America was also proceeding, although along different lines—and by reports sent home as the result of investigation which gave a poor account of the condition of the isolated _nucleos_, passed a law to forbid emigration to Brazil. Dom Pedro had to turn his attention to other countries. Before the coming of the Germans, South Brazil was almost totally neglected; demand for tropical produce such as sugar and tobacco had kept the attention of Portuguese and their mixed-blood descendants for over three centuries to North Brazil, where negro slaves multiplied on the warm coast; the grassy uplands of the south attracted few Brazilians, and these chiefly bandeirantes whose main business was to keep out Spaniards from the Plate, and whose wild cattle strayed and bred on the natural pastures. So wild and untenanted was the country that up to the middle of the nineteenth century the German colonists had trouble with Indian raiders. But it was the right climate for the north-born Europeans, a wise choice that proved a success while other settlements dwindled out. During the same period there were several attempts to colonize Espirito Santo, notably at Santa Isabel, and Cachoeiras and Transylvania, six or seven starting between 1847 and 1856. The energy of the settlers was discounted by the hot climate, and many moved south, where the great increase in settlers’ populations is a fair criterion of their success. The official figures of German entries into Brazil from 1820 to the end of 1915 are one hundred and twenty-two thousand eight hundred and thirty, but the people of German blood in Brazil are now reckoned at about 250,000. The southerly towns under their influence are clean, well-kept, live centres, with constantly expanding industries. Rio Grande today is quite one of the best sections of Brazil: the influx of Italians brings them more than equal in numbers to the German element, taking the state as a whole. With organized German settlement checked, Brazil during the eighteen fifties turned her attention to the mother country, and brought in Portuguese; they were settled in the warmer latitudes. In 1853, such a colony was begun in Maranhão, at Santa Isabel, followed by five more in the same northern and sultry state in 1855; in the same year three Portuguese colonies were established in Pará, at Nossa Senhora d’O, at Peçanha and at Silva, while Rio de Janeiro was planted with another five. A little later Bahia was given Portuguese colonies at Sinimbú, Engenho Novo and Rio Pardo. These and others were not strikingly successful until or unless joined by other colonists, for the Portuguese, who are artisans rather than agriculturists, melted from the lonely settlements and found jobs in the coast cities.