Brazilwood

“ The country is very fertile, and produces a great variety of the finest woods for cabinet-works; also numerous fruits, and most exquisite Vanilla, which grows spontaneously. The land, being less elevated [52] than Cerro do Frio, is said to be much warmer, and is highly favorable to the growth of sugar and coffee. The plantations are chiefly of cotton, which is reputed to be equal in color and quality to that of Maranham. It is transported to Rio de Janeiro on mules, and many hundreds of those useful animals are continually [340] employed in this commerce. ”

“ Most of the woods are absolutely valueless. Still, when it is realized that the forests of Brazil extend for several millions of square kilometres, it is easy to conceive that there is plenty of room among a majority of poor trees for some good ones. Most Brazilian woods are interesting on account of their high specific gravity. Few, very few, will float on water. On the central plateau, for instance, I could not find a single wood which floated—barring, under special conditions, the burity palm (Mauritia vinifera M.) . ”

“ The rain fell heavily, flooding everything, and making the streets look like rivers, and the courtyard of the hotel like a lake. It is one of the oldest, and, at the same time, one of the most unhealthy, of the cities of South America, for it is built in the hollow of the surrounding hills, where no refreshing breezes can penetrate.
Travelling in Brazil is like passing through a vast hothouse, filled with gorgeous tropical vegetation and forms of insect life. In the neighbourhood of Monte Video you might imagine yourself in a perpetual greenhouse. ”

“ This abundant supply, being aided by that vast river-system peculiar to the eastern part of America, and being also accompanied by heat, has also stimulated the soil into an activity unequalled in any other part of the world. Brazil, which is nearly as large as the whole of Europe, is covered with a vegetation of incredible profusion. Indeed, so rank and luxuriant is the growth, that Nature seems to riot in the very wantonness of its power.... ”

“ People imagine Brazil a land of beautiful flowers, the forest made up of immense trees with luxuriant foliage, overladen with parasitic orchids—eternally in bloom, of course, in the dreamy minds of the untravelled, and just waiting to be picked and to be placed in one's buttonhole. The sky, naturally, over such a forest, could only be swarming with birds of all sizes, with plumage of the richest colours and hues; and what else could such a luxuriant country have in the way of butterflies and insects than some which resemble precious gems in the iridescent tones of their wings and bodies? ”

“ Considering the enormous area of Brazil, the proportion of cultivated ground can scarcely be considered as anything, compared to that which is left in the state of nature: at some future age, how vast a population it will support! During the second day's journey we found the road so shut up, that it was necessary that a man should go ahead with a sword to cut away the creepers. The forest abounded with beautiful objects; among which the tree ferns, though not large, were, from their bright green foliage, and the elegant curvature of their fronds, most worthy of admiration. ”

“ The Fazenda of the Senhor Dias was situated on the edge of the magnificent woods which line the banks of the Amazon near the City of Para.
"No wonder that this region around Para is called the Paradise of Brazil," said the Senhor as they entered the forest, where heavy dew glittered on the leaves like diamonds in an emerald crown. "Every time I enter the forest it seems to me more splendid than it did the last time." ”

“ I had heard and read a great deal in Europe of the natural magnificence and luxury of the Brazils—of the ever clear and smiling sky, and the extraordinary charm of the continual spring; but though it is true that the vegetation is perhaps richer, and the fruitfulness of the soil more luxuriant and vigorous than in any other part of the world, and that every one who desires to see the working of nature in its greatest force and incessant activity, must come to Brazil ”

“ It first appears as the I. de Brazi in the Venetian map of Andrea Bianco (1436) , where it is found attached to one of the larger islands of the Azores. When this group became better known and was colonized, the island in question was renamed Terceira. It is probable that the familiar existence of “Brazil” as a geographical name led to its bestowal upon the vast region of South America, which was found to supply dye-woods kindred to those which the name properly denoted. ”

“ Though Brazil has long been, and is still, famous for its production of diamonds, precious stones, and gold, yet these are as nothing when compared with her exports of sugar, coffee, and hides, not taking into account her product of rice, cocoa, tobacco, dyewoods, and other important staples. A large portion of the abnormal growth of her forests is valuable for its timber, resins, fibre, and fruits. ”

“ Before the coming of the Germans, South Brazil was almost totally neglected; demand for tropical produce such as sugar and tobacco had kept the attention of Portuguese and their mixed-blood descendants for over three centuries to North Brazil, where negro slaves multiplied on the warm coast; the grassy uplands of the south attracted few Brazilians, and these chiefly bandeirantes whose main business was to keep out Spaniards from the Plate, and whose wild cattle strayed and bred on the natural pastures. ”

“ The Brazilian forest, although not specially rich in woods for building and naval purposes, is nevertheless most abundant in lactiferous, oliferous, fibrous, medicinal, resinous, and industrial plants—such for instance as can be used for tanning purposes, etc. No country in the world is as rich as Brazil in its natural growth of rubber trees ”

“ Brazil—situated on the ocean-highway to the South Seas and the shores of India, endowed by nature, over the greater portion of her territory, with a salubrious climate, and a soil of tropical fertility, very nearly as large as Europe, and ten times the size of France, and yet containing not above 8,000,000 souls—has, far beyond all other States of South America, concentrated122 on herself, during more than half a century, the interest of the naturalist, as well as of the political economist—of the merchant as well as of the emigrant. ”

“ The magnificent scenery of Brazil has often been described, but no expression can do justice to its ravishing beauty. Imagination can scarcely picture the exquisite variety of [Pg 30] form and colouring of the luxuriant and gigantic vegetation that thickly clothes the valleys and mountains even to the sea-shore. A breeze from the land wafted to us the most delicious perfumes; and crowds of beautiful insects, butterflies, and birds, such as only the tropics produce, hovered about us. Nature seems to have destined these lovely regions for the unmixed enjoyment of her creatures ”

“ It is demonstrated that the plant takes root and grows, but how it may thrive or yield subsequently is yet to be tested. It has not been tried by any other person who I have met in Brazil, and has been resorted to in compliance with a suggestion of Dom Frederico Leopoldo Cesar Burlamaqui, a writer upon the culture of cotton, whose paper was published in 1863, with a view to induce the planters of Brazil 331to plant cotton while its culture was suspended in the United States. ”

“ This part of the country is very thinly populated; the greater part of the soil being of a gravelly nature, is neither adapted for cultivation, even were water abundant, nor for feeding cattle. It is besides very hilly, some of the ranges being the highest we had yet passed over; from the top of one of the elevations I obtained a fine view of the undulating thinly-wooded country below; scattered here and there were to be seen large pink or yellow Bignonias, or the azure-blossomed Jacaranda, raising their magnificent diadems above the other denizens of the wood ”

“ In the long, sun-bathed Brazilian afternoons, when the hum of insects, punctuated by the far-off cry of some bird, lulled me, I would lie in the shade of the verandah and gaze into the fair sky of Brazil, where the birds fly so high and soar with such ease on their great outstretched wings, where the clouds mount so gaily in the pure light of day, and you have only to raise your eyes to fall in love with space and freedom. ”

“ Since Loudon wrote Brazil, as other parts of South and Central America, has been the happy hunting ground of plant explorers, and the gardens of Europe and North America have been beautified to an extent of which that devoted horticulturist never dreamed. The tale of the indebtedness of the gardens of less fortunate climes to South America in general and Brazil in particular for plants and shrubs, both ornamental and of economic value, would occupy a large volume; the extent of the debt is no less great than general ignorance of it. ”

“ I was also told that one of these Serpents was kill’d near this place a little before our Arrival. Tygers are very plenty here on the Continent, but not so ravenous as those in India.
The Product of Brazile is well known to be Red Wood, Sugars, Gold, Tobacco, Whale-Oil, Snuff, and several sorts of Drugs. The Portuguese build their best Ships here: The Country is now become very populous, and the People delight much in Arms, especially about the Gold Mines, where those of all sorts resort, but mostly Negroes and Molattoes. ’Tis Account of Brazile. ”

“ There are several woods of the kind, commercially distinguished as Brazil wood, Nicaragua or Peach wood, Pernambuco wood and Lima wood, each of which has a different commercial value, although the tinctorial principle they yield is similar. Commercial Brazil wood is imported for the use of dyers in billets of large size, and is a dense compact wood of a reddish brown colour, rather bright when freshly cut, but becoming dull on exposure. The colouring-matter of Brazil wood, brazilin, C16H14O5, crystallizes with 11/2 H2O, and is freely soluble in water ”

“ To-day even to the seaward of the [126] plateau to which the immigrants made their way, and which they have everywhere opened up for exploitation by labour, the soil remains but sparsely populated. While the forests of the interior gradually recede before the agriculturist, Brazil has kept the forest of the littoral intact, and man has not disputed the claim of the woods. They form, between the seaboard cities and the agricultural regions of the plateau, an uninhabited frontier, a sumptuous but deceptive frontage. Many travellers know nothing of the country but the seaboard forest. ”

“ It is a mistake to suppose that Brazil is entirely covered with forests. The forests are concentrated upon two regions: the basin of the Amazon and a long strip of seaboard along the Atlantic coast between Espiritu Santo and Rio Grande. The forests require abundant rains; and the Serra do Mar, receiving the humidity of the ocean winds upon its dripping flanks, incessantly hidden by mists, produces far to the south the conditions which have made the Amazonian basin the home of the equatorial forest. ”

“ The scenery of their richly wooded eastern side, where they break down steeply towards the Atlantic, is as beautiful as can be found anywhere in the tropics. They are continued northward and southward in lower hills, and on the west subside gently, sometimes in long slopes, sometimes in a succession of broad terraces, into a vast plain, only slightly raised above sea-level, from which streams flow southward into the Paraná, northward into the Amazon. In this plain, still imperfectly explored, Brazil touches Paraguay and Bolivia. ”

“ I was struck with the large strings of onions that were seen hanging in almost every part of the market, and was told that they are shipped to the port from Portugal in immense numbers, though the soil and climate of Brazil is said to be well adapted to their production. Those things which grow here in great abundance, without work, satisfy the wants of the lower class of people, and they do not care to devote their energies to tilling the soil. ”

“ Brazil may be regarded as a vast forest—the forests are so extensive that they can hardly be penetrated even with the help of fire and the hatchet. In these vast solitudes, sometimes a death-like silence reigns; at other times are heard the howling of herds of monkeys, the screams of parrots and toucans, with the buzzing of the bee-like humming-bird, which the Brazilians prettily call the ‘Kiss the Flower.’ The New Holland lily grows to the height of twenty-four feet ”

“ Everybody knows the wealth of the Argentine, Peru, Chile, and Bolivia; but the interior of Brazil, the largest and richest country of all, not unlike forbidden Tibet, was perhaps better known a century or two ago than now. Few people realize that Brazil is larger than the United States of North America, Germany, Portugal, and a few other countries taken together. The interior is practically a terra incognita—although the ancient Jesuits and, at a later date, escaped slaves and native rubber collectors have perhaps found their way inland to a considerable distance. ”

“ The most striking of these creepers is, perhaps, the liane, whose tendrils grow straight downwards to the ground, twisting themselves together in knots and bundles. Occasionally one sees, suspended from a tree, at a height of some fifty feet, a large lump of moss, from which scarlet orchids are growing; looking like an enormous hanging flower-basket. All colours in Brazil, whether of birds, insects, or flowers, are brilliant in the extreme. Blue, violet, orange, scarlet, and yellow are found in the richest profusion, and no pale or faint tints are to be seen. ”