The American drummer has been down this way with some lines of American goods. Through windows, where lovers have whispered sweet words to willing ears for centuries, there comes the busy clatter of the American sewing machine; on the coffee plantations, and even in the rubber camps, Indians, negroes and whites listen to the quavering, and ofttimes grating tones, of the American phonograph; in stores where the shopkeeper and clerk sit listlessly, as though not caring whether you buy or not, the cash is guarded by the unerring treasurer, the American cash register, and the goods are oftentimes weighed on an American computing scale; dark-eyed and dark-complexioned men pound at the keys of American typewriters, and the machine is sometimes as erring in its spelling of Portuguese as English in our own land; American farming implements may be seen rusting in the weather, just as they are neglected by our farmers in Oklahoma and Kansas; children are sometimes hauled around in little American perambulators or express wagons, and cans, which have held the products of the great oil trust, are now used to carry water from the public fountains. The Yankee medicine-man has been here, although the familiar terms of “pink pills for pale people,” and other household words, are scarcely recognizable when translated into Portuguese. On the bill-boards and on walls that are centuries old, and there are many, one will see the familiar picture of a boy with a mountain codfish on his back, and the message that this medicine will lay flesh on the back of the thinnest Brazilian. American windmills turn around at the beckoning of the Atlantic breezes, and American-built engines pull the high-tariffed freight over the tortuous curves of the Brazilian railways. Although the United States purchases almost one-third of the total exports of Brazil, yet we send to Brazil only one-tenth of the imports, and rank third in importance. This is, of course, due to the fact that it has only been within the last few years that the United States has developed into a great exporting country. It is due further to the fact that American manufacturers have not studied the markets, as have those of other countries; England and Germany in particular. British and German banks have branches in Rio, Bahia, Pernambuco, Pará, Manaos, São Paulo, Santos, and Porto Alegre, and these banks are great aids to business men from these countries. Furthermore, all of these banks make money and pay large dividends to their stockholders. At present there is no American bank in the country, or in all of South America for that matter, while Americans living and travelling there are all urging the establishment of such an institution. Personally, I believe that it would be a successful enterprise, if conducted along the lines pursued at home, for the methods of the banks working there are slow and tedious, and it requires a half hour to do what should be done in five minutes.