The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

86 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA.
tliey were afterwards persecuted by the Inquisition, burnt by the hundred, and
compelled to abjure their national religion, they are now returning in greater
numbers than ever, especially from Germany and Russia. The gypsies, descen-
dants of those transported by Portugal to Brazil about the middle of the eigh-
teenth century, still wander in small groups over the inland plateaux, while the
Chinese have begun to make their appearance in the towns and on the plantations.
In general the Brazilians have not degenerated physically, and on the
plateaux they are distinguished by their tall stature, skill, and energy. Despite
the frequent wars into which they have been dragged, they are not a bellicose
people, but rather of peaceful disposition, patient and long-suffering. Although
far from ambitious, they are endowed with considerable intelligence and, like the
Ilispano-Americans, are " a nation of orators."
Even in colonial times Brazil had produced numerous writers and independent
thinkers, amongst others Antonio Jose de Silva, burnt by the Inquisition at Lisbon
in 1739. Jose de Lacerda, the first explorer to penetrate far into the interior of
equatorial Africa, was a Brazilian, as was also Gusmao, first of modern physicists
to send up a balloon (1709).
Main Physical Divisions.
Viewed as a whole, Brazil forms a geographical unit characterised by an almost
insular mass of crystalline and archoDan mountains disijosed in the direction
from north to south, steeply inclined towards the Atlantic Ocean, and developing
broad plateaux between the fluvial slopes. But despite this general simplicity
of structure the countrj^ is so vast that within its limits are still comjirised several
distinct physical divisions of great extent. Hence nearly all of its most dis-
tinguished explorers have been fain to confine themselves to a single region, or
even to a single section, as, for instance, some particular river basin of that region.
It will accordingly be convenient to spread the detailed description of Brazil over
a number of separate chapters, in which may be summed up the special geo-
graphical and biological features of each phj-sical division.
The natural limits of these physical divisions coincide in no way with those
of the old administrative "provinces," which correspond with the States at present
constituting the federal republic. In fact, these provinces had for the most part
a purely artificial origin. They were carved by royal or ministerial caprice out
of the coast region, and then extended inland in total ignorance of the configura-
tion of the interior. These ancient " captainries," which varied from time to time
in number and extent, have become the political and administrative divisions of
East Brazil, while new provinces were afterwards created from the western terri-
tories, which stretched away to the unknown regions inhabited by independent
wild tribes. Here, also, as on the seaboard, fictitious frontiers were traced on
the map long before any knowledge had been acquired of the natural frontiers.
Amongst the broad physical divisions Amazonia alone comprises about one-
half of the whole republic. It would even be doubled in size were it made to
include all those parts of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia which