Before 1870 the most important producing states, the seaboard territories with surplus sugar, coffee, tobacco, cacao and cotton had been furnished with strips of line penetrating limited areas of the interior. In the north engineering problems were easier, for the frowning wall of the Serra do Mar melts away in South Bahia, but it was in the temperate zones of the more southerly regions that transportation was urgently demanded to serve the needs of the rapidly expanding coffee regions; São Paulo was feverishly planting all over her best red lands, and the only outlet for the crop was the steep mountain road to Santos. An English company took up the work of building a railroad, completed it after surmounting a series of difficulties and opened it to traffic in 1867. It is a triumph of engineering, and has never had a competitor; from S. Paulo city itself a fan of railway lines branches out in every direction except seawards, and while other great centres of rail networks in Brazil originate at the sea edge, here in S. Paulo the point of departure is from the plateau above the hill barrier. The São Paulo-to-Santos line is world famous: it is the channel through which the bulk of the coffee of the whole world is carried, and is for its length one of the notable money earners of the railroad world. The road crosses the coastal swamps following the old Jesuit road as far as Cubatão, and thence climbs the granite wall of the Serra on one of the steepest grades known in railway construction, rising two thousand five hundred feet within a distance of ten kilometers. It is a joy to ride over this line, with its magnificent equipment, minute neatness, drainage system of the mountain sides involving a remarkable series of cemented channels—the very rocks beside the track are tarred to preserve them from decay, and the sides of the hills are built up with elaborate care unparalleled in railway work; the company’s power-houses, cottages for employees, and stations along the route, with the fine terminal in Santos and the beautiful “Estação da Luz” in S. Paulo, are models. Once upon a time, it is said, an American railroad man was shown over this line and asked if he could suggest any improvements. “Not unless the ends of the ties could be carved or the rails set with diamonds,” replied the visitor. Upkeep of the line is costly, soil and climate working against durability of any human effort; the climb up the steep Serra, electrically operated by rope haulage on the “endless rope” system, requires incessant watchfulness, as does the condition of the several tunnels blasted through the heart of the mountains. There is no better way to appreciate both the engineering problems and the superb beauty of the green Serra with its abrupt peaks and deep valleys than to ride on the brake of a train making the descent to Santos.