THE FAMINE IN BRAZIL.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Volume 3, Issue 141, 19 June 1880, Page 2

THE FAMINE IN BRAZIL.

Secretary Evarts has received a letter from the United States Consul at Pernarabuco describing the famine in his Consulate, in which the latter says:— " Two years and a half ago, when the secca commenced, the province of Ceara numbered 900,000 inhabitants, and out of these 500,000 have died of disease and starvation. The secca began in tho summer of 1870, and has continued till the close of the year 1878, lasting thirty months; no rain having fallen during the whole two years and a half, and the once fertile and luxuriant Sertao, where the farms and villages prospered in peace and plenty now presents the appearance of a vast and blackened desert, burnt over by fire. Later on, as the burning summer slowly passed, bringing no November showers, and another January went by without rain, there came appalling news of famine, disease, dead eattlo, and of dying and despairing people/ Long penitential processions were formed, and the miserable Sertanejos b. j at, cut, and otherwise punished themselves to appease an offended deity. But the pitiless secca still continued, threatening everything and everybody with inevitable destruction. The wretched people were now reduced to the necessity of eating roots, cotton-pods, the Meeuma bean (which produces dropsy), lizards, dogs, cats, rats, loaches,any living or dead thing capable of affording sustenance, and in some instance they were even goaded to cannibalism by the pangs of hunger. To increase the unimaginable horrors of tho situation, the smallpox broke out among the Serl«„.j„.» «.„,l Wnn.o ..pJJomio, typk.ln and other fevers were raging, anil in February and March of I.S7S the mortality became frightful. Tho cattle were now all dead, tho rivers dried up, and there being no railroads or other communication by which provision could reach tho Sertao, the inhabitants dreading wholesale starvation, abandoned it altogether, and the whole current of life swept seaward. Ceara, Parahyba, Aracaty, Batnrite—all the towns along the coast, were now alive with suffering humanity—age, youth, men, women, and children, all famine-stricken, coming iu from the country by thousands upon thousands. The city of Ceara, with 25,000 inhabitants of its own, received over 90,000 .Sertanejos. Impossible to provido for such a host, the Cearensis did their best, but it was a sorrowful spectacle to see thousands of emaciated creatures sitting or lying in the open largos (squares) smitten with small-pox and other loathsome diseases, some lamenting their own fate or the loss of friends, others too weak or ill to complain ; some wishing to die from despair, and others insane from suffering; a dangerous and most harrowing scene, one with few parallels iu history. In Ceara, or Fortaleza, as it is indiscriminately called, the highest mortality in normal times was 900 per year. Now about half the population (25,000) is dead. In the beginning of last November tho population, including tho influx, numbered 90,000. The gicatest mortality prevailed in the months of November and December of 1878. From tho Ist of November to the 27th of December there died of smallpox alone, and were buried in tho Lagoa Fuuda (deep lakes) cemetery, for the poor only, 23,470; estimated from 27th to 31st December, 1000 ; in the St. Joao Baptisto cemetery, 1232 ; in tho City cemetery, 1000 ; estimated buried outside in fields, etc., 2000; and to this tho mortality from other diseases, 10 per cent, 2970; total interments for two months, 31,571. The soil is sandy, in which trenches were dug six feet deep and long enough to contain twelve uncolßned coipsos. Three or four more aro sometimes put in, when tho bodies come too fast for the corps of grave-diggers, numbering twenty-five. Theso diggers sometimes drop dead in the trenches, from the effluvia emanating from tho bodies, which permeates tho whole soil of the cemetery, and impregnates the surrounding atmosphere for nearly a mile. At Parahyba, out of 15,000 Sertanejos who cutno to that port, 12,000 died; others wandered oil', and tho place, is nearly depopulated. Of Sobral, Paootuba, and other towns, distressing accounts that augmented the Hum of human suffering could bo given. But enough has been narrated to convoy sumo idea of tho magnitude of tho terrible Ecnno at Ceara. It is estimated that 150,000 diod from hunger alone, as many more from its effects, and tho remaining 200,000 frou) disease." '