The “Dumont” _fazenda_ adjoins the one just described, and it is the second largest plantation in Brazil, and perhaps in the world. It was formerly owned by the family of Santos-Dumont, the aeronaut, but is now under the control of an English company. They own a private railroad with more than forty miles of track, which runs to Riberão Preto. The track is only twenty-six inches wide, and the cars are rather narrow with room for only one person on each side of the aisle. A special train, with the best car the road possesses, drawn by a Baldwin engine, was sent for us and we were taken over the coffee plantation, which possesses nearly five million trees. It was also very interesting to travel over the thousands of acres owned by them, in and through the rows of coffee trees which almost brushed up against the car in places, in this comfortable, if diminutive coach, and see the methods of culture and care of the coffee, which is slightly different than that pursued on the other. It was also interesting to find an up-to-date American in charge of the vast interests of this English company, and to know that one of our own nationality is making good in the coffee-raising industry as well as in other lines. This company markets all its own coffee through an auxiliary company in England in packages under its own labels. The “Dumont” _fazenda_ is also conducting an experiment in rubber culture, and now has forty thousand trees growing, some of which are almost ready to tap. If rubber continues to advance, as it has in the past year, this part of their plantation may prove more profitable than the growing of coffee. CHAPTER VII AN AMERICAN COLONY UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS Have you ever heard of the Villa Americana in Brazil? Quite likely you have not, for I had never heard of it myself until my visit to that interesting country brought it to my notice. We frequently hear of German villages, Hungarian settlements and Italian colonies, but a settlement of North Americans on the other side of the equator is something new. And yet the colony is not new, for it was established more than a generation ago; children have grown up and married, who still call themselves North Americans, and who have never set foot on soil over which waves the stars and stripes. In travelling over Brazil I frequently met with American young men and women who informed me that they came from the Villa Americana. So often did that name reach my ears that I decided to visit this place, and see for myself what kind of a settlement it was, and how these voluntarily expatriated fellow countrymen lived in this land so different from our own. It is a journey of about two hours from Campinas on the Paulista Railway.