Visit to the Botanical Garden--Description of the Garden--Dinner
at the Hotel--Third Visit to the City--Impudence of the First
Mate--Village of San Domingo--A Walk in the Country--Attacked
by Dogs--Beautiful Plantations--Civility of a Planter--Elegant
Mansion and Grounds--A Retreat--A Fine Road--Return to the
Ship--Supply of Fruit--The North America--Mr. Kent, our Consul.
_Saturday, May 22._ Our friends, the boatmen, were out betimes, and
took us to the city early in the morning. We had arranged a large party
of ladies and gentlemen to visit the Botanical Garden, of which we had
heard many glowing accounts besides those given me by the young English
gentlemen yesterday. To convey our party we hired three carriages,
each drawn by two mules, and driven by a man who spoke a little, a
very little English, and drove through the streets near the shore of
the bay for a distance of three miles or more, when we turned into the
country and followed a road that wound around the base of several hills
and mountains, one of which I have already spoken of as seen from the
bark. It ran up into a sharp, perpendicular peak, as near as I could
judge about fifteen hundred feet high. And this mountain I am told is
often ascended by tourists, who reach its highest point on horseback.
The scenery through which we passed was truly magnificent, and many of
the houses and gardens were rich and beautiful. We stopped at a hotel
near the garden, whence we walked to the garden accompanied by a very
agreeable young man, a Hungarian, who spoke pretty good English, and
who made himself very useful in giving us the English names of many
of the trees and shrubs. The first object that met our view--and
to me it was one of the greatest attractions of the garden--was two
rows of palm trees planted on the edges of a broad and elevated walk,
passing through the center of the garden. The trunks of these palms
were of a stone gray or ash color, and showed a slight circular ridge
or mark at intervals of three or four inches, where they had been
encircled by the footstalks of leaves, which had fallen off as the
trees increased in height. They were perfectly round, and symmetrical,
and to my inexperienced eye they seemed to have been turned in a lathe,
or chiseled by a sculptor. They rose to the height of thirty or forty
feet, and were crowned with a great tuft of long leaves. The effect on
looking through this long vista of trees was peculiar and striking, and
I could scarcely resist the impression that they were the work of art,
pillars of stone crowned with artificial foliage. Near this walk we saw
several plats of the China tea-plant. I did not learn any thing as to
its productiveness.
We passed rapidly through a great many walks, and saw groves of a
large variety of trees, in all which I felt a peculiar interest,
such as the cinnamon, nutmeg, sage, camphor, bread-fruit, tamarind,
cocoa-nut, orange, lemon and banyan trees, and thickets of bamboo and
swamps of bananas, besides a multitude of beautiful trees, shrubs and
flowers, whose names we did not learn. In the center of the garden, and
dividing the palm-tree walk, which I have described, into two equal
parts, is a fine fountain bordered with and surrounded by a profusion
of rich flowers. A little farther on we found a pretty brook running
over a hard bed of sand and thickly shaded with bananas. It was just
sequestered and wild enough to remind me of home and the many brooks
of pure water, in which I had so often slaked my thirst in my frequent
rambles in the wild woods of Maine. I was glad to find something, if
only a brook, in this world of novelties, that might, perhaps, have its
counterpart in my own country. But more than this, there was a little
grove of cedars, which, we were told, had been imported from the United
States.
I was deeply interested in the bread-fruit tree with its large half
grown fruit, and its great, shining, deep green leaves. It has had a
sort of romantic attraction for me ever since I read of it in early
childhood in the voyages of Captain Cook. The tamarind also is very
attractive, and with its broad spreading branches and brilliant
foliage, is one of the most beautiful trees within the tropics. The
banana is an annual plant, growing to the height of twelve or fifteen
feet, with immensely long leaves from eighteen inches to two feet wide.
It bears an immense cluster of fruit, sometimes several hundreds in
number, each about six inches long. The pulp of the banana is covered
with a thick skin, which is easily detached. I do not know what other
fruit to compare it with. I found it of a very pleasant flavor when
eaten with sugar and wine, as we eat musk-melons, though its flavor is
far inferior to that of the musk-melon.
After satisfying our curiosity with the beauties of the garden, we
returned to the hotel in season for dinner. And as I shall, in all
probability, never partake of another Brazilian dinner, I am tempted
to give a short account of this. The company at the table consisted
solely of our own party, and the young Hungarian. We sat down to a long
table not less than six feet wide, which we found a very inconvenient
width. There were sixteen or seventeen of us. We had a small turkey
roasted with the feet, but without stuffing; neat's tongue fried in
oil or something else that rendered it extremely unpalatable; fried
ham and eggs, strong and unpleasant; fried fish, green peas, utterly
tasteless; potatoes, very small and fried in oil, and lettuce. The food
was placed on the table, and we were left to help ourselves, which
the great width of the table rendered very inconvenient. The carving
of the turkey devolved upon me. The gentlemen watched the operation
with deep interest, and had the mortification of seeing the whole of
it distributed among the ladies. Turkey being out of the question with
them, they turned their attention to the other dishes, of which they
partook with such appetites as might be expected after a six weeks'
voyage at sea. The first and principal course was speedily disposed of.
The table was cleared away, and then came the second course or dessert,
which consisted of two small omelets or tarts, which I thought were
very good; two small loaves of sponge cake, ditto; and bananas, oranges
and walnuts, of all which we left not a vestige.
The dinner passed off very pleasantly, and the bill was settled with
some little trouble, in which we had to call in the assistance of our
friend, the Hungarian, as none of us understood Portuguese, and the
landlord was equally ignorant of English. Each article was charged
separately, and the long list of items and their prices required a
pretty familiar acquaintance with compound addition and with Brazilian
currency, to bring the sum to a satisfactory footing. The excursion
proved to be one of great enjoyment to us, and we returned to the city
and to the ship, highly delighted with the day's adventure.
_May 23._ We had been notified that a missionary from the city would
preach on board our ship to-day, and the ladies and some of the
gentlemen stopped to hear him. But many of us could not resist the
inclination to spend on shore the very short time of our stay at Rio,
and we resolved to take an early start for the city. As we were about
leaving the ship, the first mate, whose name is Atwood, an ignorant,
uncouth sailor, undertook to stop us by a very winning exhortation,
which he wound up by calling us a damned pack of fellows with no more
manners than the heathen. I replied that Mr. Atwood was the last man in
the world to whom I should go to learn good manners, and then went on
board the boat.
We found, as we expected, the stores open in the city, and business
transacted as it is in all Catholic countries on the Sabbath. I went
into several churches, where I found but few worshipers, but they were
continually coming and going, and their individual devotions occupied
but a small portion of time. Some of the passengers found amusement
in a cock fight. Others went to the public garden, where they found
a great concourse of people, that being a place of much resort on
Sundays. As I had resolved to take a walk into the country on the
opposite side of the harbor, I invited two young men, T. Ladd and B.
D. Morrill, to accompany me. We crossed the bay in a steam ferry-boat
to the village of San Domingo This village is built around one of
the indentations, which form a prominent feature in this harbor. The
principal street stretches more than a mile in a circular form around
the bay, and is built upon only one side, the houses all overlooking
the water, which washes a broad beach of fine white sand. Double rows
of trees are planted on the street next the beach, and thickly planted
trees and shrubbery form a deep shade around each dwelling.
We took one of the principal roads, and walked into the country, going
wherever curiosity or fancy directed, a hundred roads diverging to the
right and left as we advanced. We passed many houses and plantations
as we wound around the hills, and we stopped frequently to rest us and
to examine the plants and the gardens, that invited our notice. At one
place we saw a gang of slaves drilling into a quarry on the side of
a hill for the purpose of procuring stone for building. The sun was
beating down upon the rock with great intensity, and none but those
half naked Africans could have endured the heat. Their shining backs
glistened in the sun, like polished ebony. At another place we saw two
slaves chained together, and digging in the earth in that condition.
They had, perhaps, been guilty of insubordination or some other crime
against their lawful masters!
Our first attempt to visit a plantation was unsuccessful. It was a
pretty place, the house was a new and handsome one, the grounds looked
inviting, and the gate was open. We entered, but had proceeded only
a few steps when we were met by two large dogs destitute of hair
but not of teeth, who not only disputed our further progress, but
seemed disposed to take vengeance on us for our intrusion. We were
not inclined to parley with them, but commenced an immediate retreat,
when a slave, who happened to be near, came forward and called off the
dogs. At the same moment the master of the house, a surly looking old
fellow, hearing the uproar, came out from the house, and instead of
inviting us in like a gentleman, as he was in duty bound, only directed
us by signs to another house, where we thought he intended to intimate,
we should meet with a more hospitable reception. And in this he was
right. A large and elegant mansion stood near the road. The gate was
open, and we passed through, though rather hesitatingly. A negro met
us with many smiles, conducted us over the grounds, broke off as many
oranges from the branches of the trees as we wanted to eat and carry
away, permitted me to cut an orange twig for a walking-stick, and
showed us half a dozen very fine cows, which my companions pronounced
fully equal to, and very much resembling, our best cows in Maine. A
few small coins rewarded his civility, and we continued our walk. A
little distance further brought us to a small village. We sat down to
rest us for a few minutes upon some stone steps in front of a store
connected with a handsome dwelling-house. As we were about to continue
our rambles we met a gentleman at the gateway, who saluted us in
English, and invited us to sit in the shade. He talked with us of a
hundred things in a few minutes. He had once resided in Virginia, and
expressed himself in terms of high admiration of the government of
the United States, and of unqualified disgust of the Roman Catholic
religion, which was the bane of Brazil. He invited us to walk over his
grounds, and as we declined eating oranges, he directed a slave to cut
us some stalks of sugar-cane, the juice of which is very refreshing to
a thirsty traveler. He directed our attention to a little naked "nigger
baby," which lay sprawled out upon the ground, and which he said he was
raising with no other motive than that of pure charity, for the animal
would not half repay the cost of rearing it. Thanking him for his
hospitality, we took leave, when he gave us a hearty shake of the hand,
and wished us a successful voyage.
A little further on we saw an elegant mansion situated about half way
up the side of a steep hill, and overlooking a considerable extent
of country. It was a delightful situation, and its owner was the
proprietor of a coffee plantation on the other side of the road and in
front of his house. A number of blacks were at this time occupied in
preparing the coffee for market.
The gateway to the grounds consisted of a square building perhaps
twenty feet high. I opened the gate and went in. A walk leading to the
house wound to the right, through thickets of trees up the acclivity,
in the steepest portions of which were placed flights of broad stone
steps. Another walk diverged to the left, and was soon lost to the
view in groves of oranges, lemons, tamarinds, and other tropical trees.
Many new and beautiful plants were to be seen around the house, and
every thing displayed beauty, elegance, and taste. I looked round for a
few moments, but seeing no one on the grounds, I left the place.
On our return we took another road, and passed many places whose
scenery deeply interested us. At one plantation we met, as usual,
a smiling slave, who conducted us through the walks of a beautiful
garden. Another slave, a female, soon appeared with a long stick
prepared at one end like a fork to break oranges from the branches;
and we were getting along very pleasantly, walking in the shade of
orange, bread-fruit, tamarind, and other trees, many of which we did
not know, when suddenly we saw a large party of blacks, male and
female, in one of the distant walks, and saw a great commotion among
them. My curiosity was excited to see the frolic, which I thought might
have been an African dance or a fandango. But Morrill, who perceived a
strong smell of rum in the breath of our dark cicerone, and thinking
the distant scene bore a greater resemblance to an Irish riot, beat
a precipitate retreat, and I followed, sorry to lose so good an
opportunity for learning something of the amusements of those slaves.
Continuing our walk, we came to the bay, where we found a new road
winding in one place around the base of huge, perpendicular precipices,
from every interstice of which hung a variety of cactuses, vines and
shrubs, while lofty palms threw up their leaf-crowned shafts from the
earth below.
The road we had found was new, hard, perfectly smooth, and was
decidedly the best highway I ever saw. It led direct to the town of
San Domingo, almost a mile distant from the point at which we had
landed, and where we speedily arrived. Recrossing the bay, we purchased
a few necessaries at Rio, and returned to the ship. We found our bark
the scene of much noise and confusion, arising from the drunkenness
of several of the passengers, who had just returned, having spent the
day in drinking on shore. One man had become so outrageously violent
and crazy, that the second mate, who had command of the ship at this
time,--the captain and first mate being both absent,--was obliged to
secure him by tying his hands.
_May 24._ We had laid in many things necessary for our comfort during
the continuance of our voyage, among which were a large lot of oranges,
and some bananas and cocoa-nuts. This morning, just as we were about
to sail, two boats laden with oranges came along-side the ship, and
though we thought we had a pretty good supply of fruit, we bought both
cargoes, amounting to about two thousand. They cost us from forty to
sixty cents a hundred.
The North America left the harbor two days before us. We did not visit
her though she lay at anchor almost within speaking distance of us.
A regulation of the port prohibits the passengers and crews passing
from one ship to another. It may have been a fortunate regulation for
us, for we had many reports of the yellow fever being in the ship.
This disease had raged very fatally in the city, but was beginning to
subside, though we were told it was still rife.
Mr. Kent, our consul at Rio at this time, had removed with his family
into the country, where he found a more salubrious climate than the
city afforded. This was a disappointment to several of the passengers,
who were personally acquainted with him, and had anticipated much
pleasure in meeting him in this distant land. Mr. Kent is said to be
very popular at Rio, and the interest he takes in the oppressed seamen,
and the kindness and humanity he manifests towards them, have done him
much credit.
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