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r - ~ -x v- .%v i ? - *- ir*/-' jJ. - 'I-,, i?^ifflgfgygfBwpy ^wpwyf'- \f< / .v TMffffjffliBBBMlHBfMWrjifijBBBMIBBWBMI^MB ^IHi ( lfyjBMK?'Iff * ?>JB3BB^HMS^HMHHBIMBB^^^H^^^HH^^B^HH^^^H^^^BHBi^B^BBiBiaffraffi^^HI^B^^^Hfl Sj^^^EiSBHBSflHR^HnL M\ .^?aBy63WHrHiBByM^ , M^WWIBL < ! 8HreB^^8|^^^9SEXrSERIES. UNION C. II., SOUTH CAROLINA, MARCH 7, 1S79. "" TrwillHRHffiBH ' {f * the Brazilian famine. r V\* * Th^ Harrowing Story of a Dreadful Calamity. 5L, n ' Half a Million People Carried Off by Starvation and Pestilence. ' > . The famine of J877-78 is confined to i that part of Brazil which is known as tho .Sortao. This region is utterly unlike the matted forest flats of the Amnion or tho duois*. Mountains of Rio. It is a rolling ^ >v iplain, ascending gradually from the senr*. 'Coast and diversified cvorywherc with iso" 4 dated hills aud niouutains. There is forest . growth, hut it is low and not thick, much -more like our NoCthorn wood# than one is ;upt to Tuiagino for tropical growth. Iu *he S*rtoa the sensone are very sharply . divided. Tho rainy months proper cztcud froirt January to Juno or July ; the reuiaiu-* der of tho year is dry, so dry that the trocs hflf] iKnir Innvna nnil till a rwrnaa ia oil m??K- ' ered. People can only obtain water by digging for it iu the dry beds of streams, for there are no percnuial rivers in tho Sertao. It sometimes happens that the winter months remain dry lik-J tho others?a terrible calamity for tho poorer people, because they depend for a Hying on the products of their little plantations, and the crops can ouly bo raised during the rains. A POVERTY" STRICKEN POPULATION. In this part of Brazil there are no manufactures whatever, very few mines, no fisheries bf importance, no forest industries. Tho community is extcuiely agricultural and pastoral. There are immense herds of cattle, considerable plantations of sugar, cotton, &o.t and tho poorer people plant mandioca aud corn, using tho laud of their richer ucighbors, for whom they do a 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 raiijs of winter.? If the rains do not come the people starve. Again, the population has to sutler terribly, bcoausc it has no help iu itself. Of the 2,500,000 nominal inhabitants of the Ser* toa not 100,000 nre rich men or even reasonably well off. The vast majority are an Arab-like raoe, produced by the intermix iX/ tUrc of the blacks, whites and Indians? v'$dqplo who have no property aud never try to rise above their normal condition.? ^ ill II It.Acf /InnmnJrtd /?!.?on people live huts; the women do most of the farm work ; the men gain a few dollars as hcrdsincu or by hiring themselves out for a day occasionally. The upper classes, on the contrary, will compare favorably with nuy in Brazil. Most of llicui arc pure whites ; they are intelligent, brave, domestic?far ahead, in fact, of the llio or San Paulo Brazilians. This mixed population was distributed through the Sortao, much as the people are iu our Western communities. There are numerous villages and hamlets, joined together by tolerable roads, hardly any railroads, and as I have imtimated, no navigable rivers. It is important to note this, as it explains much of the suffering brought on by the drought. The Sortao is a strip averaging 500 miles in widlli^iyextending from the Para by ba Kiver southward along tho coast or near to the St. Francisco ; tlicuce between flic coast range of uiouutains it is continued southwestward to Minns (Jeraes, almost in the latitude of Bio. The drought of 1877-78 was felt all over this tract, but its black nucleus was in the Province ol (Jeara. This Provinco, to which my observntions were conliuod, is about as large a3 the Middle States, in 1870 it contained 000,000 inhabitants, ol" which at least 750,000 were non-proprietors?the poor people of whom I have written. The Province contained only one port of importance, its capital. This is indifferently set down on the maps as Fortnlcza, or Ceara. Its normal population is 25,000. The streets are well laid out, and in general the little city is one of the prettiest and neatest in Brazil. There is no harbor; vessels anchor in the topen roadstead and passengers are taken to tnuj fro in little sailing rafts?taugadas or catamarans. T11 K BEGINNING OF TKOUBLE. I visited the place in March, 1877. The drought was then n subject of general eon* wer+ation, but nobody understood the extent of the calamity. Suddenly, like a thunder bolt, there came to the quiet town u message of terror. Men's faces grew white; men's heart* sank within them, for they .know what the words prophesied. It was diotn Tclhn, in the interior of the province, a letter dated March 8, so that it must have reached Kortaleza about March 20.? The words were simple enough : "People iire dyiug hero of hunger." Now this was <jarly in March, when the drought had lasted no more than two mouths, when it was not vet certain that the vcar would ho altogether a bad one. Hut the poor Sertanejo is so evenly balanced with nature that lie cannot stand a fresh strain. 11 is mamlioea field is for a year only. In a year and a month lie starve unless ho has new crops. It was a sad month in the Sertoa?this n ic of March. In some places there had been light showers, hut (lie young grass wrowth from those had dried up on the black plains. There were no loaves on the trees. The cattle were crying for water as only muto nature can. Chil drcu were crying for food in palui thatched huta. All the earth cried for rain, and yet not a tear of pity cauie from tho clouds.-? The large cattle proprietors begau to kill ithcir rtock in order to get the meat and pflides while there was time. The peasants gathered around theso slaughter houses to beg a morsel of flesh, and, for the most part, they found willing honrts and hands, for the richer Cearences aro not ?he mco to refuse an alms. But where there wcro no cattlo the poor people suffered dreadfully. Already they began to devour tho mucuman seeds (like a red bean) and forest roots ?unwholesome, disenBe-prodwiwg food but what could starving people do ? April came with a blazing suu; no hope of rains. The'people, indeed, were in despair. They had formed long penitential processions, cutting themselves with sharp knives or carrying heavy stones on their heads.? \Tnw thftV hntmn fn (Inn PrAm AAimfo.. ?e-" " ?w i.vu. <. *> i?uui1; to the larger villages. Some 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 insisted that the drought wrs a political scheme to bring their party into disrepute. The people were eating eats and dogs by this time, when they could get them.? But for the most part they were begging of lichcr neighbors. The strain was so great that private charity began to fail. Cattle stealing and petty thefts of provisions were of every day occurrence. Letters writteu at this time already contained sad pictures. DESPERATE STRUGGLE 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 Fortaleza. Some fled to neighboring provinces, where, however, matters were hardly bettor. In l'iauhy and ltio Grande the peasants were already dying of hunger. And this, remember, was only in the beginning of the evil time. Think of the suffering all through this weary year; think how people who were starving iu April must have lived in July, October, December, with the brazen sun every hour drawiug away the little moisture thut was left. It was no lougcr the question of saving herds and crops, ma" ^ves" The oatllo ljjfKL iXot n tenth part survived of the immense herds ; sheep aud goats had fallen a prey to starving robber bauds. It was unsafe to travel alone, even by day, so desperate were tlic poor people. The inllux of refugees to the villages and towns was enormous?fifteen or twenty thousaud was no unusual number in a place whose normal population was no more than two or thrco thousand, Py the end of the year there were 70.000 wretches encamped around Kortaleza, lying on the sands under huts made of houghs or 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 sad scenes? huuj'cr, pestilence, as-assignation, ruin of the rich, dying of the poo?\ IIAWN OF THE YEAR 1878. Picture to yourself the condition ofCeara in January, 1S78. A proviuce dried up, blasted. Pastures without grass, forests without leaves, rivers without water, fields without crops. The cattle industry destroyed utterly; only a lew beeves survived about the larger towus of the thousands that had roamed over these plains. The cotton aud sugar industries almost annihilated ; no niandioca even, except in about three or four mountain villages. People 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 rcl'ugees encamped about the larger towns ?70,000 of these added to the 25,000 of Fortulcza. A famine mortality which in many places has reached twenty per day. a i:.~ iv i- ' iv aiurciiity iroiu disease very uiucn groutcr. No money in the provincial treasury; no hope of outside aid, except the drop of private charity, and all men looked for rain. So I might go on endlessly. Alas ! T know how real it was. The tears come to my eyes even now when I read these piteous cries for help. Hunger, pestilence, want?these were what Ceara had to light when the second great famine year broke upon her. In January there was fear, in February terror, in March despair; no rains at all in some places, little, useless showers at best. And now comes the most terrible scene of all. There was no more hope in the Sertao. No food and no possibility of obtaining it, except along the seashore. Then tho whole bewildered, f;imiiii>-sl rifkon r?niiwi-uMl.l "? " l ------ - - ... |...uivmiiu viwnu Liiiiiu sushing down to Fortalcza aud the coast cities. Without food for the road, naked, 8ick, dying even as they fled from death? every man for himself. Children striving vainly to kcop up with their parents, crying as they roll over the stones, with bleeding ftct and skeleton bodies, walking, crawling along, begging where no one could gtve?for how could a man support thousands '{ They were famished when they started. Three, four, five days they held their way. Then they fell by the roadside I and groaned and died. .Some pitying hand, perhaps, threw a handful of earth orer them, but for the moat part each w as too busy with his own safety to oarc for other*. So our human brothers died. ONE HUNDRED AND Fl ?Tt THOUSAND VICTIMS. The grcntcst mortality from hunger was probably in March ; Horn February l^to May 1, when the exodus wa9 talciug place. I can hardly calculate the number of famine deaths at less than ono hundred thousand, and during tho whole drought probably one hundred and fifty thousand died of hlinger. 1 *!?<>*? W ndd tjnfctuytalculatlons arc much lower than those of other persous ; some place the entire number as nigh as three hundred thousand. In Aracaty the death rate fluctuated between ninety and one hundred aud ten a day; in Fortalcza it was icss ai mis nine, urn cignty per day | was bad enough. I havo notices of ten, twenty or uiorc daily deaths in small villages, and everywhere along the roadsides uauicless crosses still tell the story of uncataldgued victims. Dark talcs of caunibalisin begin to appear, l'roui a letter written at Quicxcrauiobiui I translate as follows : "I write in haste. Have no. tiu*e to transcribe thesccuc of horror about me.? It is enough to give you as a spceimcu oue nameless crime. A father, whoso injure was so ovcreouio by hunger that he killed and cooked in a pot his little child, two years old. This took place in California, ;i settlement near Qnixada. The father died soor. after his horrible least. I have three or four similar stories, very well authenticated. I believe that thcic and other eases of cannibalism were caused by insanity?a common result of hunger." I quote also, a letter from JaguariboMirim, one of many that tell the same story : "This villgeo is full ol abandoned chidreu ; the despairing fathers would no longer see them torn by the moster hunger. This vciy day, while I was eating dinner, my house was invaded by a erowd of these wretched children, very skclctous, who could hurdly | speak. Some of them were so weak that : they would take ouly soup, obstinately refusing more soli t food. The road lVoui here to Aracaty is full of bodies. You can count the crosses by hundreds. The oilier and one old woman, lly the b'>uii& there were three strips of leather in the kettle over the ashes cf an extinguished fire.? A dog, the faithful friend of tho family, was still watching them. Near Lcttrado three young girls and an old man were found eating tho flesh of a dead horse which lay by the roadside. This was a family from Loams. Even in the villages these poor wretches no longer ask for maudioca meal ; they ask for cats and dogs to eat. (This is no exaggeration. Ooo ; shopkeeper told tr.e of a refugee who asked j permission to kill the rats about It is place.) | Three days ago I made a journey of six leagues by the road from leo, and what I [ saw was indescribable* 1 found eleven j dead bodies by the roadside and at least forty who were dying. Happily there is no pestilence here; the deaths are from hunger." . . ' 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 a few weeks the peasants settled into condition of easy mendicancy and idleness ?would not work when they could. They lay all day in their filthy huts, drew their rations and cooked them, grew fat hut not healthy, for their laziness made them lit food for disease. TIIK FILTHY RKFUQEK3 F.MIHKATE. For those that wished to emigrate tho | I government paid a deck passage, in the I ! early part oi' 1878 especially the number , of these emigrants was very great?as many as 1,000 on one steamer. They took passago generally to Para, sometimes to Maranham, Pornambuco or llio. Packed in dirty crowds on the vessel, offensive, even to the sailorB, by tbeir filthincss, aud often poorly supplied with food, they fared badly enough. In more than one instance the smallpox appeared among them on the voyage, and then they died like vermin and were thrown into the sen. Probably fifty thousand emigrants left Coara. They were received kindly enough in the other provinces, though their needs were not always promptly met. lint for the most part they would not work; their mcndicaut habits were now so confirmed that they would only beg or starve. So they nursed their misery long after people had ceased to pity them. The neat Para peasants despised thorn. At best they were unfitted for n forest life; so they bagged and starved and sickened and died, just as as they had iu their own province. CKAHA 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 lie be who could view thy tortures unmoved. Consider tho province as it was iu June, 1878. The interior region, once well populatcd,-was now almost deserted. Only a few starving families remained to mark thriving towns and villages. I state literal truth when I say that in the , fall of thi-< year it was almost impossible to . 'I1 " 1111 i< travel far from the coast, because food and water were as utterly unattainable as they would be in the Sahara. 1 havo couversod with a man who made the journey to Crato iu November; he described a howling wilderness, whore oue sees only deserted houses and leafloss trees and crosses by the roadside. With our genial climate we cannot understand a real drought. Iu Ceara birds and insects died during the first blazing summer. Imagine what tho plains must have been with a second dry year. The wholo population was gathered in a strip not more than scventy-fivo miles iu its greatest width running along the coast.? Tho peoplo were crowded about the cities aud villages, living in wretched huts and drawing jroveruuieut rations. At one time there were 150,000 of them nt Fortalcza, 80,000 ut Aracuty, nml so oil for other place#. BREAKING OUT OF SMALLPOX. The people had food enough, but still the death rate increased steadily. In Fortalcza it had reached 200 per day, even as early as Muy or June. In Aracuty it was hardly less. There were pernicious fevers, boriberi, a little cholera. Yellow fever disappeared with the spying months. Hut above all othcrdiscasc the smallpox began to assume a terrible pre-eminence. It was worse at Fortalcza. Very few of the people were vaccinated. Isolation of the sick was never enforced. The pestilence, conGued at Grst to the rofugecs, soon spread to tho richer classes. By October the 150,000 adventitious population had dwiudlcd to 70,000 or 1)0,000, including the townspeople ; many had died, many had emigrated. Among those that were left the pestileucc was stalking and marking its victims. Ou November 1, 99 pergous died of smallpox iu Fortalcza; ou November 2,121. utfd this out of a population of only 80,000. Your yellow fever deaths never reached sttch a proportion. But tho disease went ou increasing rapidly. Two hundred, three hundred, four hundred deaths a day ?toward the end of November the Ggures ran above five hundred. On tho 30th there were 57-1 registered, but this iucludes tup.u ^iwi! peasants who wore luid iu tne thick forest or curried out to sea ou catamarans and sunk there. AI'l'ALLINO 1?EAT1I LISTS. The whole number of registered deaths in November for the two cemeteries in San Joao Baptista ami Logoa-funda was 11,075. Of these 9,270 were smallpox eases. But I think we must add to this at least one thousand buried in tho woods or sunk at sea. At this time there were 30,000 sick?more thau a third of the population. Still the death rate increased. On December 10, 808 smallpox dead were buried ir tho cemetery of Lugoa-fundu, at least 75 in San Joao and probably 150 in the woods and tho sea?-a total death record of over 1,000 in a single day?and this out of a population (now reduced) of ouly 75,000. The great plaguo at Boudou reached this death rate, but tfrat was from a population of 300,000. Alter this the mortuary rato decreased, but only because the disease had nothing more to feed on. A certain percentage of a community arc exempt from smallpox. A few, no doubt, were saved by vaccination. By the end of the year tho death rate had gone down to 200 per day. The entire number of deaths for the month was not far from 21,000. In all great epi demies, it is said, the people become indifferent to their danger. Tn Bortnleza this indifference was sufficiently astonishing.? When I reached the place on the 20th of December the death rate was -100 per day, but business was going ou much as usual 1 1 1 -1-: " Itnu Iiuiuijf cmj uuu | IIUU uvcu urivcn out 01 tho city by the danger. APPEIt ANCE OF THE BLACK PLAGUE. I could write tnuoh more of Ccara und the good and evil I saw there; the evil, alas, too sadly predominant! Only one thing more 1 will note, for it may bo the sign of another scourge in tho future.? When I left Fortaleza people were talking of a disease which they called black smallpox. It was utterly unlike the ordinary smallpox. Tho patient was seized with a sudden giddiness, fever and burning of the tongue ; then dark spots liko bruises appeared on the body, and in twenty-four hours all was over. I surmised from tho first, and I believe there is now no doubt, that this is the terrible black plague, tho scourge that has so often swept through Europe and Asia, but which, so far as I know, has never appeared before on this side of the Atlantic. The oases were already numerous at the beginning of this year. One of the first victims was the wife of the provincial president. Senhor Jose .Julio. She died in a few hours after the disease attacked her. She was buried at night, without attendance. What will bo the result of the new pestilence ? I only know what has been?-a province utterly ruined, n population of 1)00,000 reduced to 400,000 and these dying at an enormous ruto. Probably there have been 300,000 deaths in the other drought-stricken provinces, of which I have few notices. There is 'nothing in history that will compare with it. (iod grant that there never may be again !?Letter from ltrazil to Xrw York Herald. Waste In Uole * Am a ficans are indubtrious, inooay-making people, but " they are not rcnuomical. Our housek?ep? iog is proverbially wasteful, allowing loaklgo at every poiul, suffioient in the aggregate, iu tnnuy households, to eupport a European family. Some writer (we kw# wet to whom to givo the credit,) has made the fbllowihg * v extensive, but by uo menus complete enumeration : Much waste is allowed in cooking meats. Unless watched, the cook will th,ow but " * water in whioh tnc?Vhai been boiled, witb-r out letting it cool to tako off tbc fat; orsbe will empty the dripping-pun into the swill? pail. The grease is useful in uiauy ways. Again, bits of moat are thrown out, which a French cook would convert into an excellent hash. Flour is sided in a wasteful mnnncrr or the bread-pan is loft with the dough sticking to it. Fie-crust is left over, and laid by ta sour, instead of making a few tarts for tea* Vegetables arc thrown away which would be nice if warmed over for breakfast. Cream is allowed to monld and spoil, mustnrd to dry in tbc pot, and viuogar tocorrode the castor. Good knives ar j used for cookins? in the kitchen, silver spoous arc used to scrupo kettles, and forks for toasting broad. Tea, roasted coffee, pepper and spices, are allowed to stan*! opcu and thus lose their streugth. l)riod fruits not cared for in season become wormy, uud sweet-meats ure opened and forgottcu. Viuegar is drawn in n basin, and permitted to stand until both vinegar and busiu are spoiled. Soap is left in the water to dissolve, or more used than is necessary, and thcscrnbbrush is left in the water. liurrels and tubs aro left in the sun to .. , dry nud full apart; tins put away without - ? beiug properly dried aro rusted. ? * Molasses stands opcu and flics take pos? . sess m IK ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 1 rubbed on tho wash-board; and laces aro torti in starchiiig. Table-linen is thrown carelessly down> and nibbled by mice ; is put away dump and mildews; or the fruit-stains nr? foprrnt-. ?o~w ten and the status washed in, or "set." Table napkins aro used to wipe dishes, aud tea-pots are melted ou the stove. Lard is not well tried out, and becomesI tainted, and rats destroy tho "soap grease." Italics arc burned that might bo brokcu I up and thrown into the compost heap, j Old shoes, woollen rags, aud such accumulations arc permitted to lie round loose instead of being composted for your favorite grape vines. Sugar is spilled around tho barrel, eoffee from tho sack, and tea from the chest. Wooden boxes are used to take up ashes, then the box is ptshed aside and forgotten. Many a family has been made houseless aud homeless iu a night by such an inadvertence. Each of the abovo items is a trifle in it? self?and yet in a houso whero all these trifles were "happeuiDg"?just imagine* what a place it would bo! iu these and many other ways a careless and iuexpcricnced housekeeper will waste withonl heeding,. ?nay, even without knowing that sho wastes. On tho contrary, because sho entertains but littlo company, buys no fine clothes, makes her own dresses, and eooks plainly, she may imagine that she is an exceedingly economical woman and a very superior housekeeper. Save Til* Manure.?Even by farmers, I who should be the ones who would rcalizo | tbo value there is 'id it, there seems to be I but an indifferent effort made to save tho I tw.r. - -L Hiu uuiiiuitj, iui uiucn 01 1(8 value 18 wasted by not taking care of it properly or iu tiuie, while it is often used on such crops as are not capable of utilising it to tho greatest ndvantago or profit. Good hon manure from fowls wliioh havo been liberally fed is worth as much as guano, for all kind of crops for which guano is used, ^u<l if' farmers and those who have small garden patches would only realise this fact, thev would pay more attention to collecting and. saving the droppings from their hens than, they do. Wo do not think there is much necessity for cloaning the fowl house out crcry day, as some do, but clean it out every wcck, giv.ng it a good landing every tiuie it is cleaned, so as to keep the floor clean from droppings and make it easier to clean out when neocssary. Sonio sprinklo ashes, sawdust, chips, etc., on the floors, but we consider sand preferable, for it seems to separate, to disintegrate, the droppings better, soou making it by a little caro in. working over almost as fine and as easily applied as guano or any of our superphosphates. We always put it into barrels as soon as it is taken up from tho chicken house floor, and convey it to some dry, airy place whero vo let it remain until wanted, for use, when wo empty it out on a heap, and work it over well beforo applying it to the crops.?Poultry Bulletin. I Pay the printer what you owe, and renew.. ?*?' I