São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are linked by the line owned by the Federal Government, the Central do Brasil, a series running off from a point on the S. Paulo line into the State of Minas Geraes; the writer followed this road when visiting Bello Horizonte, the new capital of Minas, a beautifully placed city with mountains rising behind it and terraced plains and valleys sweeping away in front. The line into Minas traverses a hilly country, green, fertile, well-watered with turbulent rivers whose valleys are sedulously followed. From near Bello Horizonte a long arm of steel reaches out past Sete Lagôas, Curvello and Curralinho, where a branch runs to the famous diamond fields of Diamantina, and to Pirapora on the river São Francisco: from this point steamboats meeting the trains take their goods and passengers down the waterway to Joazeiro in Bahia State. It Is from this river port of Pirapora that an extremely bold railway has been planned, to run almost due north to the city of Pará, the latter part of the route following the valley of the Tocantins river: the line would be some two thousand miles in length, traversing country never properly explored or charted. Authorization to contract for the work was given in 1911 to the brilliant Brazilian engineer, Frontin, to whose genius the beautifying of Rio de Janeiro is due, and a beginning was made between Pirapora and Formosa, but the universal lack of money has given a check to operations. The headquarters and main station of the _Estrada de Ferro Central do Brasil_ are situated in Rio de Janeiro. Three trains are run daily each way between Rio and São Paulo, those starting in the early morning landing passengers about six in the evening; they are equipped with a satisfactory and inexpensive restaurant service. The two night trains leave each city at intervals of an hour and a half every evening; the first leaves about seven o’clock, and is modestly furnished with beds on the North American Pullman plan, while the famous “luxo,” on which newspaper reporters always attend to take down the names of the illustrious, starts at nine o’clock; each camarote is a separate apartment with an individual toilette, fans, electric light, bells, and very prompt attendants always at hand, in the style of the best European trains. Leaving Rio the track runs through a pretty green valley, intersected with palm decked little ravines and numbers of round hills, until the uplands of São Paulo are approached. The line has never paid its way under Government control, although deficits have been recently much reduced by stern elimination of free passes for politicians and their friends. Expenses of operation were in 1915–16 abnormally inflated by the cost of coal which at one time reached one hundred and twelve milreis a ton (over twenty-eight dollars) and alterations were made in many of the locomotives to permit the use of oil as fuel. Coal used in Brazil is practically all imported,