of which there are a
large number.

In addition to the indebtedness of the national government, the
individual states have also incurred funded debts of their own. The
aggregate of these debts in 1904 was L20,199,440, and the several
loans made during the next two years, including those of the
municipalities of Rio de Janeiro, Santos, Bahia and Manaos, add fully
two and a half millions more to the total. (A. J. L.)

HISTORY

The Portuguese in Brazil.

Brazil was discovered in February 1499 (o.s.) by Vicente Yanez Pinzon, a
companion of Columbus. He descried the land near Cape St Augustine, and
sailed along the coast as far as the river Amazon, whence he proceeded
to the mouth of the Orinoco. He made no settlement, but took possession
of the country in the name of the Spanish government, and carried home,
as specimens of its natural productions, some drugs, gems and
Brazil-wood. Next year the Portuguese commander, Pedro Alvares Cabral,
appointed by his monarch to follow the course of Vasco da Gama in the
East, was driven by adverse winds so far from his track, that he reached
the Brazilian coast, April 24, and anchored in Porto Seguro (16 deg. S.
lat.) on Good Friday. On Easter day an altar was erected, mass
celebrated in presence of the natives, the country declared an apanage
of Portugal, and a stone cross erected in commemoration of the event.
Cabral despatched a small vessel to Lisbon to announce his discovery,
and, without forming any settlement, proceeded to India on the 3rd of
May. On the arrival of the news in Portugal, Emanuel invited Amerigo
Vespucci to enter his service, and despatched him with three vessels to
explore the country. The navigator's first voyage was unsuccessful; but,
according to his own account, in a second he discovered a safe port, to
which he gave the name of All-Saints and where he erected a small fort.
Vespucci's narrative is, however, suspected of being apocryphal (see
VESPUCCI, AMERIGO).

The poor and barbarous tribes of Brazil, and their country, the mineral
riches of which were not immediately discovered, offered but few
attractions to a government into the coffers of which the wealth of
India and Africa was flowing. For nearly thirty years the kings of
Portugal paid no further attention to their newly-acquired territory
than what consisted, in combating the attempts of the Spaniards to
occupy it, and dispersing the private adventurers from France who sought
i