large enough often to make good-sized counties. It is not taxed; and, having been obtained at a small price, the proprietors hold on to it year after year for speculation, or to gratify their vanity.

The Brazilians do not appear to realize that it is necessary to offer ownership of land as an inducement to immigrants. In this, I think, they are greatly in error. There is nothing in Europe that is so much prized as land. To own there even a few acres, and especially a hundred acres or more, carries with itself a certain dignity and social rank.

Up to this hour the Brazilian planters seem to expect to get European and island laborers by contract, to work on shares or for wages, and to live like tenants or laborers, without the expectation of an acre in their own right. This seems the more surprising in view of the expected labor crisis arising from the gradual extinction of slavery.

Official returns of the arrival of third-class passengers -the most of whom were assumed to have been immigrants at the port of Rio de Janeiro, show the number to have been 25,845 in 1882, 26,789 in 1883, 17,999 in 1884, and 22,727 in 1885. A great majority of the immigrants are habitually from Portugal and Italy.

A scheme was projected in 1884 for introducing Chinese laborers for contract work on plantations, but it met with signal failure. A committee of Chinese subjects visited Brazil to see for themselves how the plan would work, but decided and reported against it for its lack of the element of freedom. They could not, they said, be a party to anything but free immigration. In recent years the River Plate countries have been receiving a much larger share of immigrants than Brazil. For example, while from 1857 to 1862 Brazil received 92,467 immi

grants and the Argentine Republic 33,020, the situation was altered in the period from 1878 to 1882, during which the Argentine Republic received 176,385, and Brazil only 92,620. And yet, it is said, that during the five years of 1874 to 1879 the state expended the immense sum of $13,000,000 to promote immigration and support immigrants.

On the interior highlands, especially in the more southern provinces, where the climate is salubrious, agriculture can be followed with profit and pleasure; and it only requires the adoption of proper measures to secure for Brazil a very great increase of her immigration. The Government appears to desire immigration. It has at Rio de Janeiro a Bureau of Colonization and of Immigration, with a director-general, assisted by several clerks. It has published documents, accompanied with fine maps, in respect of as many as five different provinces, with descriptions of their geography and resources, in the Portuguese, French, German, and Italian languages. Individuals, and especially large parties, wishing to emigrate to Brazil would do well to address themselves to that office; but the ground ought to be looked over in person or by a competent and reliable agent, before fully deciding to emigrate. While a family alone, or even a group of families, with slender means, would probably find themselves struggling with unexpected difficulties and discouragements, a considerable colony would, on the other hand, if well organized and prepared, and fully resolved on a permanent settlement, probably meet with success. It may be taken for granted that the Brazilian Government would live up to its engagements with a colony or party of immigrants; and, to show its liberality, I may mention that, though the state church is Catholic, the Government has

sometimes aided in the building of religious meetinghouses for Protestant German colonies. As the ministries are frequently changed, however, to meet the shifting majorities of the legislature, it is of the most absolute im portance that any set of immigrants or colonists who purpose coming to Brazil, on any understanding with the Government, should have their contract most explicitly written, and signed by the proper officer before they start, or make any sacrifice with a view to starting. Since the beginning of the civil war probably three thousand Americans emigrated from the Southern States to Brazil, of whom many were experienced agriculturists, and possessed means; but four fifths of them have returned to the United States, and many others look forward to doing the same. Why? Not because Brazil is a bad country, but because they prefer the United States.

INDEX.

ABBOTS, conversations with, 331–339. | Architecture of Rio, 24-26.

Aberdeen, Lord, quoted on the slave- | Army, 214.

Agassiz, Mrs., opinion of climate, Ball in the interior, 73.

tour of Prof. and Mrs., in Amazon Barbacena visited, 126.

Americans should know races on Birds, numerous varieties in Amazon

settled in Brazil, 159-162; 267, Bismarck, steamship, voyage on, 10.