The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1880-04-01
HORRORS OF A FAMINE.
A Terrible Picture of the sufferings OF
the Natives of Brazil.


The United States consul at Pernam-
buco, Brazil, writes to the assistant
secretary of state, giving details of the
terrible suffering In Northern Brazil,
caused by the protracted secca or
drought. He says Two noted seccas
prevailed during the years of 1926 and
lS45, but l doubt whether there has
ever been here or elsewhere, in the his
tory of the world, famine so fatal in
effects in proportion to the population
as this of Ceara. Those of India and
China, it must be considered, occurring
in crowded countries, where the people
are counted by millions, and not by
thousands like the Cearenses. Two
years and a half ago, when the secca
commenced, the province of Ceara num-
bered 100000 inhabitants; out of these
100000 have died of disease and starva-
tion.
The secca began in the summer of
1876, and continued to the close of the
year 1873, lasting for thirty months; no
rain having fallen during the whole two
years and half, and the once fertile
and luxuriant Sertao, where the farms
and villages prospered in peace and
plenty, now presents the appearance of
a vast blackened desert, burnt over by
fire.
In November of 1876, after the "Easti-
vete or summer sleep, when the
"Chuvas de Cajus," or fruit rains, failed
to appear, the people did not worry, as
their acueles, or ponds, were not ex-
hausted, AID they looked confidently
forward to the winter aims to set every
thing right. But these never came, and,
as the dry spring advanced, sad account
began to come eastward of poverty and
suffering among the poor. Later on, as
the burning summer slowly passed,
bringing no November showers, and an
other January went by without rain,
disease, dead cattle, and of dying and
despairing people.
Long penitential professions were
formed and the miserable Sertanejos
beat. cut, and otherwise punished them
selves to appease an offended Deity.
But the pitiless secca still continued,
threatening everything and everybody
with inevitable destruction.
Ihe wretched people were now re-
duced to the necessity of eating roots,
cotton pods, the Mucuma bean, which
produces dropsy, lizards, dogs, cats,
rats, reaches, any living or dead thing
capable OF atfording sustenance; and in
some instances they were even goaded
to eannibalism by the pangs of hunger
10 increase the unimaginable hor-
rors of the situation, the smallpox
broke out among the Sertaneios and be-
came epidemic; typhus and other fevers
were raging. and in February and
March of 1878 the mortality became
frigntful.
The cattle were now all dead. the
rivers dried up, and there being no rail-
roads or other communications bv
which provisions could reach the Ser
tao, the inhabitants, dreading whole
sale starvation, abandoned it altogether.
and the whole torrent of Ii swept sea-
ward,
,Ceara, Parahyba, Ara caty, Baturite-
all the towns along the coast were now
allve with suffering hum lnity; age,
youth, men, women and children, all
famine stricken, coming in from the
country by thousands upon thousands.
The city of Ceara, with 25. .OOU inhabi-
tants OF its own, received over 90, 900
Sertanejos. Impossit lie to provide for
such host, tie Ceirenses did their best,
but it was a sorrowful spectacle to see
thousands of emaciated creatures sitting
or lying on the open largos (squares)
smitten with smallpox and other loath
some diseases, some lamenting their own
fate, or the loss of friends others too
weak or Ill to complaint; some wishing
to die from despair, ard others insane
from suffering; a dangerous and most
narrowing scene-one with few parallels
in history.