northern point, was also another serviceable stream--but no one
used it, except, perhaps, some rare private canoe taking up goods to
settlements on its banks.

The navigation of the Tocantins, when I was in Goyaz, extended merely to
the Port of Alcobaca, 350 kil. from Para, from which point rapids existed
which made steam navigation impossible as far as Praia da Rainha. The
distance of 180 kil. between those two places was eventually to be
traversed by a railway, a a concession for which had been granted to the
Estrada de Ferro Norte do Brazil. In the High Tocantins I believe two
steam launches were temporarily running as far as Porto Nacional or
perhaps a little higher.

Undoubtedly the State of Goyaz will some day, notwithstanding its
apathetic inhabitants, see great changes for the better. The new epoch
will begin when the several railways which were in course of construction
from various directions enter the Province. Not one of them had
penetrated the Province at the time of my visit, although the work of
preparing the road had just been begun on Goyaz territory, as we have
seen, for a few kilometres north of the Paranahyba River, on the
extension of the Mogyana line from Sao Paulo. A second railway line in
course of construction was a branch of the Western Minas Railway; and
there was a third up the Araguaya from Para. Those railways will
certainly revolutionize the country. The inhabitants of Goyaz,
ultra-conservative in their ideas, were not at all anxious to see a
railway reach their capital. In their curious way of reasoning they
seemed to think that the railway would make life dearer in the city, that
strangers would be coming in great numbers to reap the benefit of their
country, and that the younger people who were satisfied to live
there--because they could not get away--would all fly to the coast as
soon as the railway was established, to enjoy the luxuries of Rio and Sao
Paulo, of which they had heard, but could so far only dream of. They did
not stop to think that the railways will certainly make Goyaz the richest
country in the world.

The financial condition of that beautiful State can perhaps best be shown
by quoting the words of the Presidente himself in his message to the
Legislative Congress of Goyaz on May 13th, 1910, on assuming the
Presidency of the Province.

"On my assuming the Government of the Province, I ordered the Secretary
of Finance to give an account of the balance existing in the