The New York Herald Newspaper, February 14, 1879, Page 3

“APFLICTED BRAZIL Half a Million of Her People Swept Away. CEARA DEPOPULATED. Greatest Calamity in Two Hundred Years. i DROUGHT, FAMINE; PESTILENCE. Starving Peasants Eating . Their Own. Offspring. DEATH’S TERRORS. Unburied Bodies Torn and Devoured by Wild Animals. SMALLPOX VICTIMS. Thousands in Open Trenches Rot- ‘ ting at Lagoa-Funda. BLACK PLAGUE AT WORK Graphic Sketches of the Most ‘Horrible Visitation of Modern Times. Ceara, Brazj}, Dec. 30, 1878. I question if one American in ten has ever de- ‘voted more than a passing thought to this famine in Northern Brazil; Most people do not know of it at all, How should they when the newspapers have ‘contained no more than brief notices—little para- graphs to be remembered dreamily as something that 4s occurring in another planct? A month or two past there were notices of the smallpox epidemic, mor- ‘tuary figures so large that they forced themselves on the bulletin boards, but I suppose that hardly any- body connected these accounts with those of the pre- vious drouth and famine. Besides, all notices come indirectly by way of Rio, and I know from experi- @nte that no correct idea can be obtained there, ‘What I did learn at Rio was enough to show me the importance of the subject; beyond that nothing but mortuary statistics and vague accounts from men who had passed through Ceari. I deter- «mined, therefore, to visit the famine district and get my information at first hand. Now, God knows I do not exaggerate, but I can hardly belieye myself the horrors that I write. I can hardly believe that ‘tho world has been so indifferent to ono of tho great- est calamities in her history. The Chinese and Ind- fan famines will not compare with this one when ‘We consider the proportion of population. Our yel- low fevor.dead would hardly have been noticed. in “the great cemetery of Cearé. The plague of London is the only comparison that £ know of for these pes- tilences in Brazil, but the plague was a dwarf to this giant. What of o petty European war that changes a Doundary, perhaps, and cgrries off two or three hun- dred thousand men out of 100,000,000? “What is it to a scourge which has destroyed a province as large as France (destroyed it, for nothing but the ground is left), swept » whole population from the earth, with Gcath volleys of hunger and disease and murder ? DROUGHT IN THE SERTAO. he famine of 1877-78 Js confined to that part of Brazil which is known as the Sertao. This region is ‘utterly unlike the matted forest slate of the Amazon ©f the gneiss mountains of Rio. It is @ rolling plain ascending gradually from the sea cosst and diversified everywhere with isolated hills and moun- tains. There ts forest growth, but it is low and not thick, much more like our Northern woods than one {s apt to imagine for tropical growth. Portions of the laud are open plains, with only scattered trees; in other places the woods have been cut away over extousive'tracts. In tho Sertao tho seasons are very sharply divided. The rainy months proper extend trom January to June or July; the remainder of the year is dry, so dry that the trees shed their leaves and the grass is all withered. People can only ob- tain water by digging for it in the dry beds of streains, for thero aro no perennial rivers in the Bertao. Only in somo districts there aro light showers in October, the so-called churar de caja, or eachen rains, when the tree of that namo is in bloom. It sometimes happens that the winter months remain dry like the others—a terrible calam- ity for the poorer people, because they depend for a living on the products of their little plantations, and “the crops can only be raised during the rains. The droughts have left black marks on the history of Northern Brazil. Hardly one of the dozen or more on record has failed to count its victims by hundreds or thousands, and the material loss is immense. Wo understand this better if we consider the peculiar status of the population. ‘ A POVERTY STRICKEN POPULATION, In this part of Brazil there are no manufactares ‘whatever, very few mines, no fisheries of impor- tance, no forest industrics. The community is ox- clusiyely agricultural and pastoral. There are im- “whens herds of cattle, considerable plantations of ‘ gtgar, cotton, &c., and the poorer people plant man- * dioca and corn, using the land of their richer neigh- bots, for whom they don little work occasionally, ‘Whether it be for the pasturage of cattle or the growth of crops the whole community depends on tho soil, and hence on the fertilizing rains of winter, If tho, rains do not come tho pooplo starve. Again, the population has to suffer terribly because it has no holp in itself. Of the 2,500,000 nominal in- ‘habitants of the Sprtao not 100,000 are rich mon, or even reasonably well off. Tho vast majority are an Arab-liko race, produced by the intermixture of tho “Diacks, whites and Indians—peoplo who have no property and never try to rise above their normal condition, Probably this is the most degraded claes in Bravil; immoral, ignorant and abominably filthy, hardly washing flesh or clothes from one yenr’s end to the other. The dress generally is of coarse cotton, white or blue; tho mon with ® pair of drawers, a shirt hung looscly outside of thom and a brond- Drimmed leather hat; the women with only chemise, skirt and a cloth to throw over their heads, Thore poople. live in palm thatched huts; women do most of the farm work; the men | where, however, matters wore hardly better. In gain a few dollars as herdsmen or by hiring Piauby and Bio Grande the peasants were already themselves out for s day occasionally. The upper dying of hunger. the beginning of the evil time. Think of the suffer- classes, on the contrary. will compare favorably with | img all through this weary; weary year; think how any in Brazil. "Most of them are pure whites; they | people who were starving in April must have lived are intelligent, brave, domestic--far ahead, in fact, of the Rio or Sad Paulo Brazilians. This mixed Population was distributed through the Sertao, in July, October, December, with the brazen sun every hour drawing away the little moisture that was left. It was no longer a question of saving herds and crops, but of ‘saving human lives. The mueh as the people are in our Western communi- | cattle had died long before this summer was over. ties—there were numerous villages and hamlots joined together by tolerable roads, hardly any rail- Not a tenth part survived of the immense herds; sheep and goats had fallen a prey to starving robber bands. . It was unsafe to travel alone, even by day, 80 roads, and, as I have intimated, no navigable rivets. | desperate were the poor people. The influx of refu- It is important to note this, as it explains much of the suffering brought on by the drought. 1s astrip averaging 500 miles in width, extending from the Parabyba River southward along the coast or near it to the 8. Francisco; thence between the coast range of mountains it iscontinued southwestward to Minas Geraes, almost in the latitude of Rio, The drought of 1877-18 was felt all over this tract, but its black nu- cleus was in the province of Ceari. This province, to which my observations were confined, is about as large as the Middle States. In 1876 it contained 900,000 inhabitants, of which at least 750,000 were gees to the villages and” towns .was enormous— "The Sertao fifteen or twenty thousand was no unusual number in a place whose normal population was no more than two or three thousand. By the end of the year there were 70,000 wretches encamped around Forta- loza, lying on the sands under huts made of boughs or of palm leaves, hardly clothed, filthy, famished, begging where they could, and finally dying in the streets, because private charity was exhausted, My collection of letters, written during this time, is only a repetition of rad scenes—hunyer, pentilence, as- sassination, ruin of the rich, dying of the poor. I will quote only froma few. The first wis from a priest at Telba:— PPS set HELF US, FOR THE LOVE OF GoD, my to succor this poor people, dying of hun- Hel} non-proprietors—the poor people of whom I have | ger, tee just mounting my horse to go andcontess written. The province contained ‘only one port of importance, its capital; this is indifferently set down on the maps as Fortaleza, or Ceara; its normal popu- lation is 25,000, The streets are well laid out and in general the little city is one of the prettiest and neat- two poor creatures who are expiring, [do not wish to say of hunger, but that is what appears, Here is a family for whom, alas! 1 can do nothing—father, mother and little children—all prostrated with fam- ine. This is horrible. Help us, for the love of God. From Quixadé, June 19:— ‘To the famine you must add nakedness and pesti- lence, The woods are infested with rob! can- est in Brazil. There is no harbor; vessel# anchor in | not describe it. On all the roads there is a continual the open roadstead and passengers are taken: to and fro in little sailing rafts—tangadas or catamarans. - . FIBST ‘TERRORS OF 1877. , , -With these preliminary remarks on the Sertao and the province of Cearé, your readers are in a posi- ‘tion to understand the drought and its terrible effects, In Ceara the winters of 1875, 1876 and 1877 were all b procession of emigrants. In one singlo road from the centre, which passes by @ friend’s house, he counted 4,619 refugecs up to the 14th of. May. You can thus have an idea of w! is passing on the other Toads. From Bom Jesus, June4:— | Apoor old man died of hunger yesterday. He left eight children, who are almost ready to follow him? From Jardim, June 12:— Mandioca meal is eclling here nt $24 to $30-the ushel, normal price, $3; corn at $20, normal $4; remarkable for torrential rains, The poor people had | beans at $40, normal $4; rice at $16, normal $3, and abundant harvests from their little clearings, and all went on happily enough. They were preparing to plant again with the rains of January. But carly in the winter of 1878 vague reports of drought began to circulate in Fortateza. It was said that Crato, Jed, Telha and other villages of the interior had had no rains; that the cattle were dying, and even the Poorer people began .to be pinched for food, even went so far as seriously to fear a bad year. The gov- ernment papers insisted that these reports wero fiction of the opposition; but when the Ist of Ma: ch came and the rumors were worse than*ever the Bishop crdered prayers in all the churches ad pre- tendam pluvium. Still, except for this uneasy foel- ing that ran through all business, there was nothing unusual observed in the pleasant city or the villages around it. I visited the place in March, 1877. The drought was then a subject of gencral conversation; but nobody understood the extent of the calamity. Suddenly, like a thunderbolt, there came to the quiet town a message of terror; mon’s faces grew white; men's hearts eank within them, for thoy knew what the words prophesied. It was from Telha, in the interior of the province, a letter dated March #,,s0 that it must have reached Fortaleza about March 20. The words were simplo enough:— “PEOPLE ARE DYING HERE OF HUNGER.” Now tliis was early in March, when the dronght had Tasted no more than two months, when it was not yet certain that.the year would be altogether a bad one. But the poor Sertafiejo is so evenly balanced with nature that he cannot.stand a fresh strain. His mandioca fletds aro for a year only. Ina year‘ and a month he will starte, unless ho has new crops. It was e sad month iu the Serteo—this one of March. In some places there had been light showers, but the young grass growth from these had ried up on the biack plains. There were no leaves on the trees: The cattle were crying for water as only mute nature can. Children were crying for food in the palm thatched huts, All the carth cried for rain, and yet not a tear of pity came from the clouds, ‘The largo cattle proprietors began to kill their stock in order to get the meat and hides while there was time. The peasants gathered around these slaughter houses to beg a morsel of flesh, and, for the most part, they found willing hearts and hands, for the richer Cearences are not the men to refuse an alms. But where there were no cattle the poor people suf- fered dreadfully. Already they began to devour the ‘mucteman seeds (like 8 red bean) and forest roots—un- wholesome, disease producing food—but what could starving people do? April came with a blazing sun; no hope of rains, The people,‘ indeed, were in despair, They had formed long penitential proces- sions, cutting themselves with sharp knives or carrying heavy stones on their heads...Now they began to flee from the country to the larger villages. Somo of them came down to the city of Fortaleza, ragged, dirty wretches, with famine marks on their faces, with famine weakness in their thin forms. And still the government in- sisted that the dronght was a political scheme to bring their party into disrepute. The people wero eating cats and dogs by this time, when they could get them, But for the most part they were begging of richer neighbors. The strain was so great that private charity began to fail. Cattle stealing and petty thefts ot provisions were of everyday occur- rence. Letters written at this time already con- tained sad pictures. Here is onc from 8. Pedro:— PLANTERS HARASSED BY THIEVES AND FAMINE. The vegetables planted in the plains are entirely lost; those on the hilia are ready to die for want ofa little rain. There is no food on the lowlands. Scores ot poor people have been obliged to migrate to the mountains in reh of refuge from the famine. Many are in such a miserable condition that it cnts our hearts. If we do not soon have public aid many people will die of hunger. But, what is more, a band ‘of vagabonds and thieves have invaded the mountain lands along with the refugees; we are obliged to keep some -thirtv soldiers under arms to guard Sestust their attacks. ‘This picture is trom Canindé:— Provisions are already very scarce, and what thero is is too costly for the poor people. They have nothing to buy with. They go bogging through tho streets. Ah! my friend, the picture is a sad one. A penitential procession waa tormed; more than a thousand persons walked tho streets barefooted amd carrying yreat stot Two hundred of the i tents cut themecives in s horrible manner. 1 met two men carrying a dying woman to be confessed. I Fn om disease sho was smitten with. “Hunger,” t . CHILDREN ABANDONED To DIR. From Telha this was received :— Pen rare are changed into deserts, only rarely by. wonie solitary animal, once the flower of the herd. Here is a group of thirty: poor people in Fags, squalid, with misory stam in their faces, carry their littic household goods on their hi orover their shoulders. They are flying to Coriry where, I fear, they will seck vainly for help. I traversed a region ot 120 miles long and never saw a green leaf. Some villages are . abandoned; in others tho water is disap; ng + the traveller's horse, Men, women and children clothed in rags on foot, dying of hunger, form a sad picture slong the highways, A family of peasants, lying to the hill country, wed the night in tho forest. -In the carly morning the older oyes went on, abandon: two children, who were too weak from. famine to keep up with thom. A little later pete nh rome nr the childron—one dead, the there is not oven enough for | other dying. diooa meal in selling at 51 milreis the bushel (about twice the ordin and it hardly be obtained His Beane an on, on which the poorer le #0 much depend, cannot be bought at any price. ‘The peasants live on wild roots, - wholesome seeds, on the flesh of unclean ntroals.. % From Aracaty, under date of May 18, 1877, a letter My Frixxp—Tho picture of misery which is un. veiling beforo us is so sad that we would fain turn salt at $40, normal $4: and all this is only nominal; even the richer ones are suffering from hunger. From Pacatuba, Juno 25:— It is not only the inhabitants of the villages who sre tortured with famine, but more thau 2,000 wretches have come down from the interior, naked, famished, begging bread for the love of God, : From the priest at Quixadé, June 21:— It is impossible to describo the ‘misery here. Think of a house with six naked, skeleton children erying with hunger, and a poor, miserable mother sick on the dithy bed, tortured less with her disease than to see the little ones begging for bread. Think, again, of families begging in the streets, among them men and pretty young girls, almost naked, or with only dirty rags to cover them; abandoned chil- dren, who cau no longer drag themselves along, beg- ging for bread on their bended knees; then you will have a poor idea of the state of things here. From Sabociro, June 12:— - Yesterday there was buricd a boy named Steven; died of hunger. ; . HEARTLESS CREDITORS, A longer letter comes from Cococy, June 20, I transcribe it because it shows how the famine was making itself felt in all classes, and how some bad spirits took advantage of the suffering. It is from a pries i It is no longer berger to say that we had no winter, that the people are dying of hunger. To this terrible blow apother comes to exaggerate our ills. ‘The shopkeepers are more and more inclined to. gain money at the expense of these pgor victims of bange . My ministry carries md to the hut of the peasant as well as to the mansion of the rich, and in both have ‘wit- nessed scenes tear my heart and fill me with ihdignation. Now I see a father whose family is already suffering trom famine. -He has only one horse with which he might go to seck a load of rovisions in Piauhy; this horse is taken away from five by his creditors, Another has no horse, but he bas a single ox, which he might kill. to teed: his children on their journey to some place of safety; this is torn away from him. Another has neither horse nor ox, but he has a few Pie that might serve to keep the famfly alive for # little; but these are taken by the creditors, Still another hax neither horse nor ox nor yet a single goat; his family is sus- tained only with wild roots; but he has a good dog to hunt with; it is takon, Ono of these merchaffts, more humene than the others, said to me:—‘“What froken se during ii yearn Gollegting muy deine as ing y my debts. I never saw #0 much mises. The other day I went'to demand B see gu of # poor man, but an honest one, who had always met me promptly until now. The man ‘burst into tears, ‘I will pay yon,’ said he; ‘youshell have all there is (there was nothing), but what will become of meand my littleones?’ I pitied him sothat told him ho might rest easy for this year; but what will become of me with my creditors in the city Ah, my friend, in what condition do the other poor families remain who are tortured by creditors? Tho | father hours his children weeping; he goes to seek mucuman seeds and roots of the pan de moco, and it is hard enough to tind even these poisons. The mother secs another little one die’of hunger and sho rary out broken hearted to beg a morsel for those that are left. MISERABLE WRETCHES SEEKING FOOD. San Joao DE Frincipx, July, 29, 1877. This village is almost deserted; the peuple have em: 5 ic spectacle presented by the plains is terrible, Three months hence the victims will be counted by hundreds as they now are by units, for even to-day there are deaths from hunger. Tho cat- tle industry may be considered extinct. Tuv, Auguet 10, 1877. I live on the borders of the road which comes from Tamboril, Boa Vii and other srctte in the in- terior as far back as Ico and Telha. ly I gee cara- vans of emi ts paosing by: hundreds of wretches half dead with hunger, d, lean, with sunken eyes, driven idiotic from want of food, going to Serra Grande to save their lives if may be, but they deceive thomeelves; they will die there sooner than in their homes. On the Serra there is only alittle meat and less incenfioca meal, and what will the poor peopte buy with ? The government has sent us a few loads of provisions; but what is this drop in the ocean of our misery ? . Quixapa, August 5. Thad hoped until very lately that people would not die of hunger here, but there can no longer be any “doubt of it. Already I have seen porsous fall in the streets stricken by faraine. Crato, Angust 19, 1877. Yor there arrived here the aid commission appointel by the government. Hardly was the notice received when the poor people came crowding around the door in thousands begging for help. In the midst of this confusion a poor young woman of decent family and well appearing forced her way into our presence with her skeleton mother and an emaci- ated child on her arm. She told of a husband dying at home, said that the child had long had only her milk for sustenance, and that was disa) be- cause of the wild fruits and roots it sho ate. While we wero listening to her the child died in her arms. Think of our condition. ~ We imthis house, like others, have gone without our dinner more than once that we might save a rew wretches from death. A group of bony children, with no more stren, to “pustem tl ives on foot while they beg for bread ; ore and ey ot beep tho Rooy Sala ne in & grow ‘oun is, completely nude, yet thoy must beg for broad with the reste 7 RVERYWHERE APNORR AND DEATH, A priest writes from Quixadé on the 29th of Sep- tember :— arrived here yesterday and I know not how to write, iimpressed as I am with the pictures of misery which I have encountorod, It is horrible to travel here in the interior. On the roads 1 saw only in- terminablo nage -9 of renee naked, bony, and deathlike, trembling with cold and hunger. Many fall_by the roadside almoxt inanimate, as hap- ned at Riacho do Castro, where a poor man fell jown with his three children and would have died but for a Hefior Moura, who gave them a morsel of food. The people have given way to despair, Full of grict Isend you notice of the death ot five per- sons, rigorously speaking, of hunger, and this within the village! “Wo find people fallen on thd pavement. With this letter the pricst sont s list of five per- sons dead of hunger. A little later ‘no one thought of liste; it wae the number of scores or hundreds that had died, The priest adds a postecript:— As closed this a poor woman came to the housd a mother whose children were no | rT able to work. She said that she could only give them water and a littic salt. A roft woman came to ask bread for her father, who tallen from et by the river pe And bevy Ly as ia oe aah ak a little skoloton children . 10" eno! m:; friends! God have pity on us! ts — SOULS BOLD FOR BREAD, From Cariri (October) I have a long letter (too long to transcribe), telling of the depredations of robber bands, who overrun the whole region, stealing the few remaining cattle and goats, burning houses, killing men, outraging women. Similar letters from other places, for, like all great national calamities, the drought awakened the worst passions, drove humanity away our cyes. Immigration from the country around has been increasing rapidly; we caloulat that by the end of the month it will reach 5,100, aging his mass of famine stricken, starving people of the worst customs im the midst of our already Ym. overished city and altogether without resources | it is only # part of the truth, DEAPERATE STRUGOLE FOR LIFE, ‘This universal abandonment of the open country ‘was a feature of the drought. The poor people from the first sought refuge in the interior towns or at late In- from the Wreast of men. Young girls semetimes sold themsctves for a little food. But why should I go on transcribing letters that aro only repetitions of the same horrible facts? Those of November and December contain longer liste of deaths, or, where there is no space for the lasts, a calculation ot ro many fallen cach day or week—a dozen, perhaps, or 8 score, You must remember that this collec- tion of letters only tells the story of a fow the | Fortalezs, Some fied to neighboring provinces, | intorior towns; of the other villages and little citics And this, remember, was only in | | padouras, 4 coarse sugar used. by the Nertanezo NEW YORK HERALD, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1879.-TRIPLE SHEET. can onty judge from casual motes here and there. | But it was the same almost everywhere; only a few favored places along the mountain sides escaped the | general ruin, Even at Fortaleza men were dying in | the streets, and yet the city was in constant commu. | nication with Rio, Pernambuco and Paré by weekly steamers, PRIVATE CHARITY AROUSED. Meanwhile what was being done to help the starv- ing province ? The first reports were, as I have seid, | too vague to attract much attention outside of Cearé itselt; but with the more decided. notices of March | Brizilians began to see that their brothers needed | help. The first response was from Pernambuco, than which no more generous city exists in Brazil. | ‘A public subscription was started and soon reached a | considerable sum. A little later Paré and Maranham came in with aid; then the populace of Rio took it up, for even in that city there are ready impulses for good, The people gave their money and their time, | as they had before to the victims of inundation in | Portugal. It is true they combined'all with pleasure; concerts, theatrical performances and fairs were got up in aid of the sufferers, But, after all, the heart | fecling was good and the subscriptions were large for Brazil, Provisions were purchased and sent to Ceari—not always wisely purchased, I fear, bt that was mistake rather than fault. Shipowners carried these supplies with- out charge. A “Central Commission of Suecor” was established and it did noble work. But private charity was not strong enough for the crisis. That wos soon apparent, and from all sides came appeals to the government. Now the Brazilian government has never yet shown itself equal to an emergence; So long as matters run smoothly—and legislation 1s pretty much confined to talking and drawing sala- ries—the government machine goes on well enough; but Paraguayan war or a Ceari famino upsets all this clockwork and after that we can depend on nothing but incompetence and general chaos. I grant that the famine found the imperial government in an exceedingly bad condition. The finances were in.a ruinous state. There was a deficit of $50,000,000 and adefamiting Cabinet into the bargain. There were fron-clads to pay for and the grmy to support, and political friends waiting for places, And then it was 50 much easier to shut the official eyes to this far away évil. “Very likely it was exaggerated after all.” Indeed, the government organ at Cearé had said as much, and ‘the peasants were improvident and suro to die in any case."* TARDY GOVERNMENT AID. , So the Senators and Delegates and Ministers rested easily, dawdled and talked, and gave a little aid very, vory tardily. A credit of $1,000,000 ($1each to sup" port # million of starving people for a year) was voted, after much debate, but it was long before the money reached Cearé and the other drought-stricken provinces, and meanwhile the qillion people were fighting starvation in all the Sertao. The Provincial government had been more prompt, because the evil ‘was immediately before its eyes. Even in March aid commissioners had been appointed, and small sums of money and provisions placed at their dis- posal, But all through this year the commissioncrs were nearly holpless for want’of supplies. I hear of $500, for instance, to feed 5,000 starving people for # week, and that where provisions were at famine prices. I find’ that up to Soptem- ber, 1877, the sufferers in Ceard had recetyed government and private aid to the amount of about $350,000, and probably the richer Cearenees haq given away $150,000 to their poor neighbors. ‘Now I can hardly calculate at less than 500,000 the in- digent population existing here at that time. We reach the conclusion that during the five months— April to August, inclusive—each starving person had received $1. I know from personal experience with workmen that in northern Brazil a man cannot be well fed, however coarsely, for less than twenty cents per day, and you must remember that proyi- sions at this time were ruinously. high, snd in amost Places there wero absolutely no: crops. _No wonder that the people died, From September to December, inclusive, when the neceasity was Imuch greater, tho entire aid received by this province was about $700,000. The beginning of a new year found the Provincial Treasury empty, the general gov- ernment indifferent, only private charity as ready as ever. Government and private aid was often batily administered, though in the main I believe there@was little dishonesty—rather incompetence and lazinces. The refugees were allowed to congrogate about large towns; to live in filthy, crowded huts; to clothe their filthy bodies with filthy rags; and so it was that pestilence was presontly added to the famine... Smallpox appeared in Fortaleza and wzs raging all through the year, Yellow fover came in November; its victims were. counted by scores and hundreds, That curious Hgease, the hori, beri, raged in the interior village. Permicions feverny hardly known before, now asst’ terrible tpt- demic force. Ando with famine Aig” dlacase and misery the weary’ months wore away, gndall men- looked forward to the winter and aid from heaven, as humanity could give them nothing. Unhappy Ceara! How should she*know that this black year was to be only the prelude to her greater suffering? DAWN OF THE YER 1878, Picture to yourself the condition of Ceard in Janu- ary, 1878. A province dried up, blasted. Pastures without grass, forests without leages, rivers without water, fields without crops. The cattle industry destroyed utterly; only few beeves survived about the larger towns of the thousands thet had roamed over these plains. The cotton and sugar industries almost annihilated; no mandioca even, except ia about three or four mountain villages. Peopie obliged to go five or six miles from their houses to dig for water in the bed of some torrent. At least two hundred thousand refugees encamped about the larger towns—70,000 of these added to tho 25,000 «of | Fortaleza. A famine mortality, which in many places had reached twenty per day. A mortality from disease very much greater. No money in the provincial treasury; no hope of out- side aid, except the drop of. private charity, and all men looked for rain. I have letters from the interior that cover all this period; you will seo if I exag- gerate. A letter from Aracaly, December 26, says :— The current of emigration continues to swell. On some days more than a thousand refugees have entered thistown. Already we have an adventitious population of 40,009 souls. During the past month there died 403 porsons, and a8 we have no epidemic here we must suppose that the greater part of this mortality arose from bad alinentation or actual famine. A little later, the ndte says, sixty-seven persons died on the 30th of December and sixty-six on the Sist. Sopnat, Nov. 14. Tho bert-beri continmes to carry off victims almost daily. To-day a nephew of Dr. Pontes died. This family has lost thirty members. On the other hand the famine is reaping its harvest. It the government docs not soon comne to our aid the condition of things be much worse. There is no more mandioca meal. Provision cars must be pulled by men for want of animals, Missao Virtua, Dec. 13, There are no more provisions; the people are dying at a terrible rate. Every day six ur cight of thom are buricd, Those who die sn the public roads aro eaten by wild animals, Lavnas, Deo, 25, Matters are going on badly enough. For more than twenty days the Government Commission havo had nothing at their disposal. They have used every possible means, but they have found no one to lend them even $0), The state of things among the poor people ix terrible ; 220 persons have died of hunger. I have @ list of these, not including the deaths from dysentery and from eating wild roots. Cnato, Dec, 20, The drought is raging terribly; many poople have died of hunger and the rest aro in despair, All pub- lic and private aid has been used up long ago. Man- dioca meal has a nominal pricesof twenty cents for a little teacupful, but it can hardly be obtained, Ro- TO eighteen counts each—five times the regular pri say nothing of rice, corn and .béans, because they have disappeared absolutely. MENDIOANTS PRAYING FOR FOOD, ‘\ Assann, Dec, 17, How can I describe the misery that reigns hero! Scoros of persons have died from the effects of fam- ine, though it is true that many of these cases were complicated by eating wild roots, raw mandioca, &c. Hundreds are poisoned by these roots and must dic in a fow days, Day end night our doors are besieged by cadaverous, almost naked mendicants, But very few persons can give any more, for if ne, do they will soon be obliged to beg with the rest. When the table is laid the house is often invaded, evon inside, by children, young girls, men; they come up to us and kneel on the floor to aak fora morsel “for love ot God.” “Men, women and children scouerene in the streets and yards to gather melon rinds, manjo skins and reeds and other refuse; they eat all without fear of the result, which may be bad enough. They eat soap-berries even! Brxso Sxcco, Dec. 10, The body ofa man was brought to the church, the same hammock were two cutldren ready to die. Agentleman who had just come from Saboeira to Fortaleza writes — I found bodies by the roadside in many places; some that I helped bury had already been torn dogs and pit V a ag Ps wi From Granja, near the sea coast, where many refugees had congregated, a government commis- sioner writes:— As I pen these lines Iam tormented, almost deaf- ened by eries, impr ns, tears, yroans of a people driven wild and agoriized by famine, nakedness and diseage. A thousand ata time, they bey a morsel for the love of God, for the difine pity, that they may save for 4 moment some child torn’ by hunger. A grave woman, poate about by the people, begs to save herself from the monster that devours her to save the child in her womb. Another cries for ‘broth for her husband, who is prostrated, almost inanimate by that worst of diseases, famine. Another shows her bouy,body, with hardly rays to cover her nakedness—a ‘horrible sight. ‘Another begs help for her husband, her son, her brother, all dying together. One just cried to me, “Help me for the tive wounds of Christ! I am fallin, This one says, “ Senfior, listen to me, who am dying with my children.”” She cries, groans, curses; but what can Ido? there are many; there are 80 many, alas! Thousands who would havg help at once. And how shallI help them when I have no resources? Fight ago the commission bought provisions and arranged money on the faith of the government, which had promised resources. But these have not come. We can do nothing, and the people are curs- ing us, “They give only to. their favorites,” the crowd says, and then they ery fiercely, “You have food for us;- give it at once!" : Banparna, Jan. 1, 1878. We caleulate that the deaths from’ hunger alone reach twelve per day; many more die of discase. In the cemetery they cannot bury the dead fast onough. The other day the bodies of three children awaiting interment were eaten by dogs: Property is no longer safe; the people steal what they can. in'the jail the prisoners are starving. LIVING SKEISITONS WUSH TO THE coAgT. SoI might go on endlessly. Alas! I know how Teal it was. The tears come to my eyes even now when I read these piteous cries for help. Hunger, pestilence, want—these were what Cearé had to fight when the second great famine year broke upon her. In January thero was fear, in February terror, in March despair; no rains at all in some places, little useless showers at best. Ahd now comes the most terrible scene of all. Therd@was no more hope in the Sertso. No food, and no possibility of obfaining * it except along the sea shore. Then the whole bewildered, faminestricken, panic-wild crowd caine rushing down to For- taleza and the coast cities., Without food for the road, naked, sick, dying, even as they fled from death—every man for himself. Children striving vainly to keep np with their parents, crying as they roll over the stones, with bleeding feet and skeleton bodies, walking, crawling along, begging where no one could give—for how could aman support thon- sands. They were famished when they started. Three, four, five days they held their way. Then they fell by the roadside and groaned and died. Some pitying hand, perhaps, threw a handful of earth over them, but, for the most part, each was too busy with his own safety to care for others.. 80 our human brothers died. i ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND PEOPLE PER. ISHED. i“ * Tho greatest mortality from hunger was probably in March; from February 1 to May 1, when the exo- dus .was taking place. I can hardly calculate the number of famine deaths at less than one hundred thousand; and during the whéle drought probably one hundred and fifty thousand died of hunger. I should add that my. calculations are much lower than those of other persons; some place the entire number as high as threo hundred thousand. In Aracaty the death rate fluctuated be- tween ninety and one hundred and ten a day; in Fortaleza it was less at this time, but eighty per day was bad enough. Ihave notices of ten, twenty or more daily deaths in small villages; and everywhere along the roaisides nameless crosses still tell the story of uncatalogned victims. ,Dark tales of can- nibalism begin to appear. From a letter written at Quixeramobim I translate as follows:— * EATING HIS OWN CHILD. L-write in haste. Have‘no time to transcribe thi scenes of horror about me, It is enough to give you a8 a specimen One namcless crime. A father, whose nature was so overcome by hunger that he killed and cooked in a pot his little child, two years old. This took place in California (a gettiement near Quixada). ‘The father died soon after his horrible feast. I have threé or four similar stories, very well authenticated. I believe that these and other cases of cannibalism ‘were caused by insanity—a common result of hunger. I quote also a letter from Jaguaribé-Mirim, ‘one of many that tell the same story :— This village is full of abandoned children; the de- spairing fathers would no jonger sec them torn by this monster hunger. This very day, while I was eating dinner, miy house was invaded by a crowd of these wretched children, very skeletons, who could hardly epeak. Some of ‘them were so weak that they caidas only soup, obstinately refusing more solid food, The road trom here to Aracaty is full of bodies, You can count the crosses by hundreds. The other day, in an abandoned house, there were found five bodies of refugees, four childron and one old woman. By the bodies there were throe strips of leather in the kettle over ‘the ashes of -ap- extinguished fire. A dog, the faith- “fal friend of thé family, was still watching them. Neat Lettrado-three young girl an old man wero ) fonnd eating the flesh of dead horse which lay by "the roadside. This was a family from ‘Leoras: nico! in the villages thése poor wretches no longer ask fo! mandioca meal; they ask for cats and dogs to eat. (This is no exaggeration. One shopkeeper told me of a refugee who asked permission to kill the rats about his place.) Three days ago I made a journey of six leagues by the road from Ie6, and what I saw was in describable. I found eleven dead bodivs by the road- side and at least forty who were dying. Happily there is no pestilence here; the deaths are from hun- ger: VanzEA ALEGRE, Feb. 22, 1878. We pray God that He will give pasturage to our fow horses, so that we may not be forced to fly on foot with our familics. Many have died of hunger; many still are dying. The wild roots are all gone. You can imagine what the drought is here when I tell you that the sister of the Baron of Aquivaz is eating inu- cuman seeds; so her herdsman, Mariano, tells me. Now, if this lady, sister of a man who before the drought was one of the richest in the pfovince, ix go- ing to the woods after mucuman with her slaves, what must be the condition of the poor? WHAT CAN THE GOVERNMENT DO? In Crato the number of famine deaths registercd from February 10 to March 18 was 664; in Corin, dur- ing the same time, nearly four hundred were recorded, and so on for the other villages. But by May the in- terior of the province was almost deserted. Even large places like Crate and Iced hi iy con- tained a tenth of thelr original popalation. The,scene of misery was transterred to the sea coast. I wish to note one fact that tells of crime or crimi- nal neglect somewhere; history wiil record where the sin lies. During the great exodus and for a month before there wore two goverument store- houses at Fortaleza full of provisions. And yet the government had been withholding aid and the peoplo were dying by thousands! The wonder is that these starving crowds did not sack the storehouses, They | threatened to often enough. There were disturbances in Aracaty, Fortaleza and elsewhere, but, on tho whols, no serious riots. The people would starve rather than rebel, so great is the fear of the law. But after tiiis I have less ill to say of the gonoral government, On the 6th of January the old corrupt Ministry «was deposed and tho new one, known as tho “Sinimba Cabinet,:’ came into power. Ina lame way this now Ministry prac- tised economy. It sold the useless iron-clads, dis- charged officials, avoided foolish schemes, tried to bring decency into the Custom House, and honestly endeavored to aid the drought siricken districts, It was hard work. A deficit of $40,000,000; uncer- tain income; outside credit gone. So the govern- ment was reduced to the anhappy expedient of paper money. The Minister of Finance was author- fazed to issve 60,000,000 milreis, or $30,000,000 par valuo; up to January 1 of this year about $10,000,000 had actually been emitted in aid of the famine vic- tims, Of course the result was to depress the value of this irredeomable paper; but we must not juilgo Brazil too harshly; the necessity was @ fearful one. A million people were to be fed—a tenth of the popn- lation, The paper money deereo took effect on the 16th of April, and from this time the iesucs of food and money wero generous enongh. But, from the first, both public and private charity made the terrible mistake of giving food without returns, leaving the people in idleness. The result was inevitable. After @ few woeks the peasants settled into @ condition of easy mendicancy and idte- nese—would not work when they could. They lay all day in their filthy hute, drew their rations and cooked them, grew fat but not healthy, for their laziness made them fit food for disease, THE FILTHY REPUORES EMIORATH. For those that wished to emigrate the government paid a deck passage. In the early part of 1878 es pecially the number of these emigrants was very great—as many as 1,000 on ove steamer. They took In |*passage generally to Pard, sometimes to Maranham, Pernambuco or Rio. Packed in dirty crowds on the vessel. Offensive, even todhe sailors, by their filthi- ness, and often poorly supplied with food, they fared badly enough. In more then one instance sreilesecemerinl ti lsat side tr etemmamnanntinliatcteecenmemnanrnennn er the smallpox appeared among them on tht voyage, and then they died like vermin and wer thrown into the sea. Probably fifty thousand emi grents left Ceari. They were xeceived kindly enough im the other proyinces, though their needs were not always promptly met. But for the most "part they would not work; their mendicant habits were now so confirmed that they would only beg or starve. J think they had some vague idea that as they were Hictims of a terrible misfortune they had a right te filch their living from the world, So they nursed their misery long after people had ceased to pity them, The neat Paré peasants despised them. Af best they were unfitted for a forest life; go they begged and starved and sickened and died, just as they had in their own province. A few of the best hands found regular employment and went on well enough. Brazil never had had such a chance tc civilize .the Ceara peasants. The refugee crowds should have been put under mili- tary rule; decent houses should have been providgd for them; cleanliness vigorously enforced, and vaccination carried out, under penalty of the law fora non-vaccinated person. Above all, the rations should have been given only in payment for work. In this way the government could have built railroads, seeured a harbor for Fortaleza, and #0 on, and the poor people would have been saved from sou)-killing mendicancy. There were not want- ing thofe who urged the necessity of giving work instead of alms, Indeed, the plan was carried out jn some places, as at Baturité, and with very happy re- sults. But it was not until July, 1878, that the gov- ernment seriously bestirred itself to repair its fault. There was a little railroad from Fortaleza to Paca- tuba, thirty-five miles. The affairs of the road were in a ruinous condition, so the company was glad to sell it to the government dt a low price. A party of engineers was sent up from Rio, and ‘in July surveying and work were commenced: simultaneously for a continuation of the road to Canosa. Many thousand men were employed in this way. Another railroad was started in the province and various public buildings were put up. The refugees were-also employed to clean streets, work in the government storehouses, and so on. CRARA IN JUNK, LAST YEAR. And now we come to the last sad scene, the scene that is yet unrolling itself, and no one can tell the end. Unhappy province! Pitiless indeed would he be who conld view thy tortures unmoved. Consider the province as it was in June, 1878. The interior region, once well populated, was now almost de serted, Only a few starving families remained to mark thriving towns and villages. I state Hteral truth when I say that in the fall of this year it was almost impossible to travel far from the coast, because food and water were as ut terly unattainable as they would bein the Sahara. I have conversed with@ man who made the journey to Crato in November; he described a howling wil- derness, where one sees’ only deserted houses and leafless trees and crosses by the roadside. With our genial climate we cannot understand a. real drought, In Cearé birds and insects died during the first blaz- ing summer, Imagine what the plains must have been with a second'dry year. The whole population was gathered in a strip not more than seventy-five miles in its greatest width running slong the coast. The people were crowded about the cities and villages, living in wretched huts and drawing gov- ernment rations. At one time there were 160,000 of them at Fortaleza, 0,000 at Aracaty, and so on for other places. “BREAKING OUT OF SMALLPOX. The people had food enough, but still the death rate increased steadily. In Fortaleza it had reached 200 per day, even as early as May or June. In Ara caty it was hardlyless. There were pernicious fevers, beri-beri, a little cholera. Yellow fever disappeared with the spring months. But above all other dis- eases the smallpox began to assume a terrible pre- eminence. It was worst at Fortaleza. Very few of the people were vaccinated. Isolation of the sick was never enforced. The pestilence, confined st first to the refugees, soon spread to the richer classes, By October the 150,000 adventitious population had dwindled to 70,000 or 90,000, including the towns- people; many had dicd, many had emigrated. Among those that wore left the pestilence was stalking and marking its victims. On November 1 99 persons died of smallpox in Fortaleza; on November 2, 124, and this out of a population of only 90,000. Your yellow fever deaths never reached such a proportion. But tho disease wont om increasing rapidly. Two hundred, three hundred, four hundred deaths a day— toward the epd of November the figures ran above five hundred. On the 30th thero were 574 registered, but this includes only tho interments in the public grounds. There wero families that could afford to bury their dead in the city cemetery. There were peasants who were laid in the thick forest or carried out to sea on catamarans and sunk there. APPALLING DEATH LISTS. The whole number of registered deaths in Noveme ber for the two cemeteries of San Joao Baptista and Lagoa-funda was 11,075. Of these 9,270 were small- pox cases. But I think-we must add to this at least one thousand buried,.as I have said, in the woods or sunk in the sea. At this timo there were 30,000 sick—more than a third of the population, Still the death rate increased. On Decem- ber 10 803 smallpox dead were buried in the cemetery of Lagoa-funda, at least 75 in San Joao, and probably 150 in the woods and the sea-* ® total death record of over 1,000 in a single day— and this out of a population (now reduced) of only 75,000, The great plague at London reached this death rate, but that was from a population of 300,000. After this the mortuary rate decreased, but only because the disease had nothing more to feed on. A certain percentage of a community are exempt from smallpox. A few, no doubt, were saved by vaccination. By the end of the year the death rate had gone down to 200 per day. The entire number of deaths for the month was not far from 21,000. In atl great epidemics, it is said, the people become indifferent to their danger. In Fortaleza thie indifference was sufficiently astonishing. When I reached the place on the 20th of December the death rate was 400 per day; but business was going on much as usual, and hardly anybody had been driven out of tho city by the danger. : DURYING IN TRENCHES AT LAQOA-FUNDA. Fortaleza is a very neat and pretty town, with wide streets and shaded squares. I noticed the groups of ragged, dirty people lounging around the street corners. Farther out were the long rows ot huts, a hundred or more clustered together. Once or twico I passed men carrying coffins on their heads; s coffin shop near by was evidently doing an active business, But the pestilence was all about me. I went to the graveyard of Lagoa-funda, where the poor people are buried; for the old cemetery was overflowing long ago, and tho government had this one made s league out of town, on the leeward side, The precautions were necessary, too. The filthy huts wero bad enough, without the worse evil of & poisoned = sir. At Tagoa-funds the dead are buried in trenches, twelve together; “except,” remarked ono of the overscers, “where the bodies como in too fast for us; then wo put fifteen of twenty in a trench, conforie,” The trenches are deep; the bodies gro placed in two layers and weil covered. But the soil is of sharp silicious sand, with no more disinfectant properties than a pile of stones would have, With 20,000 bodica rotting undérnenth it the stench was nearly insup- portable, I stood it for five minutes before I turned away, sick at heart and stomach from the torri- bie sight. What Ieaw was this. A series of pits or trenches, about seven fect by twelve and seven deep; some of them empty, others half full of corpses, not cloanly clad bodies, with folded hands and closed oyon, resting peacefully in polished coffins; the death horror is all taken away from these. I saw hideous, filthy masses of sores, with the staring wide open eyes full of and, the limbs twisted, the face moulded to a curse under its mask of sores. There was no covering but the dirty rags they died in. Men, women and children were indis- criminately thrown into these holcs and partially covered with sand, SICKENTNG PICTURES. Hore is atableau. A great Spon field with thon. rands of mounds tn it—trenches that had been filled in, Ascore of mon digging new pits. A procession of bodies coming in, some on litters, oftener tied toa pole between two mon. Half naked bodies with the horrible white sores on them, Child corpses on teays, carried on men's heads, Sometimes two or three bodies tied together to a pole, or rbtled in a hammock. Of course the stench is worse in new Aronches close beside the old ones, Several cases of