CHAPTER XXII.

Want of emigrants and laborers-Inducements to settlers, and disadvantages-Citizenship-Import and export duties and taxes-Want of circulating medium-Embarrassments of government--Capabilities of the Province-Effect of climate on the whites -The blacks-Inducements to the formation of a steamboat company-SeasonsTemperature-Health-Superior advantages to invalids-Farewell to Pará-Voyage

home.

THE want of emigrants from other countries, and of an efficient laboring class among its population, are the great obstacles to the permanent welfare of Northern Brazil. It never was the policy of Portugal to encourage emigration excepting from her own territory, and although, by the indomitable enterprise of her sons, she secured to herself the finest Empire in the world, yet for want of other assistance, this Empire is impoverished, and the millions of square miles that should now be teeming with wealth, are entirely unproductive. With the nobler qualities of the old Portuguese, to which popular history has never done justice, was mingled a narrowness of mind, that was natural enough in the subjects of an old and priest-ridden monarchy. The Brazilians have not entirely thrown off this prejudice of their ancestors, and still entertain somewhat of the old jealousy of foreigners, but very naturally, in a newly liberated government, they dislike the Portuguese above all others. Much of the wealth of the country is in the hands of the Portuguese, who, coming over when young, with habits of shrewdness, and economy, almost always accumulate fortunes. The Brazilians are no match for them in these qualities, and therefore hate them most cordially. For the same reason, this feeling is continually excited, although in a lesser degree, against

other foreigners, but more in some parts of the Empire than others, and probably, as little in Pará as any where.

The Brazilian government offers great inducements to emigrants, and yet these are more than neutralized by disabilities and present disadvantages. Land is free of cost, and upon any vacant section, a man may settle, with the proprietorship of, at least, a square league, and as much more as he really requires. Moreover, any new improvement in tools, or machinery, may be introduced free of duties.

The ground is easily cleared, as the roots of the trees do not extend far beneath the surface, and the efforts of man are further aided by causes attendant upon the clime. The soil is of the greatest fertility, and sugar cane, rice, coffee, anatto, cotton, cacao, and a hundred other products, richly repay the labor bestowed upon their cultivation; while from the forests are obtained gums and drugs, all yielding a revenue. Almost every thing grows to hand that man requires; living is cheap, and the climate delightful.

On the other hand, the counteracting obstacles are very great. Although the government professes every desire for the accession of foreigners, it denies them the rights of citizenship, excepting under peculiar circumstances, which, of course, obliges them to labor under legal disabilities.

Again, import duties are extravagantly high, and articles of furniture, tools, or machinery, which cannot be manufactured in the country without great expense, if at all, are taxed so highly as to be really prohibited; although, as before stated, new inventions and improvements, are introduced from abroad without charge.

But a greater drawback, by far, is the export duty, the most stupid, indefensible measure that could be conceived; a withering curse to all enterprise, and a more effectual hinderance to the prosperity of Brazil, than a weak government, dishonest officials, a debased currency, and all other influences together. Brazilian statesmen (?) imagine that the export tax comes directly from the pocket of the foreign purchaser, whereas, it recoils upon the producer, and its effect is to make the price paid for labor so low, as to prohibit cultivation.

There is scarcely a product raised in the two countries, in which Brazil could not undersell the United States in every market of the world, were it not for this tax. Its cotton and rice, even during the past year, have been shipped from Pará to New-York. Its tobacco is preferable to the best Virginian, and can be raised in inexhaustible quantities.

The imposition upon the producer is also increased by the tithe required for the church, and, between the two, the lower classes are under a burden, which occasionally becomes insupportable, and which is the undoubted cause of the general and increasing disaffection toward the government, and of the revolutions which have heretofore broken out, and which are always feared. Rubber shoes, which are principally made by the low whites and Indians, pay three taxes to the treasury before they leave the country, until the first price is nearly doubled. Not a basket of oranges, or of assai, comes to market, untaxed.

Not only do products exported to foreign countries pay duties, but even from one Brazilian port to another, and from one inland town to another. A few bags of coffee, which were sent by us from the Barra of the Rio Negro to Santarem, paid duties at the latter place. Chili hats, coming from Peru, pay duties at the frontier, again at Pará, and again at Rio Janeiro. No country in the world could bear up under such intolerable exactions, and Brazilian statesmen may thank their own folly if the Empire be dismembered.

Another obstacle, severely felt, is the want of a circulating medium. The Brazilian currency consists almost entirely of copper, and paper issued by the government. The smallest value is one ree, corresponding to one half mill in our currency, and the smallest coin is of ten rees: the largest of eighty, or four vintens. One thousand rees make a milree, the smallest paper note, about equal in value to a half dollar. There are various issues, from one milree to one thousand. Excepting in the city, and upon the remote frontiers, gold and silver will not circulate. The amount of bills, in the province of Pará, is never adequate to the wants of the people, and their tendency is always to the city. Furthermore, by the operations of government, even the little currency that is floating, is constantly

fluctuating in value. Upon one pretext or another, they call in notes of a certain denomination, at short notice, and under a heavy discount. Such was the case with the two milree notes, when we were upon the river. Not long since, it was discovered that the Treasurer at Rio Janeiro, had sent to the provinces a vast amount of money for the payment of the troops, which was certainly struck off the original plate, but differed from the true emission by the absence of a letter or word. It was a fraud of the Treasurer, unless, as many believed, sanctioned by the government. These bills were scattered to the remotest corners of the Empire, when suddenly appeared an order, recalling the whole, within a certain limited time. If this were a speculation of the government, it was, probably, a profitable one, though the country may not have received the benefit of it. But a few years since, one milree was nearly or quite equivalent in value to one dollar in silver.

The truth is, that the Brazilian government is a weak government. It is too republican to be a monarchy, and too monarchical to be a republic. If it were decidedly one or the other, there would be greater strength and greater freedom; but now, it has neither the bulwark of an aristocracy, nor the affection of the people. It is forced to depend entirely upon a regular army for its existence, and is kept in a state of constant alarm by disturbances in its provinces, or invasions of its frontiers; it is bowed beneath a heavy foreign debt, and obliged to use all kinds of expedients, not to make advance, but to retain its position.

Were Pará a free and independent State, its vast wilds would, in a few years, be peopled by millions, and its products would flood the world. It contains an area of 950,000 square miles, nearly half the area of the United States and all its territories. Its soil is every where of exhaustless fertility, and but an exceedingly small portion of it is unfitted for cultivation. The noblest rivers of the world open communication with its remotest parts, and lie spread like net-work over its surface. It is estimated that the Amazon and its tributaries present an aggregate navigable length of from 40,000 to 50,000 miles. The

whole territory is as much superior, in every respect, to the valley of the Mississippi, as the valley of the Mississippi is to that of the Hudson.

But besides the hinderances to prosperity on the part of the government, the settler has other disadvantages to struggle against, one of which being the deficiency of means of transportation throughout the interior, may be but temporary; the other is the effect of the climate. It is not to be denied, that although the climate is singularly healthy, its constant heat is enervating, and that natives of colder regions, after a few years' residence, have not that bodily strength requisite to daily and protracted toil. It is only in the early morning, and late in the afternoon, that white men can labor in the open air; but where a white would inevitably receive a sun-stroke, a negro labors with uncovered head, without injury or exhaustion. The one has capacity to direct, and the other the ability to perform, and it is difficult to conceive how the resources of Brazil can ever be successfully developed, without a co-operation of the two The blacks need not be slaves, they would answer every purpose, in being apprentices after the British West India system.

races.

Brazilian slavery, as it is, is little more than slavery in name. Prejudice against color is scarcely known, and no white thinks less of his wife because her ancestors came from over the water. Half the officers of the government and of the army, are of mingled blood; and padres, and lawyers, and doctors of the intensest hue, are none the less esteemed. The educated blacks are just as talented, and just as gentlemanly as the whites, and in repeated instances, we received favors from them, which we were happy to acknowledge.

Efforts have been made for the establishment of steamboats upon the Amazon, but from causes unforeseen, and not inherent in the enterprise, they have failed. A few years since, the government granted a monopoly of the river, for a term of years, to a citizen of Pará. A company was formed, and a small steamboat brought out, but from lack of confidence in the individual referred to, the enterprise progressed no further. It is said, the government are ready to renew their offers, and