“Norte-Americano,” politely suggested a Brazilian to me in the course of a conversation, and I accepted the correction.

“We also are Americanos,” he continued. After that I was very careful to make the distinction, although in an unguarded moment it would sometimes appear. “Ingles” or “Norte-Americano,” would sometimes be asked, although the most of the Brazilians can spot the “Yanqui,” as he is called with all due respect. It is said that our former Secretary of State, during his circular tour around South America, was very careful in all his speeches to call himself a North American, and this one little distinction aided in increasing his popularity. It is often the delicate little recognition that pleases these Latin people, who are themselves full of flattery and compliments. It is time for the people of the United States, especially as they are now entering upon an era of commercial conquest, to recognize that these people of the great continent south of us are just as much entitled to the use of that term, of which they are likewise proud, as we ourselves are; that though these people are Brazilians, Argentinians, Chileans, etc., they consider themselves first and foremost as Americans, in order to distinguish themselves from Europeans, Asiatics and Africans. We can say to them: “We are North Americans, you are South Americans; but we are all Americans, and proud of our homes in this great, glorious and promising continent.”

The vastness of Brazil is not fully realized. The geographical maps of South America are usually drawn on a smaller scale than those of the United States, so it is not generally known that the United States of Brazil are larger than the United States of America, exclusive of Alaska and the island possessions. From the most northerly point to the extreme southerly boundary is a distance of two thousand six hundred and seventy-five miles. For the sake of comparison one might say that if our own Atlantic coast line was prolonged in the same way it would reach from the southernmost extremity of Florida to the Hudson Bay region of upper Canada. It extends from four degrees twenty minutes North Latitude to thirty-three degrees forty-five minutes South, or thirty-eight degrees in all. The last ten degrees are below the Tropic of Capricorn and in the temperate zone. From a point near the city of Recife, or Pernambuco, to the most westerly point, is a distance of two thousand seven hundred and twenty-nine miles. From there the country to the south narrows continuously, until it is but a few hundred miles wide in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. A line drawn west from near the city of Bahia, or SÃo Salvador, would give about the medium width. Rio de Janeiro is in longitude nearly half-way across the Atlantic from New York to London, while the easternmost land, Cape San Roque, is still seven hundred miles farther to the east. Within these confines is a territory of three million three hundred and thirty-two thousand seven hundred and thirty square miles, according to the best estimates, and this makes it the fifth country in the world, being exceeded in extent only by China, the British Empire, the United States of America and Russia.

On the South American continent Brazil easily ranks first, as it occupies almost one-half of the entire surface of the continent, and is three times as extensive as its next largest neighbour, the Argentine Republic. The other republics of South America follow in the following order: Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay and Uruguay. The frontiers of this immense republic join those of all the other republics, except Chile, and also touch the borders of British, French and Dutch Guiana, the only foreign possessions on the mainland of this great continent. With one or two little exceptions the boundaries have now been settled by arbitration, so that the future will probably make little change in the limits as now outlined. It is shut off from communication with the Pacific coast by the lofty Andes, and that at least partly accounts for the lack of development in the western part of Brazil. In all, Brazil’s coast line amounts to about four thousand miles, all of which is on the Atlantic, and this includes nearly two-thirds of her entire boundary line. It would take a fifteen knot steamer ten days of continuous steaming to travel along this entire coast.

It was a surprise to me to find that it is next to impossible, except in the basin of the Amazon, to get away from the mountains. Hill and valley alternate everywhere, rarely rising to great heights, however, except along the coast, and seldom sinking into great crevasses or caÑons. The highest mountain in Brazil, Itatiaia, between Rio de Janeiro and SÃo Paulo, has an altitude of only nine thousand eight hundred and twenty-three feet, while the extreme height of the peaks in most of the ranges seldom exceeds four thousand five hundred feet. The highest range is in general confined to a belt, or chain of mountains, which follows the Atlantic shore, lying at the most but a few miles from the coast, and at times reaching clear to the water’s edge, which is known as the Serro da Mar. This range runs from Pernambuco to the borders of Uruguay, so that the coast, wherever seen from the sea, presents only an outline of mountains and serrated peaks, although at the extreme south they scarcely exceed the dignity of hills. The rise from the water’s edge is frequently very abrupt, and this has made the problem of railroad construction from the seaports to the interior a difficult as well as expensive proposition.

The broadest plains are probably in the states of ParanÁ and Rio Grande do Sul, where they assume the appearance of pampas, and it is on those plains that the stock-raising industry has assumed its greatest proportions. Much of the states of Matto Grosso and Amazonas has been practically unexplored, so that the maps of those regions are, for the most part, guesswork, made up from the reports of travellers and amateur scientists, who have written reports of their travels through them. On the government maps one will find the outlines of rivers which are many miles away from the location given them, and the names of towns will appear in the heavy type given only to places of great importance; and yet, if any settlement exists at all at that point, it consists only of a few huts or a little Indian village. Although travellers have visited those sections, the land is untouched by the hand of man, and as virgin as our own western prairies were a half century ago. This land is mostly claimed by families who have never set foot upon it, and yet it has been the cause of deadly feuds among rival claimants; some basing their title upon ancient Portuguese grants, and others upon more recent ones by the republic. There are no roads that can be utilized by commerce, and only the waterways exist to give access to the outside world.

Brazil is a land of great water-courses. It not only has within its borders the greatest river in the world, but it also possesses several rivers which form the chief tributaries of the Rio de la Plata, another of the most extensive fluvial systems in the world. Because of the coast range of mountains nearly all of the water, even from within a few miles of the Atlantic coast, runs hundreds and even thousands of miles north to the Amazon, or south to the La Plata, before finally reaching the ocean. The great amount of the rainfall has made these streams numerous, as well as very broad, as they near their outlet. Between the sources of the two great systems there intervene but two short leagues of swampy ground, which are the common source of the Amazon and the La Plata, the “river of silver,” as it is named. The basin of the Amazon is larger than the basin of the Mississippi, the Missouri and many others together. It is as large as two-thirds of our own great land. The amount of water discharged is almost incredible. For hundreds of miles from its mouth the depth sometimes reaches one hundred and fifty feet, and in no place in the channel is it less than sixty feet. Its mouth is wider than the entire length of the lordly Hudson. Ocean steamers run between Iquitos, two thousand five hundred miles from its mouth, and European ports, as well as New York; and many of its tributaries, such as the Madeira and Negro, are mighty rivers in themselves. The ParanÁ, with its wonderful cascades, and the Uruguay, have their origin in Brazil, and the Paraguay drains many thousands of square miles of her territory. These three rivers form the principal sources of the Rio de la Plata, which carries to the Atlantic Ocean a volume of water exceeded by few rivers in the world.

On the western side of the Atlantic ridge the country forms a series of ridges, or plateaus, making, as some one has characterized it, a colossal stairway. These sudden drops make many fine waterfalls as the waters rush onward toward the ParanÁ River. The states of SÃo Paulo and ParanÁ are especially rich in these cascades and rapids, and thus furnish unlimited water power awaiting development. They are no less interesting to the tourist, for nothing in nature is more interesting or fascinating than a fine waterfall, where the waters rush headlong in their precipitous course. The TietÉ River alone furnishes many of those cascades, one of them, the Itapura, having a height of forty-four feet. Another is the Urubuhunga, near the former, the water passing over the two being of great volume.

All of these waterfalls, however, are overshadowed by the wonderful falls of the IguassÚ, situated on the river of the same name, near its junction with the ParanÁ River, and on the borders between the republics of Brazil and Argentina. A dozen miles away the smoking columns of mist which crown the falls are plainly visible, and its thunderous roar may sometimes be heard for twenty miles. As one approaches nearer, the mist is more plainly seen and the roar of the waters is heard. The first view of these magnificent falls in their solitary grandeur is inspiring. They have the same general shape as Niagara, and are fifty feet higher. The entire falls are more than two miles in width, with a number of islands dividing the cataract. This may be divided into two sections, the Brazilian and Argentine falls. The head falls are on the Brazilian side and occur on an acute horseshoe bend, somewhat similar to that at Niagara, which is caused by the unequal erosion. Below the falls are depths which a hundred fathom line has failed to sound, and the natives call them bottomless. There is a triple leap of three hundred and twenty feet, the last one alone being a drop of two hundred and thirteen feet over sheer precipices of dark rock. At the present time it is difficult of access, because it is reached by ascending the Rio de la Plata and ParanÁ River, a journey of almost two weeks, or by a several days’ journey overland from Ponta Grossa, in the state of ParanÁ. Some day, when the means of communication become better, it will no doubt be visited by thousands of people each season. It still remains in all its primitive beauty, for the hand of man has as yet done nothing to detract from or add to what nature herself created. It is like another Niagara set out in the midst of a wilderness, with dense lines of waving bamboo or other trees marking the boundaries of the stream. Like Tennyson’s Brook, the IguassÚ might say:

Above these falls on the ParanÁ are the wonderful Guayra falls, one hundred and twenty-five miles above the junction with the IguassÚ; and four hundred miles still farther up are the Uberaponga falls, with many smaller cataracts intervening. Below Guayra cataract the current piles up in the centre with a corkscrew action, and then dives down again into midstream. It returns to the surface in eddies which leap up twelve or fifteen feet in the air, making, as one scientific investigator terms it, “rapids with which the whirlpool rapids of Niagara are a quiet duckpond in comparison.” One is lost in considering this frantic water power here awaiting the harnessing by man.

Of the climate of Brazil much has been said in a disparaging way. It has been classed as a tropical country, and therefore subject to all the ills supposed to be connected with such a climate. And yet the climate is so varied that the subject can not be dismissed in a single paragraph. It is hot in places, but even in Rio de Janeiro the evenings are generally very pleasant and comfortable, the thermometer usually going down to about sixty degrees Fahrenheit. At least one can always find it so by establishing his home a few hundred feet above the sea level, on one of the adjacent hills. I doubt if the people of Rio suffer from the oppressively hot nights as much as New Yorkers or Chicagoans, and I was there in December, supposed to be one of the hottest months. Fifteen hundred to two thousand feet above the sea level the climate is really delightful, and one need not pity the people who dwell there. Some one has said that the whole country might be compared to a beautiful Tennessee, without the rigours of winter. Along the Amazon it is hot and humid, and yet I have met Englishmen who had lived in Manaos and ParÁ for years, and who sighed to go back to those places because they loved the climate. In the southern states of ParanÁ and Rio Grande do Sul the climate is about the same as Argentina, which is regarded as temperate.

There is plenty of rainfall everywhere except in two or three states, almost underneath the equator. On the Atlantic coast it ranges from one hundred to two hundred inches annually. Along the Amazon it is much greater, and on the inland plateaus it will probably average seventy-five inches per year. Thus, in the vast area of Brazil, almost every variety of climate will be found, except the extreme cold, which is absent. It used to be thought that people could not live so near the equator, but proper hygiene takes away all danger of the so-called tropical diseases, so dreaded by most people from colder climes.

As one writer has well said: “Diseases in cold climates are always looked upon as calamities quite independent of climatic conditions; even if ignorant of their causes, pathologists always had an explanation ready. In the case of warm countries, it is otherwise. Without any further inquiry the climate has been blamed as the enemy. The European nations drew around themselves sanitary cordons of quarantine and disinfection against cholera, yellow fever and plague, and for a long time never thought of going right to the source of trouble and improving sanitary conditions in the countries where these diseases had their origin.”

It has really been a base libel upon these countries to blame everything upon the climate and climatic conditions. The heat and humidity may make some diseases more fatal, but at the same time they seem to act as preventative to others which are far more fatal in colder climates. The United States taught the world this lesson at Havana and in Panama, and it has been a valuable one for the world. Brazil has wakened up to this necessity, and now Santos, Bahia, and other cities, as well as the capital, have followed a cleaning-up policy that has brought the death-rate down to where it will compare favourably with other cities of the world.

The United States of Brazil is a republic very much like the United States of America in form. Its constitution is modelled after that of the United States, a Portuguese translation of which was made for them. It differs, however, in some respects. A president, for instance, is ineligible to succeed himself; and even a vice-president, who has succeeded to the presidency, can not be a candidate for that office without a term intervening. The power of the national government is less than that of our own, and the state has greater importance. This condition was made almost necessary in the formation of the republic in order to gain the adherence of many of the states, as they aimed to get as far away from the centralization idea as possible. The great distances separating them likewise, and slow communication between them, has encouraged these differences. In many respects the state governments are too powerful, and the national government too weak. Each state has its own army, although in a measure subject to the national government, but this local militia is more loyal to the state than the national government. The unoccupied land is the property of the various states, instead of the national government as with us, and this has contributed in making the state governments of unusual importance.

The republic is composed of twenty states, one territory and the Federal District, in which is situated the national capital. The states are very uneven in size, the largest being Amazonas, with more than a million square miles of territory, one-third of the whole, and Sergipe having only about twenty-five thousand square miles. Out of the total population of about eighteen million, more than one-fifth live in the state of Minas Geraes, while the great state of Amazonas contains only about one person for each five square miles of territory. The state of Matto Grosso, second in size and also colossal, has even a smaller ratio of population, according to the statistics, which are probably not very accurate on these little known states. SÃo Paulo has heretofore been the most powerful state, and Rio Grande do Sul has had the most checkered history, for its German inhabitants have not always been in harmony or sympathy with the Latins, who predominate in the other states, and they have maintained several uprisings on their own account.

The republic was established on the 15th of November, 1889, and there have been six presidents elected. The term of office is four years. A vice-president is elected who serves in the event of the death or incapacity of the President; the present President having succeeded to the office on the death of Dr. Affonso Augusto Moreira Penna, in June, 1909. The National Assembly is composed of a Senate and House of Deputies. Each state and the federal capital are entitled to three senators who serve for nine years, and a deputy is allowed for each seventy thousand inhabitants, with a minimum of four for any state. The congress now consists of sixty-three senators and two hundred and fifteen deputies, one-third of the former being elected every three years. Each state has its own president, congress, cabinet and other officials, almost identical with the federal officials. The qualifications for suffrage are quite generous; but only a small proportion of those qualified actually vote at the elections, which are always held on Sunday, and generally in the churches. It is safe to say that on those days the religious services do not claim much attention. There is generally a clique, or oligarchy, in each state, which dominates political affairs. These men absolutely dictate the matters of the state and represent the affairs of that state in national politics. Corruption is quite a common thing, but that the farther up one goes the less of it is to be found is my belief. The several presidential administrations have been good, but many of the municipal administrations have followed crooked paths openly.

“Ordem e Progreso,” order and progress, is the motto of the Republic of Brazil. The flag consists of a green rectangle, representing the vegetable kingdom, with a diamond-shaped yellow block in the centre, representing the mineral wealth. In the centre is a blue circle, which corresponds with the blue of the skies, with the above motto across it. Within the blue circle are twenty-one stars, representing the twenty states and federal district, five of which are grouped to represent the constellation of the Southern Cross. The coat of arms contains the same colours and emblems arranged in an artistic design, and with some other insignia added.

The developed part of Brazil is only a small part of the whole country. It constitutes a fringe along the Atlantic coast, and bears about the same relation to the whole country as the original thirteen states do to the United States as at present constituted. There are few large cities, but numerous small towns of from five to twenty thousand, and many villages are scattered over the land. No part is overpopulated, the most densely populated being the states of Alagoas and Rio de Janeiro, with an average of perhaps twenty-three to the square mile, and there is no danger of even those states being overpopulated for some time yet. In a land where all the year around is a growing season this is a very small population, even considering the mountainous character of most of the country. If peopled as densely as France, Brazil would have a population of not less than three hundred and twenty million. It is almost purely an agricultural country, although some advancement has been made in manufactures through government encouragement and high customs duties. Especially has this been true in cotton goods, and there are many small factories of these textiles scattered over the land, most of them run by the water power which is so abundant in most sections. Some other factories have been started through concessions being granted, but by far the greatest part of the goods used are imported from the manufacturing nations of the world. This governmental assistance causes many of the factories to feel that to some extent they are government enterprises. The same policy has been followed with railroads of guaranteeing returns instead of making grants of lands, which would be an incentive to the railroad to aid in development. The SÃo Paulo-Rio Grande Railway is one exception to this rule, and it is prospering. The Central Railroad, which has over a thousand miles of main track, is owned and operated as a government institution, and this method has not been a success any more than the Lloyd Brazilian line of national steamers. Money goes in from all sources, but the government treasury is compelled every year to make up deficits.

Brazil was discovered in the year 1500 by the Portuguese navigator Pedro Alvares Cabral, who took possession of it in the name of his sovereign. It was first named Terra de Santa Cruz, the Land of the Holy Cross, but the name was changed to that of the dyewood which had been in use before. The French soon after began to trade with the natives, but they were driven off by the Portuguese. The Huguenots of the country likewise attempted to establish a free religious colony at what is now Rio de Janeiro, but this attempt was also frustrated, and Rio did not become an important place until the middle of the eighteenth century. The Jesuits sought to make a religious settlement out of SÃo Paulo, but the energetic “Paulistas” rose in their might and drove them into the Spanish territories.

The Portuguese began to colonize the country, and established a number of settlements along the coast. Pernambuco was founded in 1526 and Bahia in 1549, as compared with New York in 1614 and Boston in 1621. The country was divided into fifteen capitancias, each with fifty leagues of coast, and stretching inland in parallel lines to the westernmost limits of the country. These were granted by the king to Portuguese nobles. Numerous struggles took place with the Spaniards, who tried to seize all of South America, and were in actual control of nearly all of the rest of the South American coast. The political outline was finally determined by natural configurations. The Portuguese kept in control of the district penetrated by the Amazon and its tributaries, as far as they were navigable, and the Spaniards got control as far as the Rio de la Plata was navigable on the south; and between these two boundaries the land was kept in the hands of the Portuguese. Where navigation was impeded on the Paraguay, ParanÁ and Uruguay Rivers, there Spanish domination ended. On the remainder of the coast the Spaniards maintained their supremacy, except the small Dutch, French and English settlements in Guiana. It speaks well for the indomitable perseverance of a small country like Portugal that they acquired and maintained for three centuries such a vast empire, when the mother country is smaller than one island at the mouth of the Amazon.

When King John brought his court over to Brazil, in 1809, a national spirit was engendered. After he returned to Portugal, it was not long until an independent spirit arose and revolution was in the air. Then came a new-world empire, during which the Dom Pedros, I and II, reigned. Each was expelled from the country; the first with rejoicing, the second with sadness, and, perhaps, many a tear. When one considers that the republic only reaches its majority in this year of 1910, and that slavery was abolished only twenty-two years ago, both of these changes being accomplished without bloodshed, the progress of the country can be better understood, and many of its shortcomings more easily overlooked. Furthermore the early advance of the country was stunted by the lust for gold of the first Portuguese colonists. Everything was sacrificed to immediate results, in order that they might return to the homeland and live in luxury. It was different from the motive that influenced either Puritan or Cavalier in our own land, for they sought liberty. The evil effects of this early exploitation have been felt during the intervening centuries, not alone in Brazil, but throughout all of South America.