Brazilian Sketches | Page 5

is navigable by ships of large draught for 2,700 miles from its mouth. It has eight tributaries from 700 to 1,200 miles and four from 1,500 to 2,000 miles in length. One of these, the Madeira, empties as much water into the larger stream as does the Mississippi into the Gulf. No other river system drains vaster or richer territory. It drains one million square miles more than does the Mississippi, and in all it has 27,000 miles of navigable waters.
The land connections of Brazil are also extensive. All the other countries on the continent, save Chili and Ecuador, border on Brazil. The Guianas and Venezuela, on the north; Colombia and Peru on the west; Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay on the south--eight countries in all.
It is indeed a vast territory. The United States could be placed within its borders and still there would be left enough Brazilian territory to make a State as large as Texas.
Almost from the time we sighted land until we rounded the cape near Montevideo, we could see the mountains along the shore. The mountains extend far interior and up and down the length of the country. The climate of the tropical Amazon Valley is, of course, very hot, but as soon as the mountains are reached on the way south the climate even in the tropical section is modified. The section south of Rio, on account of the mountains and other forces of nature, has a temperate climate, delightful for the habitation of man. Each of these great zones, the tropical, the subtropical and the temperate, is marked more by its distinctive leading products than by climate. Each of these sections yields a product in which Brazil leads the world. The largest and most inexhaustible rubber supply in the world is found in the Amazon Valley region. The central section raises so much cocoa that it gives Brazil first rank in the production of this commodity. The great temperate region produces three-fourths of all the coffee used in the world. Of course, there is much overlapping in the distribution of these products. Other products, such as cotton, farinha, beans, peas, tobacco, sugar, bananas, are raised in large quantities and could be far more extensively produced if the people would utilize the best methods and implements of modern agriculture. The mountains are full of ores and the forests of the finest timber, and the great interior has riches unknown to man. It has the most extensive unexplored region on earth. What the future holds for this marvelously endowed country, when her resources are revealed and brought to market, no one would dare predict. Few countries in the world would venture a claim to such immense riches.

CHAPTER II
.
THE CAPITAL, RIO DE JANEIRO.
The city of Rio is the center of life in Brazil. We entered the Bay of Rio after nightfall on the sixth of June. The miles and miles of lights in the city of Rio on the one side, and of Nietheroy on the other, gave us the impression that we were in some gigantic fair grounds. Missionaries Entzminger, Shepard, Maddox and Mrs. Entzminger came aboard to welcome us and bring us ashore. We were taken to the Rio Baptist College and Seminary, where we were entertained in good old Tennessee style by the Shepards. This school building was built in 1849 by Dom Pedro II. for a school which was known as the "Boarding School of Dom Pedro II." It accommodated two hundred students. The Emperor supported the school. In 1887 the school was moved to larger quarters. Dr. Shepard is renting the property for our college, but our school like Dom Pedro's has outgrown these quarters and we are compelled to rent additional buildings some distance away to accommodate the increasing number of students. There are about three hundred students in all departments.
As we studied the situation at close range, we had it driven in upon us that one of the greatest needs in Brazil is the one Dr. Shepard and his co-laborers are trying to meet in this school. Three-fourths of the population of Brazil cannot read. We need, above all things now, educated leaders. What a call is there for trained native pastors and evangelists! Some of the Seminary students have been preaching as many as twenty-one times a month in addition to carrying their studies in the school. Dr. Shepard has been forced to stop them from some of this preaching because it was preventing successful work in the class room. The need is so great that it is very difficult to keep the students from such work.
I must not go too far afield from the subject of this chapter, but I must take the time to say that nothing breaks down prejudice against the gospel more effectively than do