Across Unknown South America Part 9

I presented the credentials I possessed from the Minister of Agriculture in Rio and the Brazilian Amba.s.sador in London, requesting the Presidente to do all in his power to further the success of the expedition--I, of course, paying all expenses. The Presidente, like most other Brazilians of a certain age, was _blase_ beyond words. Nothing interested him except his family, and life was not worth living. He believed in nothing. He was an atheist because he had not been as successful as he wished in the world, and attributed the fault to G.o.d. He cared little about the future of his country. If his country and all his countrymen went to a warmer place than Heaven, he would be glad to see them go that way! As for going exploring, mapping unknown regions, studying the country and the people, building roads, railways and telegraphs, it little mattered to him, but it seemed all nonsense.

"Instead of coming to these wild, deadly regions, why do you not go and spend your money enjoying yourself in Paris or Vienna?" was his advice to me.

"Perhaps I need a change occasionally, and I enjoy things all the more by contrast when I return to Europe."

The Presidente was evidently not in good health and spirits. He was a Senator of the Republic, and a man formerly of great ambitions, which were more or less shattered when he was elected Governor of Goyaz Province, with its population of corpses, and at a salary of 40 a month--very little more than I paid my head muleteer--so that little could be expected from the Governor of such a Province.

It was thus that the State of Goyaz, one of the naturally richest in Brazil--it contained pasture lands unique for their beauty, forests with valuable woods, plenty of water and great navigable rivers draining it both north and south, of which it was sufficient to mention the magnificent Araguaya River, the Rio Tocantins and the Paranahyba (or Parana)--was instead one of the poorest. In the very heart of Brazil, Goyaz was geographically and politically the centre of the Republic. With an area of 747,311 sq. kil. (288,532 sq. miles), the Province had an estimated population of some 280,000 souls, or less than one to every square mile.

The region forming the present State of Goyaz was first explored in 1647 by Manoel Correa, a native of So Paulo, and in 1682 by another Paulista, Bartholomeu Bueno de Silva, who both were prospecting for gold. The latter was successful in locating gold mines and in making friends with the local Indians of the Goyaz tribe, from whom the Province then took its name. Some forty-three years later de Silva returned to So Paulo with 918 ounces of gold. The news of these goldfields quickly attracted a great number of adventurers to Goyaz. The country then saw its most prosperous days, especially in and near Villa Boa, the present city of Goyaz, where gold was said to have been plentiful in those days.

The enterprising Bartholomeu Bueno de Silva returned to Goyaz in 1731 as a Capito Mor, or Grand Captain, with the right to dispose of land. In 1822 Goyaz was recognized as a Province of the Empire, and subsequently in 1869 it became one of the States of the Union, with autonomy as regards local affairs under its own Const.i.tution approved by the Federal Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly in 1891.

Cattle, horse and mule breeding on a small scale was the chief source of income of that magnificent State--an income which in less indolent hands might be increased ten-thousand-fold or more. Its horses and mules found a ready market in the adjacent State of Matto Grosso and from there went into Bolivia, while the States of Minas Geraes and So Paulo were the chief buyers of pigs, _toucinho_ (dried pork fat), dried beef, hides raw and cured, cheese, lard, etc.

Goyaz prided itself greatly on its horses, which enjoyed a certain fame all over Brazil. Perhaps they were in a way as good as any produced in the Republic. With a little study and care in the breeding they might be greatly improved and rendered as st.u.r.dy and good-looking as some horses of Asia and Northern Africa. So far they were far inferior in appearance and endurance to the horses of Arabia, Turkestan, Europe and Abyssinia.

The most interesting type of the Goyaz horse was what is called the _curraleiro_ or "stable horse," bred in the north of the State, especially in the valley of Paranan, bordering upon Minas and Bahia. The curraleiro was also known as _cavallo sertanejo_ or "horse of the jungle"--two most inappropriate names, for it was, accurately speaking, neither one nor the other.

The Goyaz horse was a typical Brazilian horse. It shared many of the characteristics of the people of the Province. Timidity, laziness, lack of affection and judgment, sulkiness and great stubbornness under training of any kind were its qualities. This was due chiefly, I think, to its inferior intelligence when compared with thoroughbred horses of other nations. The Goyaz horse was small, fairly agile, and when well cared for had a handsome s.h.i.+ny coat with luxuriant mane and tail. It was capable of short, noteworthy efforts, but did not possess abnormal endurance.

The present curraleiro is a mere degeneration of what must have formerly been an excellent horse. Considering the absolute lack of care taken in its breeding, it was certainly remarkable that it proved to be as good a horse as it actually was. Judiciously crossed with Hungarian, Turkestan, Arab or Abyssinian horses, I think that quite excellent results might be obtained. It must be taken into consideration that great hards.h.i.+ps and work of the roughest character were demanded of animals in Central Brazil.

A praiseworthy movement was started some years ago by Marechal Hermes da Fonseca, now President of the Republic, to mount the entire Brazilian Cavalry on national horses. That will perhaps lead some day to a great improvement in the breeding of animals all over the country, and especially in Goyaz, which provided the most suitable land for that purpose. The same remarks could, perhaps, in a slightly lesser degree, be applied to the breeding of donkeys and mules. No care whatever was exercised by the breeders in order to improve the breeds. Everything was left to luck and chance. The result was that a degenerate type of animal was produced--wonderful indeed, considering the way it was bred, but which might be improved to an immense extent and made into a remarkable animal, in such a propitious climate and with such marvellous pasture lands.

With cattle also, it is safe to a.s.sert that, since the colonial time, very little fresh foreign blood of any importance has been introduced in breeding--except, perhaps, some inferior types of the Indian humped zebu.

Most of the stock I saw in Southern Goyaz was intermixed with zebu. The formerly existing bovine races, such as the Mocha, Coracu and Crioula have now almost altogether disappeared.

Unlike most other States of Brazil, Goyaz had no Provincial Customs duties. With its immense frontier, bordering upon seven different other States, it would be impossible to enforce the collection of payments. No reliable statistics were obtainable as to the amount of exports or imports of the State. Even approximately it would be impossible to make a guess as to the actual amount of the resources of the State.

Sugar-cane and tobacco could be profitably grown in the State. The small quant.i.ty of tobacco grown there was of excellent quality.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Main Square of Goyaz City,

Showing Prison and Public Library.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Some of the Baggage and Scientific Instruments used by the Author on his Expedition.]

The Government of Goyaz Province consisted of three Powers: the Executive, represented by the President, elected for three years by universal suffrage; the Legislature--a Chamber of Deputies equally elected for three years by suffrage; and a Judicial power const.i.tuted by the High Court of Justice, _Juges de droit_--law judges--and District Judges. To be elected President of Goyaz State all that was necessary was to be a Brazilian citizen, over thirty years of age, and able to read and write. The same applied to the election of Deputies--for whom a residence of only two years in the State was sufficient.

The capital of Goyaz--situated on the Rio Vermelho, a tributary of the great Araguaya River--had, according to the census of 1900, a population of some 13,475 people, but I rather doubt whether it possessed as many as 8 to 10,000 souls when I visited it. One could notice indications that Goyaz had been in days gone by a flouris.h.i.+ng place. There were a number of fine churches, and a large cathedral in course of construction--but since abandoned. Some of the buildings, too--the finest was the prison--must have been quite handsome, but were now in a dilapidated condition. It was really heart-breaking to see such a magnificent country go to rack and ruin--a State naturally the richest perhaps in Brazil, yet rendered the poorest, deeply steeped in debt, and with the heavy weight of absurdly contracted loans from which it had no hope whatever of recovering under present conditions. They had in the province the most beautiful land in Brazil, but it was a land of the dead. People, industries, trade, commerce, everything was dead. Formerly, in the time of the Emperor and of that great patriot General Couto de Magalhes, Goyaz city could be reached--within a few kilometres--by steam on the beautiful river Araguaya, which formed the western boundary of the province, an ideal waterway navigable for 1,200 kil.--in Goyaz province alone. In the time of the Emperor, when Brazil was a wild country, steam navigation actually existed up the Araguaya River from Conceico as far as Leopoldina (the port for Goyaz city). The river was free from obstacles of any kind, even in the rainy season. There were then three beautiful English-built launches on that service. A fine repairing shop had been erected at Leopoldina.

But in these days of civilization, order and progress, the steamers have been purposely run aground and left to rot. There was actually a tree growing through the hull of one of those launches when I last heard of them; the machine shop was robbed of all its tools, and the machinery destroyed and abandoned. The Presidente told me that the Provincial Government had eventually bought the wrecks of the launches and the machine shops for 20--and as it cost too much to leave a man in charge everything had since been abandoned.

When I visited Goyaz there was no sign and no hope of re-establis.h.i.+ng steam navigation on that marvellous waterway.

The Tocantins River, which intersected the Province from Goyaz city to its most northern point, was also another serviceable stream--but no one used it, except, perhaps, some rare private canoe taking up goods to settlements on its banks.

The navigation of the Tocantins, when I was in Goyaz, extended merely to the Port of Alcobaca, 350 kil. from Para, from which point rapids existed which made steam navigation impossible as far as Praia da Rainha. The distance of 180 kil. between those two places was eventually to be traversed by a railway, a a concession for which had been granted to the Estrada de Ferro Norte do Brazil. In the High Tocantins I believe two steam launches were temporarily running as far as Porto Nacional or perhaps a little higher.

Undoubtedly the State of Goyaz will some day, notwithstanding its apathetic inhabitants, see great changes for the better. The new epoch will begin when the several railways which were in course of construction from various directions enter the Province. Not one of them had penetrated the Province at the time of my visit, although the work of preparing the road had just been begun on Goyaz territory, as we have seen, for a few kilometres north of the Paranahyba River, on the extension of the Mogyana line from So Paulo. A second railway line in course of construction was a branch of the Western Minas Railway; and there was a third up the Araguaya from Para. Those railways will certainly revolutionize the country. The inhabitants of Goyaz, ultra-conservative in their ideas, were not at all anxious to see a railway reach their capital. In their curious way of reasoning they seemed to think that the railway would make life dearer in the city, that strangers would be coming in great numbers to reap the benefit of their country, and that the younger people who were satisfied to live there--because they could not get away--would all fly to the coast as soon as the railway was established, to enjoy the luxuries of Rio and So Paulo, of which they had heard, but could so far only dream of. They did not stop to think that the railways will certainly make Goyaz the richest country in the world.

The financial condition of that beautiful State can perhaps best be shown by quoting the words of the Presidente himself in his message to the Legislative Congress of Goyaz on May 13th, 1910, on a.s.suming the Presidency of the Province.

"On my a.s.suming the Government of the Province, I ordered the Secretary of Finance to give an account of the balance existing in the State Treasury; and it was verified that up to April 30th last there existed a sum of Rs. 87,000,000 (5,800 sterling), which became reduced to Rs.

50,000,000 (3,334 sterling) after the payments made on the 1st, 3rd, and 4th of the present month (May, 1910). It must be understood that the above-mentioned sum does not represent a balance existing in the Treasury, because it includes deposits and guarantees, as well as the deposits of the Orphan Asylum and of the Monte Pio.

"Leaving out the sums left in the Treasury on deposit, and which represent in fact a debt of the State, we come to the conclusion that there is no money whatever in the Treasury, and that the State '_ainda fica a dever_' (is instead deep in debt). The expenses were vastly higher than the income of the Province and whereas the expenses of administration increased daily, the receipts remained stationary."

There was a certain humour in the Presidente's remarks on crime, when he referred to the difficulties experienced by the Chief of Police, who received no remuneration.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Author's Six Followers.]

"It is easy," he said, "to understand the drawbacks resulting for the maintenance of order and the repression of crime, which is daily becoming more common--owing, no doubt, to the facility of entrance, through our unguarded boundaries, of persecuted people or fugitives from our neighbouring States, and of the impunity of criminals due to the benevolence of our juries. The diminution of our police force in so large a State with such difficult communications has had the result that the police force, moved incessantly from one end of the State to the other, never arrives in time to prevent crime!

"Many criminals have been prosecuted and are now safely guarded in prisons, but unhappily the greater number of criminals are loose all over the State without fear of being prosecuted, and terrorizing the population. Bands of gipsies were followed by officers and soldiers, and their attacks on property and individuals were prevented.... In the town of Catalo the two armed parties were successfully prevented from violence and '_viessem as maos_' (coming to blows). At Morrinhos armed citizens in a menacing att.i.tude were dispersed by the police ... in other localities other riots or attempts (_sic_) at disorder were immediately repressed, and we can now say that the State enjoys perfect peace, save the munic.i.p.ality of Douro, which is threatened by bandits from Bahia.

They are constantly springing upon the terrified population of the munic.i.p.ality and especially of the town.

"... The bandits continue their incursions; murders follow one another in the entire zone between Formosa and Barreiros, including Santa Rita and Campo Largo, the inhabitants of which zone are paralyzed with terror....

Our commerce with Bahia, as well as relations between private individuals, is thus interrupted."

In his message the Presidente wisely and frankly disclosed the difficulty of administering justice under existing laws, when juries would absolve proved and confessed murderers wholesale. He endeavoured to stimulate some sense of honour in the officials in charge of the various munic.i.p.alities, where "_as rendas em geral mal applicadas_" (the revenue generally misapplied) found its way into channels through which it was not intended to pa.s.s.

A fervent appeal the Presidente made to prevent the spread of smallpox.

The vaccine which the Government sent to various points of the State was not used.

Curious, indeed, but perfectly true, were his statements regarding the police force.

"The officers are zealous and understand their duty. The policemen, notwithstanding all their defects, are being instructed and disciplined.

The policemen are in general 'criminals' (_morigerados_). _Ha falta de armamento, e o existente no e o melhor._ (There is lack of armament and the existing one is not the best.) The pay is small ... and the body needs reorganization."

The Academy of Law (_Academia de direito_) was not satisfactory and did not answer the purpose for which it was established.

The Lyceum, with its 105 pupils, gave fair results, barring the tolerance in examinations, which, however, did not reach a criminal point (_sic_).

It possessed no building of its own, and was badly housed in a private dwelling.

Public instruction was admittedly defective all over the province. The teachers were almost as ignorant and illiterate as the people who went to learn--and perhaps more so; while the Escola Normal (Normal School) for women was almost altogether unattended. The public works were uncared for--there was not a single new work of art begun in the State. Nor could the State boast of a single road or trail or bridge in fair condition.

The laws on the possession of land would one day lead to immense difficulties and confusion. The greater part of the land now occupied was in the hands of people who had no legal right whatever to it.

The existing laws on mining were equally unsatisfactory, and the Presidente rightly remarked that "without facilities and guarantees, capitalists will never venture upon so risky and problematic an enterprise as mining in a State so distant and so difficult of access."

He also exhorted the people to re-establish steam navigation on the Araguaya River, such as existed in the days of the Empire.

I was told that a launch had actually been purchased in the United States, but was either waiting at Para for want of an engineer or else had again been sold owing to the impossibility--due to lack of money--of its being transported in sections over the rapids above Conceico.

The question of boundaries with neighbouring States was an amusing one.

According to some rule for which no one can account, the Government of Goyaz claimed from the State of Matto Grosso enormous stretches of land on the opposite side of its natural, indisputable geographical western boundary, the main stream Araguaya, as well as the isolated settlement of Conceico, on the opposite side of the Araguaya River, which was undoubtedly in the State of Para. One only had to glance at a map--bad as maps were--to see that in both cases the claim was an absurd one. In the case of Conceico it was perfectly ridiculous. The Para Government held the place with a military force and occupied the territory with complete jurisdiction. In a more peaceful manner the State of Matto Grosso was in possession of the entire territory west of the Rio Grande do Araguaya, which the people of Goyaz said belonged to them. On the west the Araguaya formed a perfect geographical boundary from the Southern Goyaz boundary--where the Araguaya had its birth--as far as the most northern point of the State; whereas, were one to accept the supposed Goyaz boundary formed by the Rio das Mortes--a tributary of lesser volume than the main stream--it would involve an imaginary compound boundary line up the Paredo stream, then up the Rio Barreiros, then an imaginary straight line from north to south across mountainous country, winding its way east until it met the Serra dos Bahus, then again north-east over undetermined country, then along the Rio Apore and eventually joining the Paranahyba River.