São Paulo

São Paulo, capital of the Brazilian state of the same name, stands on a wide plain bounded by low hills, 4 miles from the Rio Tiete and 310 by rail W. by S. of Rio de Janeiro. It has houses of one story, a handsome public garden, and tramways running out to the beautiful suburbs. The principal buildings are the old Jesuit college, now the government palace, the bishop's palace, and a celebrated law-school. São Paulo is the headquarters of the coffee trade, and four railways connect it with the great coffee districts in the interior. There are cotton-weaving and printing works, and manufactories of tobacco, cigars, spirits, matches, gloves, and hats. Pop. 64,950, including 12,000 Italians and 1500 Germans; the latter have a school, a club-house, and a newspaper of their own.—The state (area, 112,330 sq. m.; pop. in 1895, 1,750,000), the most promising in the republic, stretches from the ocean to the river Paraná, and consists of a strip of coast-land (8 to 80 miles broad) and an elevated region, the latter occupying all the interior, and rising from 1600 feet: all this part is healthy, and the climate pleasant. The principal ranges are the Serras da Mantiqueira and do Mar. The rivers are numerous, and many of them of importance; regular steamboat service is maintained over a distance of 400 miles. The state possesses also 1133 miles of railway. Its mineral wealth includes magnetic iron, gold, marble, and precious stones. There is some cattle-rearing and a few manufactures; but the chief industry is agriculture. The principal crop is coffee; next follow sugar, cotton, tobacco, manioc, maize, and vines. The exports of the state—by either Rio de Janeiro or its own chief port, Santos—amount to some 40 per cent. of the total for the republic.