Of the Santa Barbara colony there is a story told which is comedy instead of tragedy. The colonists grew, besides cotton, watermelons: one year just as the crop ripened, cholera broke out in S. Paulo, the sale of melons was forbidden, and the growers faced ruin. At this time President Cleveland had come into office in the United States, and had just appointed a new consul at Santos: he must, then, be a good Democrat. The settlers, who on landing in Brazil had ceremonially torn up the Constitution of the United States and offered thanks to heaven for having permitted them to reach a land where the sacred Biblical institution of slavery was still in force, remembered that they were American citizens. They wrote to the consul a letter of congratulation on his arrival and at the same time detailed their grievances with regard to watermelon sales. The consul replied cordially, suggested that he should visit them, and received post haste a warm welcome. The afternoon of his arrival at the colony found the entire population drawn up on the platform, a southern Colonel at the head of the deputation. The train rolls up, a first-class compartment door opens, a gentleman steps out with a suitcase, and walks up to the Colonel with outstretched hand. It was the consul—but a consul as black as the ace of spades. It is said that the Colonel, rising nobly to the occasion, gasped once, shook the hand of the consul, and that he and the other southerners gave the official the time of his life; but when he departed they vowed that never, never again would they trust a Democratic administration.... There are a few descendants of this group who have attained true distinction in Brazil and genuinely work for the land of their adoption. It was after the dwindling of the flow of German incomers about 1860 that a steady stream of Italians was directed towards Brazil. Their wooing was in a great measure due to the systematized efforts of the coffee-growers of S. Paulo state, and, after the establishment of the republic in 1889, of the state authorities. Workers from North Italy were found to be those who best suited the needs of conditions of the coffee industry, and to this part of Europe were directed the attentions of recruiting agents. Laborious, serious, economical, bent upon acquiring a little fortune, the Italians came with their wives and families, accepted their position as _colonos_ upon the great estates, never very ardently attached to one particular piece of soil, and ready to pick up and move on wherever advantageous conditions beckoned. [Illustration: _Agriculture in S. Paulo State._ Cutting sugar cane. Rice cultivation. Coffee gathering. ]