"Foreign trade can never be prosperous in Brazil," said Dr. Bronson, "until these export duties are removed. In addition to the custom-house tariff at Para, there is a duty on goods carried from one province to another, so that all articles of Brazilian manufacture or production are heavily burdened before they get out of the country. Brazil may become enlightened one of these days, and adopt the practices of other nations in this respect, but for the present she ranks with Turkey and other semi-barbarous countries in keeping a burden upon her home industries." Frank asked about the import duties on foreign goods. "They are from five to eighty per cent. on the valuation," replied the Doctor, "and a general average of the duties on importations is about forty per cent. They vary according to the caprice of the official through whose hands the articles may pass, so that one importer may pay twice as much as another on the same kind of goods. Bribery is said to be practised with very little effort at concealment, and an importer may be highly favored in his business by an 'arrangement' with an officer. As long as this state of things continues there will be no great increase in business. "The Brazilian plan of collecting the revenues is full of absurdities. For example, shoes pay according to the length of the sole, and ready-made clothing is taxed by its weight. The people who came here from the United States to settle in Brazil were required to pay enormous duties on their wagons, farming implements, and other personal property, and in some cases the duties amounted to more than the original cost of the articles they brought. Many of them had invested all their means in farming implements, and found on arrival that they could not remove their property from the custom-house until every cent of the heavy duty had been paid. This was one cause of the discouragements of the emigrants at the beginning, and has deterred others from coming." From the latest reports at hand Frank ascertained that, of the import trade into the whole of Brazil, England had forty-five per cent., France seventeen per cent., Buenos Ayres seven per cent., the United States five per cent., and Portugal three and one half per cent. Of all the exports from Brazil the United States took forty-five per cent. and Great Britain nine per cent., the rest going principally to France, Germany, and Portugal. England and the United States each take about two thousand five hundred tons of rubber annually, France has most of the cacao, and the other products are about equally divided among the various nations, the United States having probably the largest share. Brazil supplies more than half of the coffee consumed by the rest of the world; it is well known that thousands of tons of Brazilian coffee are sold every year as "Government Java," while Java coffee in its turn is sold as "best Mocha."