The coffee berries look like red cherries. They are picked from the trees by hand. the soft flesh is thrown away, and the seeds are then put through several machines to get them ready for market.
See what a handy crop coffee is for these highland people. Their plantations are often far back in the mountains, but they can put two sacks of coffee on the mule's back, and away the animal goes. If they tried to ship lumber", they would find that the mules could not carry it. If they tried to ship wheat or corn, they would find that neither crop would bring enough money to pay the freight. A sack of coffee brings much more money than a sack of wheat or corn would bring. The mule that carries the coffee sacks down to the boat landing or the railroad station brings back two packages of freight. These two packages contain provi sions for the people in the village. We are surprised to see how many different things there are in the store in this village.
279. The city on a high plateau.—Twelve hours after leaving the Magdalena, our train reaches the edge of a high, level plain called a plateau. It is higher than the top of any mountain in our own country east of the Miss issippi River. It is cool and pleasant here, and in an hour and a half our train takes us thirty miles to Bogota, the capital. We are surprised to see what a big city it is, and what fine buildings it has, and how many white people there are. During our. journey from the sea we have seen few people besides Indians and negroes.
The nights are so cool that it feels good to sleep under blankets. We are happy to find that there are no mosquitoes. This is all because we are on the plateau, a mile and a half higher than we were at Carta gena. It is so much more pleasant here than on the hot, low plain that we can now understand why people are willing to make the long, hard journey that they must make to reach here.
For their own food, the plateau people grow corn, beans, and many vegetables, and sometimes wheat. They have sheep and cattle, and sell hides as well as coffee.
They also sell gold and emeralds, which they dig from the mountains.
280. Other coffee countries.—Look at the map (Fig. 279) and you will see that the plateau of Bogota goes on northeast ward into Venezuela where there are several towns, among them Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. Coffee is grown here too, and in some of the stores in the United States you will find coffee called Maracaibo and another kind called La Guaira, named from the Venezuelan ports that ship it to the United States and to England.
Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, is nearer the sea than Bogota and has a rail road that goes to La Guaira. but the little trains have a hard climb pulling up the mountain. The people in all of these countries like to live on the plateau where it is cool. They nearly all export coffee and hides, and often have to send them down to the seacoast on mule back, be cause it is so hard to build roads and rail roads in such steep places.
281. The greatest coffee fee is grown in many countries, but there is one country that ships more of it than all other countries together. This great coffee shipping country is Brazil. In that large country the plateau comes close to the ocean; hence it is easily reached from the seaports. From Santos, the great coffee shipping port, to Sao Paulo, the metropolis of the coffee district, the railroad cars are pulled up to the edge of the plateau by a cable, as cars are some times pulled out of mines.
On the plateau back of Santos and Rio de Janeiro are coffee plantations with thousands of acres planted with the little green trees. Sometimes they stretch almost as far as one can see. Two-thirds of the world's coffee is grown here and shipped from Santos and Rio de Janeiro. Ask your grocer about Rio coffee.
Many of the people who grow coffee trees have come from Italy to work in the coffee plantations, just as the people of Europe have come to the United States to get the high wages that our industries offer.