TER XII. FRAGOSO AT WORK

"BRAZA" (burning embers) is a word found in the Spanish language as far
back as the twelfth century. It has been used to make the word "brazil,"
as descriptive of certain woods which yield a reddish dye. From this
has come the name "Brazil," given to that vast district of South America
which is crossed by the equator, and in which these products are so
frequently met with. In very early days these woods were the object of
considerable trade. Although correctly called _"ibirapitunga,"_ from the
place of production, the name of _"brazil"_ stuck to them, and it has
become that of the country, which seems like an immense heap of embers
lighted by the rays of the tropical sun.

Brazil was from the first occupied by the Portuguese. About the
commencement of the sixteenth century, Alvarez Cabral, the pilot, took
possession of it, and although France and Holland partially established
themselves there, it has remained Portuguese, and possesses all the
qualities which distinguish that gallant little nation. It is to-day
the largest state of South America, and has at its head the intelligent
artist-king Dom Pedro.

"What is your privilege in the tribe?" asked Montaigne of an Indian whom
he met at Havre.

"The privilege of marching first to battle!" innocently answered the
Indian.

War, we know, was for a long time the surest and most rapid vehicle of
civilization. The Brazilians did what this Indian did: they fought, they
defended their conquests, they enlarged them, and we see them marching
in the first rank of the civilizing advance.

It was in 1824, sixteen years after the foundation of the
Portugo-Brazilian Empire, that Brazil proclaimed its independence by the
voice of Don Juan, whom the French armies had chased from Portugal.

It remained only to define the frontier between the new empire and that
of its neighbor, Peru. This was no easy matter.

If Brazil wished to extend to the Rio Napo in the west, Peru attempted
to reach eight degrees further, as far as the Lake of Ega.

But in the meantime Brazil had to interfere to hinder the kidnaping of
the Indians from the Amazon, a practice which was engaged in much to the
profit of the Hispano-Brazilian missions. There was no better method of
checking this trade than that of fortifying the Island of the Ronde, a
little above Tabatinga, and there establishing a post.

This afforded the solution, and from that time the frontier of the two
countri