Henson raised the flap, and emerged from the green canvas tent that served as field-hospital. "Where's Fitzgerald?" he asked. Going round the picquet line," replied Mortimer, who lay bareheaded, his shoulders against a rock. "He doesn't expect any trouble to-night. We've given them far too big a hammering for that, but one can't be too careful after today's experiences. How are your casualties?" "Oh, there's only one I have any fear about, and that's the man you brought to me. The others-there are only four of them - will be fit for duty again in a week or two, though Sergeant Adamu will carry a nasty scar, I'm afraid." "I'm going to help you tonight," said Mortimer. "That fellow Musa is one of our newly joined, and I've an idea that when he crossed me in that charge it wasn't altogether accidental. Anyhow, but for him running in front I should certainly be in your care at this moment, if not beyond it." Henson sat down, and began to roll up a coil of linen. "I daresay you're right," he said; "but you can help best by getting a good night's sleep. I can manage well enough, and you've done the work of three men to-day." "Well, anyhow," the other went on, "if the fellow is going to peg out I shall expect you to wake me. Now, you quite understand that?” "All right," said Henson, a little surprised at this unusual manifestation of sentiment. "To tell you the truth," he added gravely, "I shouldn't be surprised if he did peg out. The poison must have been fresh, and an artery was pierced. Ah! here comes Fitzgerald." In the fast deepening twilight the three men divided a rude meal of biscuits and tinned beef. "We have fairly given them the knock," said Fitzgerald, lighting a pipe. "A hundred and fifty counted dead, and lots more carried away.' the eyes opened again and gazed long at Mortimer. "Thou it is," the voice whispered from the darkness, "thou-thou-at Manga The words died away into silence. The unwounded hand was lifted, and all the fingers straightened themselves with their tips towards Mortimer, who had knelt down in the attitude of one who receives a bitter reproach. A moment later he had hurried from the tent. "You had better go to him now," he said to to Henson, clearing his throat. Henson passed quickly behind the canvas, stood still, and listened. For some minutes his own suppressed breathing alone broke the intense quiet. Nothing stirred under the lamp. Then some invisible insect banged noisily against the glass chimney. R. S. FLETCHER. BRAZIL. may have tasted that same soft "BRAZIL! Oh, yes; 'where coast, turning men's minds the nuts come from,'"-such after strange gods and strange is the usual facetious remark fancies, drugging them, like evoked by any mention of the the sirens' song, into oblivion Brazils, a remark which the of their past. But there is merchant would probably another and a deeper reason amend by substituting "coffee for this disquiet and unrest. for " nuts." Yet this is no In distant lands the traveller exaggeration of the average Anglo-Saxon attitude towards this vast country, with its limitless possibilities, an area greater than that of the United States, and more unexplored land than in any other portion of the habitable globe. "Anglo-Saxon was inserted advisedly, for of a truth our American cousins are fully as much to blame. Perhaps even more so, for Brazil is the largest, if not the wealthiest, of the various Republics which compose the Southern Continent, and the knowledge of mutual aims and purposes should have brought the two great confederations into closer union. What North America has been the Anglo-Saxon, the South is to the Latin-an outlet for surplus labour and energy, a smiling haven from oppression and poverty. Yet between the two is a great gulf fixed, the gulf of creed, race, and traditions, of which the Panama Isthmus is the outward and visible barrier, rather than the geographical link. to From the very first day in Brazil life assumes a different aspect, partly due, no doubt, to the alluring, half feminine breeze of the tropics, which steals on board miles from the Certainly few places are more attractive at first sight than the capital, Rio de Janeiro. The vessel swings past the Sugarloaf Hill, towering up like some giant sign - post across the seas; a wondrous bay of the deepest blue, studded with emerald isles, meets the gaze, and there, wrapped coyly in a humid shimmer of haze, lies the city. It nestles beneath the mass of Corcovada, whose topmost ridge forms the outline of a man lying at full length, vaguely reminiscent of Capri's giant sarcophagus facing ever to the north. It is fairyland in the tropics-until you land. Then comes the disenchantment, and you realise that, wanton-like, her beauties are only for the eye. All the facts that make this land of promise so incongruous come tumbling on your senses. For Rio is a bustling, thriving centre of trade, with wealth and population increasing by leaps and bounds. Success, as if yielding to her climate, has sprung up like the gourd, and with all a parvenu's profusion her fancy riots in garish buildings. She must have "the finest street in the world," and SO a mighty avenue sweeps through the town. It is like placing a boulevard on the Equator, and the mind shrinks from the Avenida's glare, and turns gratefully to the narrow coolness of the Ouvidor, the old-world business street, where all the pomp and vanity of the Brazilian world can be focussed in a glance. Up-country, as in the city, the tale is the same,- -incongruities abound. Whether Nature is more riotous, more primitive than elsewhere, and this is her mute complaint, it would be hard to say. But certainly progress seems gauche and out of place. Here, where but a few months ago was virgin forest, you may see men hard at work on a macadamised road, whilst the materials arrive in a clumsy cart harnessed to a pair of shambling kine, which might have stepped out of the pages of the Old Testament. Farther on, a native will be paddling a prehistoric dug-out up a stream that ends in a sullen sheet of miasmatic swamp, yet half a mile away a factory chimney of staring red shoots into the sky. The track winds on amid a profusion of gardenias which scent the air with an odour indescribable, and then in an instant one is transplanted to a Swiss Hydro. For a cog railway is waiting to take one up the Organ Mountains! The brain reels at this nightmare jumble of the modern and the primeval. One must admit, however, that this restless engineering development is the only reasonable outlet for the Brazilian surplus energy. Were he to sit still and merely amass wealth he would speedily pay the penalty of succumbing to the fatal lethargy of the tropics. It has chanced that wealth has been granted to him, "pressed down and running over." There is but one word "coffee." It is the dominant note in the country. Men talk coffee, read coffee, think coffee. And it is not to be marvelled at, for Brazil actually supplies fiveeighths of the world's markets; nay more, the State of São Paulo alone could, unhampered, satisfy the entire demand. Nature herself has forced a corner. Buton such amazing fertility great evils are attendant.1 1 The international crisis of January 1912, which followed the attempt of the São Paulo merchants to hold up their coffee, and so raise the price in the U.S.A., is a noteworthy instance. Washington was forced to adopt stern measures, which were facilitated by the Anti-Trust Law, which enabled the Government to avoid the cornering of coffee. ficed for coffee: vast tracts of forest have been laid bare, slopes have been levelled, until the earth in response to the insatiate demands of her owners seems to have oried "Enough." There is none of the joyfulness of Nature over birth and production; she lies smiling faintly as if half in pain. The Government has been finally forced to interfere, and by a scheme of "valorisation" or State buying of all coffee, prevent the grave danger of over-production. So now the planters can turn their attention to maize, sugar, tobacco, maté, and that medium of limitless speculation, rubber. But wealth, like the other gifts of the gods, has its own cares and responsibilities. The problem which confronts Brazilian statesmen, a problem engendered solely by the amazing increase of wealth, is the possible denationalisation of the country. The establishment of German settlements throughout the country, especially in the more southern parts, was a favourite plan of Dom Pedro, and the ultra-Jingoists assert it is but the thin edge of the wedge. They point to the annual increase of immigrants from Germany, to the State help freely given, to the splendid administrative machinery of the Gertrading firms, to the various localities where language, names, and institutions are more Teutonic than Brazilian. They honestly believe that the dream of a vast PanLatin continent will never be realised to them the beat of the wings of the German eagle sounds very near: the black man shadow looms Now this de menace of its over the land. finite assumption of some political end in the commercial progress of Germany in South America is a most interesting study; ing study; it is on a par with the general wave of Germanophobia which has flooded Europe during the past few years. And several factors must be carefully weighed before we can come to the conclusion whether or no the terrors incident on this commercial invasion are but the outcome of a fanatic's hysteria. If the immigration returns are to prove the ruling force in the State in the future, the Brazilians have little to fear, since, although it must be admitted that the Germans outnumber those coming from Great Britain or the United States, the Portuguese easily head the list. With them it is certainly a case of "Eclipse first, the rest nowhere." And even the Italians have a handsome majority over their Teutonic rivals. Further, another potent consideration is the comparative value of influences in a State. What is it that dictates the policy of a Government? For the answer one could scarcely do better than apply to the Rothschilds it can be given in one word, finance. And though no one will gainsay that the increase of trade between Brazil and Germany has developed wonderfully, yet the capital which is exploiting the country in a thousand different ways is practically all derived from the two Anglo-Saxon Powers. Psychology, too, plays no mean |