“And do ye git much out o’ the di’mond mines?” inquired Barney, whose mind was running on this subject.

“O yes, a great deal.  Every year many are got, and Government gets one-fifth of the value of all the gold and diamonds found in the country.  One diamond was found a short time ago which was worth £40,000.”

“Ye don’t say so!” exclaimed Barney in great surprise, as he blew an immense cloud of smoke from his lips.  “Now, that’s extror’nary.  Why don’t everybody go to the mines and dig up their fortin at wance?”

“Because men cannot eat diamonds,” replied the hermit gravely.

“Troth, I niver thought o’ that; ye’re right.”

Martin laughed heartily as he lay in his hammock and watched his friend’s expression while pondering this weighty subject.

“Moreover,” resumed the hermit, “you will be surprised to hear that diamond and gold finding is not the most profitable employment in this country.

“The man who cultivates the ground is better off than anybody.  It is a fact, a very great fact, a fact that you should get firmly fixed in your memory—­that in less than two years the exports of sugar and coffee amounted to more than the value of all the diamonds found in eighty years.  Yes, that is true.  But the people of Brazil are not well off.  They have everything that is necessary to make a great nation; but we are not a great nation, far from it.”  The hermit sighed deeply as he ceased speaking, and fell into an abstracted frame of mind.

“It’s a great country intirely,” said Barney, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, and placing that much-loved implement carefully in his pocket; “a great country, but there’s a tremendous big screw loose somewhere.”

“It seems curious to me,” said Martin, in a ruminating tone of voice, “that people should not get on better in a country in which there is everything that man can desire to make him rich and happy.  I wonder what it wants; perhaps it’s too hot, and the people want energy of character.”

“Want energy!” shouted the hermit, leaping from his seat, and regarding his guests for a few moments with a stern expression of countenance; then, stretching forth his hand, he continued, in an excited tone:  “Brazil does not want energy; it has only one want,—­it wants the Bible!  When a country is sunk down in superstition and ignorance and moral depravity, so that the people know not right from wrong, there is only one cure for her,—­the Bible.  Religion here is a mockery and a shame; such as, if it were better known, would make the heathen laugh in scorn.  The priests are a curse to the land, not a blessing.  Perhaps they are better in other lands,—­I know not; but well I know they are many of them false and wicked here.  No truth is taught to the people,—­no Bible is read in their ears; religion is not taught,—­even morality is not taught; men follow the devices and desires of their own hearts, and there is no voice