deserter who had been convicted of rape, by the name of Miguel Lucena de Boaventura. Because no one knew his origins, and because he lived a straight and honest life, it was not difficult for him to achieve the people's admiration and confidence in a short period of time. One of his claims to fame was the account of his resurrection of a young lady (who probably was just a victim of catalepsy). He was also said to have cured the colonel Francisco de Almeida's wife of a previously uncurable illness. After this event the monk won even more fame and trust by declining the land and significant quantity of gold that the grateful colonel offered him. From this point on, José Maria began to be considered a saint: a man who had come to Earth only to heal the sick and aid the needy. Methodical and organized, he was quite different from the familiar healers. He knew how to read and write and he described in his notebooks the medical properties of the plants found in the region. With the permission of Colonel Almeida, he set up what was known as the "people's pharmacy" at the ranch of one of the foremen, where he stored up medicinal herbs that he used in his daily medical consultations with anyone who wished to visit him, until the late hours of the night. Railroad A foreign company was commissioned to finish the railroad that was to have been begun in 1890 by the engineer João Teixeira Soares. This railroad would connect the cities of São Paulo to Santa Maria, in Rio Grande do Sul state. As Teixeira did not, or could not, take on the project, the responsibility was transferred in 1908 to the Brazil Railway Company, a north-American company owned by Percival Farquhar. Besides the right to finish the project, the company also obtained from the government the right to explore a strip of land 15 km (9.32 mi) wide on each side of the railroad. The Company thus legally seized ownership of the land that it bordered and offered work to local families during the construction of the railroad. At the same time, the concession guaranteed that another associated company of the trust, the Southern Brazil Lumber & Colonization would have the rights to extract lumber and later resell the land. It was estimated that 8000 men had worked for