Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1892-07-02
A HUT N THE SLAVE QUARTERS.

"A HUT N The SLAVE QCAbIEHs
! q great quadrangle, closed by high gate, which
| Is always locked at night. Look into one Of
the huts and you will see q dirty hammock OF
| two swung from the rafters that uphold the
thatch. few cooking utensils piled on the
earth floor and traces of brush fire m the
middle Of the room-seldom anything more OF
| less. As everybody knows, slavery has been
abolished In Brazil according to law, but the
negroes Of the interior virtually slaves, sc
much as ever in the bondage Of ignorance,
| poverty and debt.
FREIGHT or THE COFFEE.
| The freight on sack Of coffee Q3s pounds)
is about cent per mile; therefore coffee COM
ing from the end of the Dom Pedro II railway
must pay in the neighborhood Of "a the sack
for transportation to the shipping point-one-
third of its value when delivered in Rio. From
Rio to New York the freight rarely exceeds go
cents the sack and it Is often as low Is Is cents.
try where it grows costs more than 200 miles
| Of ocean. Many of the planters still send their
coffee to market by mule train, considering
| that the cheaper way Of transportation. The
! entrance into Santos of a mule train from the
| interior is something worth seeing. The train
| is always preceded by O white horse wearing o
string of bells around his neck, and all the
mules obediently follow the leader. Sometimes
| troops of several hundred arrive in morning,
and again there are weeks when none appear.
Every mule brings two bags Of coffee on his
back, each bag weighing 1873 pounds. Having
made long, slow journeys. often Of hundreds Of
| miles, the animals are pitiable looking objects
when their burdens are removed, for the con-
slant saving of the loads has not only abraded
the skin, but in many instances ground OH the
| flesh to the bone. The bags are dumped in
| high piles in the custom house yards and
around them carsadores Immediately collect
| like swarms of black flies. There is export
duty to pay, and every bag must be pierced and
a sample withdrawn, in order to determine the
quality and the duty thereon. The tariff, based
on the market price, is regulated anew every
Saturday. The sampling instrument is q brass
tube, shaped exactly like a pen. When the
point is pushed into q sack of coffee the berries
run down through the tube, and after hand
full has been distracted the instrument is with
drawn and its point turned over like a crochet
hook, thus closing the opening The operation
occupies only few seconds. and the samples
taken out amount to many tons in the course
OF year. They, together with all samples of
exported sugars, are presented to the lepers hos
pital. The gangs OF cargadores employed in
''toting' the coffee away from the custom
house and loading it upon waiting vessels are q
feature of Santos. Naked from the waist down
and from the knees up. their chocolate-colored
hides glisten in the and their well-cultivated
muscles stand out like whip cords. Each gang
has its leader. generally the tallest and most
powerful negro among them, who carries q
barbaric music Of which his followers keep step
in rapid jog trot, singing a low monotonous
song meanwhile in words to us unintelligible.
Sometimes the rattle gives place to q small flag
which il waved in unison with the step, but the
chant is never omitted and seems as essential as
the sailors "Yo no, blow the man DOWN. 1t
is said that the average life Of q coffee carrier
does not exceed ten years, and the wonder is
that it lasts SO long.
PLANTATIONS PUSHED INLAND.
Time was when all the hills that environ Rio
aud the shores Of its bay were covered with
coffee groves, remains Of which are still to be
seen; but with the opening Of the railways
coffee culture disappeared from that section
and pushed itself farther and farther into the
interior. Though the commerce Of the Brazil
ian capital Is dependent almost entirely upon
coffee the commodity Ia now brought down
from San Pablo, Minas Goress and other CEN
trail provinces. The railways were built ex-
pressly for coffee transportation and for the
convenience Of people depending upon that
branch of commerce. Thus nearly every pas
senger one meets on those roads Is interested in
coffee for livelihood, in one way or another,
and about nineteen-twentieths Of all the freight
transported has some relation to it. Take away
this one industry and the railways could not
pay for the fuel consumed by their locomotives.
Pirst-class passenger fares are cents per mile,
| second-class half that figure and every pound
.
hand, is charged for at so high a rate that o
trunk of ordinary size costs more to transport
than its owner. Mr.. Herbert Smith speaking
on this subject says that though the coffee dis
tricts drained by the Dom Pedro and other
railroads are 80 enormous vet they do not give
one-thirtieth as much freight as would come
from the same area in the United States The
great plantations are widely scattered, and the
majority Of the people upon them being ex-
slaves they have few wants beyond what they
can raise. 1t seems that there is q vast differ
ence in the producing power Of land, according
to what Ii raised upon it. For example. you
cannot produce more than 500 pounds Of coffee
from any one acre Of ground in a year under
the very best conditions, while in the same
length OF time from eight to ten times that
weight in corn or wheat might be produced.
But if wheat or grain were grown hereabouts it
would cost more TO get it to Rio at present rail-
way rates than to bring il all the way from the
United States. Strange as it may appear it has
actually been figured out that wheat raised in
Wisconsin and Minnesota can be laid down
cheaper in Rio de Janei-o than if it were grown
at the end Of the Dom Pedro railway.
BRAZIL PRODUCES HALF THE COFFEE OF THE
WORLD.
II is well known that Brazil produces nDore
than half Of all the coffee consumed in the
world, and that the United States takes more
than half Of all she exports. The first coffee
tree in Brazil was planted by Franciscan
friar named Vallaso. in the garden Of the San
Antonio convent, but not until long afterward
(sbout the time Of the Haytian insurrection)
did it become an object Of great cultivation and
importance. The first cargo was sent to the
United States in 1909 and all the coffee grown
that year in the empire was barely 80, 900 sacks.
These coffee districts, especially those of Gayaz
and Matto-Grosso, were originally settled by
gold hunters, who buried themselves deep in
the interminable forests in their search for
treasure. Their quest was 50 successful that
the most eager avnrice was more than satiated.
But people cannot eat gold and diamonds; and
agriculture being wholly neglected it came
about that many who could count their treasure
BY billions suffered for the very necessaries of
life. Next to Mexico and Peru, before the dis
covery Of Australian and Californian deposits,
Brazil furnished the largest quantum Of hard
currency to the commercial world, and there
were diamonds, rubies, sapphires, topaz, opals
and emeralds galore. But these treasures re-
tarded the progress Of the country more than
the unhealthy climate, dense forests, serpents
and sayages have ever done. So much greater
are the riches Of the present agricultural pro-
duction that the annual sum received from the
single article Of cofee-not to mention
India rubber, cotton, sugar, dye
woods and other great staples
exceeds the results of nearly . century Of dia-
mond mining. A few figures will prove this.
Take the era Of Independence, the most pros