of Coimbra, the University of Portugal, came over as exiles to Brazil, and settled in the Province of MinasGeraes. There were poets among them, men in whom poetic fire was burning brightly, and so these knights of the pen formed a fellowship in suffering and aspiration with those of the sword. At length one of their number, Silva Xavier, drew his sword, just one century ago this year, in 1789, with a cry for the Republic. He was one century in advance of God's time, and as a result he was hung, drawn and quartered. But the spirit of the man lived, and has been marching on in Brazilian history from that day to this. It obliged the first emperor to abdicate in favor of larger liberties of the people, in favor of the participation of the patriots in the government of the country. That abdication left. a child, five years and four months old, Emperor of Brazil.

A very wonderful history is this of Dom Pedro the Second, who never saw his father from that time. Dom Pedro I. had wisdom and sagacity enough to confide this child to the care of the man, who had really forced the issue with him, recognizing in him a disinterested and devoted lover of his country. Jose Bonifacio De Andrada, "the Benjamin Franklin of Brazil," gave to the child's mind its bent, and led it out in love of truth, awakening in him a taste for study which has never abandoned him. Thus there was prepared an instrument, who should become a nursing father to the liberties of the people. The expressions which have been attributed to Dom Pedro since he landed in Europe, when urged by his son-in-law to abdicate in favor of his daughter, that they might use force of arms to bring

back the dominions to the crown, show that there is burning in his heart the same love of his country, the same appreciation of the liberties of the people, which he received in early childhood from his tutor.

This providence in the government of the land secured a quiet of nearly half a century, in which the seeds of civil government were growing and ripening in the hearts of the people. This must be taken into account if we would understand the late developments in Brazil, which are destined to change radically and rapidly its future. Before we touch upon the flitting and fleeting shadows of political geography, let us consider the physical conditions of the people who possess the land. When the Portuguese first discovered the land to which the fleet was driven by the wind, they found the Indian. It is estimated that we still have a million of Indians. in Brazil. It is a mere estimate. We have no means of ascertaining the exact truth, for, indeed, a vast part of the territory has never been explored. Only last year (1888) German explorers going up a confluent of the Amazon River, the Xingú, found tribes of Indians of which there had never been notice even; not nomadic, but agricultural in their habits. It has been said that the Indians of Brazil are inferior in some respects to those of North America. Yet they have the same qualities, physically. They show the same strong sense, the same keen perception of truth and justice, which has been revealed frequently in the "poor Indian of our own country. It is narrated of one of these sons of the forest that on one occasion, when regarding an image, carved from the trunk of an orange tree on the plantation where he was domesticated, he stood

alone while others bowed in the presence of this image, and, when ordered to kneel, replied: "No! I knew him when he was an orange tree."

It

This native capacity of the Indian is displayed in his handiwork also. Two years ago, from the province of Paraná, a friend sent to Dr. Cornelius R. Agnew, of this city, a kind of blanket woven from the urtiga (wild nettle), which is a product of the forests of Brazil. was marked by the regularity of machine work, yet the preparation and weaving of the threads was done entirely by hand, woven thread by thread, with wonderful skill. It was not a blanket to shield from the cold, but from the wet; and was almost impervious to rain.

Take hold of the bows, which demand gigantic strength to stretch them, or look at the wonderfully prepared arrows of these Indians, six feet in length, composed one-half of wood and the other half of bamboo, feathered, and pointed with some sharp point prepared from the bones of birds and animals, and recognize the same wonderful skill. Those who have lived among the Indians of Brazil tell of the precision with which they shoot their arrows. Calculating the parabola of the curve, they fire the arrow into the air so that it falls upon the only tender spot in the shell of the turtle, and pins him to the ground. Here is a power of calculation and estimation of forces that is scarcely exceeded by the most expert artilleryman. When, in the dense forests, they attempt to shoot a bird perched in some of the gigantic trees and miss their mark and the arrow disappears in the air, they wait attentively to hear its fall; if the ear fails to tell where that arrow is, they draw a second which passes through the branches in the