast westward to the great river San Francisco. Almost the whole of the vast interior is even less known at this day to the Brazilians than that of the North Island of New Zealand to ourselves. Its few inhabitants consist almost wholly of wandering tribes of miserable Indians. The Northern and larger portion of Brazil is included in the immense region watered by the Amazon and its affluents — a region as large as the combined areas of European Russia, Germany, Italy, and France. Its forests, denser than our own, and of tropical luxuriance, abounding in birds and insects of gorgeous colours, as well as in many kinds of wild animals, have been graphically painted in the glowing pages of Chateaubrian and Audubon, and in soberer tints by Humboldt and Bonplan, Waterton and Burton. The mighty Amazon — compared with which the largest river in Europe is but a streamlet — is navigable for ships as big as the Union coasting steamers over, a distance from its mouth of fifteen hundred miles. Even the smaller of its tributaries are equal in length, if not always in volume, to the Danube or the Rhine. The tropical forest through which the rivera slowly wind on their course into the Amazon, is stated to measure fifteen hundred miles in length — in breadth from four to eight hundred. When we remember how barely a generation back — and subsequently to the Crimean war — the Volga had scarce a steamer floating on its surface, yet now is navigated by a fleet numbering at least seven hundred — it is at any rate credible that, ere another fifty years, such rivers as the Amazon and San Francisco may be navigated not, as at this time, by solitary canoes and a steam launch or two, but by a fleet equally numerous, bearing into the interior the products of distant countries — among them wool from Canterbury, frozen meat from Wellington ; it may be butter from Taranaki. The soil of this tropical region of Brazil is described by Humboldt as extremely productive. The forests likewise abound in valuable timber. The climate, now rapidly fatal to most Europeans, is likely to be in no small measure improved by felling bush and draining swamps. As now, too, in the Southern States of North America, so in Northern Brazil, the labour of the freed negro population will eventually be available for the development of the natural fertility in every kind of tropical produce. Central and South-eastern Brazil enjoy a more temperate climate on the elevations rising from the coast towards the interior in a succession of low terraces or hill ranges — the highest of which does not exceed six thousand feet, the average being from one to two thousand. Between, Lie well-watered and fruitful valleys, whilst along the Atlantic stretches a low-lying, undulating plain. In this Central and Southern Brazil the rivers are comparatively few, and, for the most part, too shallow and rapid to be of use for navigation. Along the three thousand miles of its coast Brazil possesses but two first-claBS harbours — that of Rio, which is said to surpass even that of Sydney for commodiousness and beauty, and that of Pernambuco. Bahia, the second city and sea-port in the Empire, with a population nearly as large as that of San Francisco ten years ago, has a fino bay provided with a lengthy pier constructed of open iron work. Of roads — save in tho immediate neighbourhood of tho larger towns — Brazil has none more worthy of the name than our own bush tracks. Railways, chiefly constructed out of English capital and under the superintendence of English engineers, have for many years past been slowly making way. Their total length, however| to this very date does not, it is believed, much exceed those in this small country. The chief productions of Brazil, as of most other tropical countries, are coffee, sugar, rice, tobacco, cocoa, chiefly from the northern portion; from its southern, hides and tallow; from the central, drugs, diamonds, gold, and cabinet woods. Rio — the seat of Government, and largest city in Brazil — has a population of some three hundred thousand ; being thus, next to Melbourne, the largest town in the Southern Hemisphere. It carries on an extensive trade with New York, London, and Liverpool, as well as with various ports both on the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts of North and South America. Besides Rio, Bahia, and Pernambuco, other towns are Maranhao, San Paulo, and Para, the last being tho most northerly. From the middle of tho sixteenth century down to the early part of this, Brazil remained a dependency of the Crown of Portugal. When the French armies, crossing tho Pyrenees, overran tho Spanish Peninsula in 1808, the Royal House of Braganza, from whom the late Emperor is descendod, sought refuge from the tyranny of Napoleon in this their domain across the Atlantic. Then was founded that Throne which, for the last eighty years, amid all the varied fortunes — the ware and revolutions — of overy other State in South America, has secured for Brazil, undor an hereditary and constitutional monarchy, co considerable a share of peace and prosperity, and has placed her at tho head of; all the States on that continent. We trust that under the new regime she may con! tinue on the like peaceful and prosperous oww,