The Republic of the United States of Brazil, including the Acre Territory, is the largest of the South American countries and if we include Alaska and our island possessions is really larger in area than the United States of America, by about 200,000 square miles. It is fifteen times larger than Germany and sixteen times larger than France. With the exception of Ecuador and Chile its frontier touches every country of South America, being bounded on the north by British, French and Dutch Guiana and Venezuela; on the west by Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentine; on the south by Uruguay, while the Atlantic Ocean forms its eastern and a portion of its northern limitation. Its most eastern point is but three days’ sail from the western coast of Africa. It is the fourth largest country in the world, and is widest between the Equator and the Tropic of Capricorn, covering an area of 3,292,000 square miles.

The population has been variously estimated at from 20,000,000 to 24,000,000, of whom less than 1,000,000 are aborigines, thus giving it about one-fifth of the population per square mile of the population of the United States of America. Its inhabitants are white, black, mulattoes, Indians and mixed breeds, a heavy percentage being descendants from the slaves imported originally from Africa, slavery in Brazil having been abolished in 1888.

The language of Brazil is Portuguese except among the Indian tribes, each one of which has its own dialect. These Indians are to be found in the interior and the remote districts, and are a negligible quantity as far as trade is concerned, living primitive lives and having few wants that the rich country and rivers cannot supply.

Brazil was discovered April 22, 1500, by Pedro Alvarez Cabral, a Portuguese explorer, but no definite attempt was made to settle it, or assume governing power by the Portuguese until 1549, fifty-seven years after Columbus had been to America, when Portugal awoke to the great possibilities of the country and dispatched her first Governor General in the personage of Thome de Souza.

During the century following the arrival of its first constituted governor, Brazil became the scene of numerous attacks and invasions on the part of the French, Dutch and British, each one desirous of acquiring portions of its territory, having been attracted by the current stories of its great wealth and latent resources. For a time both France and Holland established themselves in a small way within its boundary, but ultimately abandoned their outposts.

From 1640 to 1808 Brazil was governed by a Viceroy, who resided in Rio de Janeiro. The victorious armies of Napoleon and their progress across the Spanish Peninsula ultimately caused King John to abandon his capital in Portugal and flee to Brazil, where he established himself in Rio de Janeiro (in 1808), and ruled Portugal from this one of his possessions. This is the only instance in history of any portion of Europe ever being ruled from the western continent. When peace came to Europe, King John returned, leaving Brazil under the regency of his eldest son Dom Pedro, who in 1822, proclaimed Brazil independent of Portugal, and established himself in power as Emperor, the first and only instance of such a form of government in South America. Dom Pedro was forced to abdicate in 1831 in favor of his son Dom Pedro II, who after reigning through a regency assumed the throne on becoming of age in 1840. It is unnecessary to detail the causes that led to the bloodless revolution of November 15, 1889, which ended his reign and by means of which Brazil proclaimed herself a republic, adopting a constitution patterned after our own and a government comprising a President, with legislative powers vested in a Congress composed of two bodies, a Senate and a Chamber of Deputies.

Brazil is so immense, situated between the fifth degree north and the thirty-third degree south, and its topography so varied that it has all kinds of climates excepting extreme cold. Lying in the temperate and tropical zones one would incline to the belief that it would be more or less warm, but its many rivers and mountains, its high table-lands and plateaus exert a beneficial influence in this regard and materially modify what otherwise would be extreme degrees of heat.

More than half of Brazil is an elevated plateau, varying from 2000 to 3000 feet in altitude. It has four distinct mountain ranges, which deflect its rains and form vast watersheds for irrigating the fertile lands at their base. The eastern and central portions are elevated while the chief characteristics of the north and west are its fertile plains and valleys.

The coast of Brazil straggles along for over 5000 miles and is provided with numerous natural harbors, where the earlier settlers established cities which have grown and prospered, the principal ones from the north to the south being Belem, or Para, San Luiz, Parnahyba, Fortaleza or Ceara, Natal, Parahyba, Recife or Pernambuco, Maceio, Aracaju, SÃo Salvador or Bahia, Victoria, Rio de Janeiro, Santos, Paranagua, SÃo Francisco, Rio Grande do Sul and Porto Allegre. As a rule each of these ports is the terminus for a railway system penetrating the interior, designed solely for the purpose of bringing the products to market and carrying supplies and necessities to the part of the country dependent upon it. There are practically no trunk or interstate lines, but plans are now formulated to overcome this condition.

Manaos is an inland port of Brazil, famous as a trading depot and one of the centers of the rubber industry. It is located on the Rio Negro, at its mouth where it empties into the great Amazon, one thousand miles from the Atlantic Ocean, and maintains direct steamship connection with the United States and Europe as well as the other ports of Brazil.

Perhaps no other country in the world is so well provided with rivers as Brazil. The mighty, muddy Amazon, the greatest river in existence, practically traverses the country from east to west in its 3850 miles journey to the sea. Some idea of its strength and volume may be gained when I state that its yellow waters color the Atlantic for over 100 miles beyond its mouth, and freshen the salt water for a distance of 180 miles. Emptying into this Queen of Rivers are more than 200 tributaries, over 100 of which are navigable, the famous Rio Roosevelt or River of Doubt forming one of the number. There are over 10,000 miles of navigable waterways for ocean vessels and 20,000 miles for light-draft boats.

Brazil is a pastoral country and the indications are that it will always remain so. Its vast savannahs and fields have formed ideal locations for raising cattle and sugar, while its mountain sides and plateaus are unparalleled for the growth of its staple product—coffee, the average yearly crop of which is the enormous amount of 1,596,000,000 pounds. Rice, cotton, sugar, tobacco, matte (a species of tea for native use), mandioca (a starchy tuber from which a bread is made much liked by the native) and cacao are also extensively grown. India rubber, the use of which was early known to the Indians of Brazil, to whom it is indebted for its name, is the second leading product of this remarkable land. The tree, the juice of which produces this twentieth century necessity, grows wild in the northern portion of the country, although it can be successfully cultivated. No effort is made to preserve the trees when once tapped, and the rubber prospectors are continually going farther and farther into the interior in search of new districts. The trees are from three to twelve feet in diameter, of slow growth, indigenous to the region of the Amazon and its tributaries, growing wild, scattered through the jungles and tropical shrubbery.

The forests of Brazil are practically virgin. They abound in dye, cabinet and hard woods and the opportunities for the development in this field alone are enormous. Due to the fact that the country has a wonderful series of aqueous arteries the transportation problem to mills and markets is easily solved and the waterpower can be used in preparing the timber for shipping.

Brazil has at present more local factories than all the other Latin American countries combined, forty per cent. of her manufactured articles being cotton goods, which find a ready market. In the Federal District of Rio de Janeiro, five of these mills have eight thousand operatives, producing yearly about 80,000,000 yards. Petropolis has four mills and SÃo Paulo twenty-five with a total output of nearly 100,000,000 yards. The number of establishments in this industry alone amounts to 3664, giving employment to 168,760 hands, with a total yearly output of 275,000,000 yards of goods.

Of late the shoe-making industry has developed extensively. In 1913 there were in all of Brazil 4524 factories employing ten or more operatives, with a total invested capital of $18,857,000. These plants are nearly all operated by American machinery, many of them under American superintendents, the demand for American equipment being sufficiently large to warrant the big shoe machinery and shoe-finding houses of New England in maintaining their own offices and carry their own stock in the larger cities devoted to this business.

Brazil is wonderfully rich in mines of precious and semi-precious stones. Among the semi-precious stones to be found are achroite, actinolite, agates, amethysts, analcime, anatase, andalusites, anthophyllite, apophyllite, apatite, aquamarines, cymophane, citune, columbite, desemine, iolite, jasper, opals, ruby, sapphires, spinel, topaz, tourmalines. There are many deposits of minerals, such as copper, iron, silver, gold, arsenic, barium, bismuth, cinnabar, cobalt, galena, manganese, nickel, platinum, tin, and wolframite. There are also rich veins of asbestos, coal, soapstone, sulphur, salt, marble, mica, and evidences of petroleum.

Gold has been mined in Brazil for over 300 years, the principal deposits being in the State of Minas Geraes. A mine near the Honario Bicalho station produced from 1888 to 1912, over $26,000,000 worth of gold and as late as 1911, paid a dividend of 10 per cent. An English authority has estimated the total output of gold to date from all mines at $1,000,000,000.

Brazil is reputed to be the second largest diamond-producing country in the world, the Brazilian stone being considered fifty per cent. better than others owing to the constant attrition it has undergone in prehistoric days. At one time more than 40,000 men were employed in this industry in Minas Geraes alone. The best diamond fields extend from 10 degrees to 25 degrees south latitude and many enormous and high-grade stones have been discovered, the total amount exported in 175 years or up to 1903, being estimated at four tons. Edwin Streeter in his book on precious stones, says that “The State of Minas Geraes produced in the first twenty years 144,000 carats. Up to 1850,—5,844,000 carats worth $45,000,000 were sold and some $10,000,000 stolen from the mines by employes.” As an evidence of the fact that these mines are still productive, there were registered 456 claims in 1909 in the Diamanta Districts, which produced $1,000,000 worth of gems. In 1911 there were registered in the State of Minas Geraes 437 claims.

Travel along the coast and to the cities located on the railway lines is comparatively convenient and comfortable although very expensive. In the interior and from the beaten paths it is difficult and filled with hardships.

Living is high—much more so than in the larger cities of the States or Europe. Hotels are far from the standard one is accustomed to in towns of corresponding size, throughout the world—a statement equally true of all Latin America.

At first the monetary system of Brazil may confuse one, its currency being on the gold exchange basis. A milreis is the unit of value and while it is subject to fluctuation, may for all practical purposes be reckoned as worth .33? cents, or three milreis as the equivalent of a United States dollar. The symbol for the unit is $ and the value of our dollar would be expressed thus 3$000. A conto, or about $333.33 would be written 1000$000. The banking of Brazil is chiefly controlled by the British, while Germany is their closest competitor, both France and Italy being represented each by a bank. The National City Bank of New York has recently established a branch in Rio de Janeiro, with sub-agencies throughout Brazil, so that direct exchange on New York may now be bought.

Brazil imported in 1913, $326,428,509 worth of goods, of which sum the United Kingdom supplied $79,881,008; Germany, $57,043,754; United States, $51,289,682; France, $31,939,752; Argentine, $24,293,712.

In the same period of time she exported goods to the value of $315,164,687, the United States taking about one-third of the total amount or to be exact, $102,652,923; Germany, $44,392,410; United Kingdom, $41,701,815; France, $38,685,561; Holland, $23,252,700.

The United States should do a much larger trade with Brazil owing to a preferential duty allowed our nation due to the fact that we are the largest consumers of her leading staple—coffee. According to government decree No. 9323, of January 17, 1912, flour imported from the States pays 30 per cent. less duty than if imported from any other land, while dried fruit, condensed milk, typewriters, rubber articles, and supplies, scales, refrigerators, cement, corsets, school furniture, windmills, watches, desks and printing inks, pay 20 per cent. less duty than similar articles imported from other countries.

Brazil exports coffee, rubber, hides, skins, cacao, tobacco, salt, cotton, sugar, woods, nuts, precious and semi-precious stones and gold. She imports foodstuffs, shoes, machinery, textiles, building woods, ammunition, wheat, automobiles, vehicles, codfish, dried fruits, glass, toilet articles, building and kitchen hardware, cement, scientific instruments, iron and steel, enamelled ware, paints and varnish, haberdashers’ goods, cottons, hats, corrugated iron, galvanized iron, tools, condensed milk, stationery, pipe, printing material and presses, electric machinery and supplies, typewriters, nails, screws and rivets.

American fruits are much in demand in Brazil, and an excellent market exists to-day for apples. Potatoes, onions, beets, garlic and other fresh vegetables would also sell well and a lucrative trade in these necessities of life could be developed without any great effort. The refrigerator ships running from the Argentine to New York with meat could carry as return freight these perishable cargoes at a low rate.

Steamship connections between Europe and the United States, with Brazilian ports are numerous and sailings comparatively frequent and as a rule the accommodations are all that could be desired. From New York the Booth line (English) has two steamers a month to North Brazil and Amazon River towns, touching at Barbados, Para and Manaos, with a ship every six weeks to Iquitos, Peru. One steamer goes each month to North Brazilian ports including Parnahyba, Natal and nearby localities. The United States Steamship Line (American) has one vessel monthly for Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro and Santos, freight being redistributed at these ports for intermediate points. The Lloyd Brazilleiro Line (Brazilian) maintains a semi-monthly service between New York and Natal, and Parahiba; and Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro, and Santos, with occasional service to other larger ports. These boats do not as a rule carry passengers. They also maintain a service along the smaller coast towns and the rivers leading into the interior of Brazil, even having regular sailings from Asuncion, Paraguay, for Brazilian river towns. The Lamport & Holt Line (English) has weekly sailings from New York to Bahia, Rio de Janeiro and Santos, generally stopping at Trinidad and Barbados, West Indies, on their trip north. The Prince Line (British) touch once a month at Rio de Janeiro and Santos, carrying freight chiefly. Other vessels of this line make monthly calls at Pernambuco, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro and Santos. Numerous tramp ships also sail from American ports on the eastern coast of the States to Brazil.

Brazil has 15,272 miles of railways, federal, state and private, over many of which tickets which correspond to our mileage books are issued, for the convenience of the travelling public. Many new lines are in process of construction or contemplated, and a very decided effort is being made to unite the various main lines by connecting roads, so that the entire republic, including its most remote districts, may be thus reached.

The leading cities, which should be visited for business purposes, are:—

Some of the States and municipalities of Brazil have a special tax for commercial travellers, which varies from year to year, concerning the payment of which arrangements can be best made when on the ground. A small tax is also levied on trade samples, presumably to be refunded when leaving the country. It is advisable to learn how best to handle the situation from travellers with whom you will meet en route. As a rule, all of these are mere matter of detail and can be advantageously arranged, through the proper channel.