fugitives on the wing at once. They appear to use every exertion to
prolong their flight, but vain are all their efforts, for when the last
drop of water on their wings is dried up their flight is at an end, and
they must drop into the ocean. Some are instantly devoured by their
merciless pursuer, part escape by swimming, and others get out again as
quick as possible, and trust once more to their wings.
It often happens that this unfortunate little creature, after alternate
dips and flights, finding all its exertions of no avail, at last drops
on board the vessel, verifying the old remark:
Incidit in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim.
There, stunned by the fall, it beats the deck with its tail and dies.
When eating it you would take it for a fresh herring. The largest
measure from fourteen to fifteen inches in length. The dolphin, after
pursuing it to the ship, sometimes forfeits his own life.
In days of yore the musician used to play in softest, sweetest strain,
and then take an airing amongst the dolphins: "inter delphinas Arion."
But nowadays our tars have quite capsized the custom, and instead of
riding ashore on the dolphin, they invite the dolphin aboard. While he
is darting and playing around the vessel a sailor goes out to the
spritsail yard-arm, and with a long staff, leaded at one end, and armed
at the other with five barbed spikes, he heaves it at him. If
successful in his aim there is a fresh mess for all hands. The dying
dolphin affords a superb and brilliant sight:
Mille trahit moriens, adverse sole colores.
All the colours of the rainbow pass and repass in rapid succession over
his body, till the dark hand of death closes the scene.
From the Cape de Verd Islands to the coast of Brazil you see several
different kinds of gulls, which, probably, are bred in the Island of
St. Paul. Sometimes the large bird called the frigate pelican soars
majestically over the vessel, and the tropic bird comes near enough to
let you have a fair view of the long feathers in his tail. On the line,
when it is calm, sharks of a tremendous size make their appearance.
They are descried from the ship by means of the dorsal fin, which is
above the water.
On entering the Bay of Pernambuco, the frigate pelican is seen watching
the shoals of fish from a prodigious height. It seldom descends without
a successful attack on its numerous prey below.
As you approach the shore the view is charming. The hills are clothed
with wood, gradually rising towards the interior, none of them of any
considerable height. A singular reef of rocks runs parallel to the
coast and forms the harbour of Pernambuco. The vessels are moored
betwixt it and the town, safe from every storm. You enter the harbour
through a very narrow passage, close by a fort built on the reef. The
hill of Olinda, studded with houses and convents, is on your
right-hand, and an island thickly planted with cocoa-nut trees adds
considerably to the scene on your left. There are two strong forts on
the isthmus betwixt Olinda and Pernambuco, and a pillar midway to aid
the pilot.
Pernambuco probably contains upwards of fifty thousand souls. It stands
on a flat, and is divided into three parts: a peninsula, an island and
the continent. Though within a few degrees of the line, its climate is
remarkably salubrious and rendered almost temperate by the refreshing
sea-breeze. Had art and judgment contributed their portion to its
natural advantages, Pernambuco at this day would have been a stately
ornament to the coast of Brazil. On viewing it, it will strike you that
everyone has built his house entirely for himself, and deprived public
convenience of the little claim she had a right to put in. You would
wish that this city, so famous for its harbour, so happy in its climate
and so well situated for commerce, could have risen under the flag of
Dido, in lieu of that of Braganza.
As you walk down the streets the appearance of the houses is not much
in their favour. Some of them are very high, and some very low; some
newly whitewashed, and others stained and mouldy and neglected, as
though they had no owner.
The balconies, too, are of a dark and gloomy appearance. They are not,
in general, open as in most tropical cities, but grated like a farmer's
dairy-window, though somewhat closer.
There is a lamentable want of cleanliness in the streets. The
impurities from the houses and the accumulation of litter from the
beasts of burden are unpleasant sights to the passing stranger. He
laments the want of a police as he goes along, and when the wind begins
to blow his nose and eyes are too often exposed to a cloud of very
unsavoury dust.
When you view the port of Pernambuco, full of ships of all nations;
when you know that the richest commodities of Europe, Africa and Asia
are brought to it; when you see immense quantities of cotton, dye-wood
and the choicest fruits pouring into the town, you are apt to wonder at
the little attention these people pay to the common comforts which one
always expects to find in a large and opulent city. However, if the
inhabitants are satisfied, there is nothing more to be said. Should
they ever be convinced that inconveniences exist, and that nuisances
are too frequent, the remedy is in their own hands. At present,
certainly, they seem perfectly regardless of them; and the
Captain-General of Pernambuco walks through the streets with as
apparent content and composure as an English statesman would proceed
down Charing Cross. Custom reconciles everything. In a week or two the
stranger himself begins to feel less the things which annoyed him so
much upon his first arrival, and after a few months' residence he
thinks no more about them, while he is partaking of the hospitality and
enjoying the elegance and splendour within doors in this great city.
Close by the river-side stands what is called the palace of the
Captain-General of Pernambuco. Its form and appearance altogether
strike the traveller that it was never intended for the use it is at
present put to.
Reader, throw a veil over thy recollection for a little while, and
forget the cruel, unjust and unmerited censures thou hast heard against
an unoffending order. This palace was once the Jesuits' college, and
originally built by those charitable fathers. Ask the aged and
respectable inhabitants of Pernambuco, and they will tell thee that the
destruction of the Society of Jesus was a terrible disaster to the
public, and its consequences severely felt to the present day.
When Pombal took the reins of power into his own hands, virtue and
learning beamed bright within the college walls. Public catechism to
the children, and religious instruction to all, flowed daily from the
mouths of its venerable priests.
They were loved, revered and respected throughout the whole town. The
illuminating philosophers of the day had sworn to exterminate Christian
knowledge, and the college of Pernambuco was doomed to founder in the
general storm. To the long-lasting sorrow and disgrace of Portugal, the
philosophers blinded her king and flattered her prime minister. Pombal
was exactly the tool these sappers of every public and private virtue
wanted. He had the naked sword of power in his own hand, and his heart
was hard as flint. He struck a mortal blow and the Society of Jesus,
throughout the Portuguese dominions, was no more.
One morning all the fathers of the college in Pernambuco, some of them
very old and feeble, were suddenly ordered into the refectory. They had
notice beforehand of the fatal storm, in pity, from the governor, but
not one of them abandoned his charge. They had done their duty and had
nothing to fear. They bowed with resignation to the will of Heaven. As
soon as they had all reached the refectory they were there locked up,
and never more did they see their rooms, their friends, their scholars,
or acquaintance. In the dead of the following night a strong guard of
soldiers literally drove them through the streets to the water's edge.
They were then conveyed in boats aboard a ship and steered for Bahia.
Those who survived the barbarous treatment they experienced from
Pombal's creatures, were at last ordered to Lisbon. The college of
Pernambuco was plundered, and some time after an elephant was kept
there.
Thus the arbitrary hand of power, in one night, smote and swept away
the sciences: to which succeeded the low vulgar buffoonery of a
showman. Virgil and Cicero made way for a wild beast from Angola! and
now a guard is on duty at the very gate where, in times long past, the
poor were daily fed!
Trust not, kind reader, to the envious remarks which their enemies have
scattered far and near; believe not the stories of those who have had a
hand in the sad tragedy. Go to Brazil, and see with thine own eyes the
effect of Pombal's short-sighted policy. There vice reigns triumphant
and learning is at its lowest ebb. Neither is this to be wondered at.
Destroy the compass, and will the vessel find her far-distant port?
Will the flock keep together, and escape the wolves, after the
shepherds are all slain? The Brazilians were told that public education
would go on just as usual. They might have asked Government, who so
able to instruct our youth as those whose knowledge is proverbial? who
so fit as those who enjoy our entire confidence? who so worthy as those
whose lives are irreproachable?
They soon found that those who succeeded the fathers of the Society of
Jesus had neither their manner nor their abilities. They had not made
the instruction of youth their particular study. Moreover, they entered
on the field after a defeat where the officers had all been slain;
where the plan of the campaign was lost; where all was in sorrow and
dismay. No exertions of theirs could rally the dispersed, or skill
prevent the fatal consequences. At the present day the seminary of
Olinda, in comparison with the former Jesuits' college, is only as the
waning moon's beam to the sun's meridian splendour.
When you visit the places where those learned fathers once flourished,
and see with your own eyes the evils their dissolution has caused; when
you hear the inhabitants telling you how good, how clever, how
charitable they were; what will you think of our poet laureate for
calling them, in his _History of Brazil_, "Missioners whose zeal the
most fanatical was directed by the coolest policy"?
Was it _fanatical_ to renounce the honours and comforts of this
transitory life in order to gain eternal glory in the next, by denying
themselves, and taking up the cross? Was it _fanatical_ to preach
salvation to innumerable wild hordes of Americans? to clothe the naked?
to encourage the repenting sinner? to aid the dying Christian? The
fathers of the Society of Jesus did all this. And for this their zeal
is pronounced to be the most fanatical, directed by the coolest policy.
It will puzzle many a clear brain to comprehend how it is possible, in
the nature of things, that _zeal_ the most _fanatical_ should be
directed by the _coolest policy_. Ah, Mr. Laureate, Mr. Laureate, that
"quidlibet audendi" of yours may now and then gild the poet at the same
time that it makes the historian cut a sorry figure!
Could Father Nobrega rise from the tomb, he would thus address you:
"Ungrateful Englishman, you have drawn a great part of your information
from the writings of the Society of Jesus, and in return you attempt to
stain its character by telling your countrymen that 'we taught the
idolatry we believed'! In speaking of me, you say it was my happy
fortune to be stationed in a country where _none_ but the good
principles of my order were called into action. Ungenerous laureate,
the narrow policy of the times has kept your countrymen in the dark
with regard to the true character of the Society of Jesus; and you draw
the bandage still tighter over their eyes by a malicious insinuation. I
lived and taught and died in Brazil, where you state that _none_ but
the good principles of my order were called into action, and still, in
most absolute contradiction to this, you remark we believed the
_idolatry_ we taught in Brazil. Thus we brought none but good
principles into action, and still taught idolatry!
"Again, you state there is no individual to whose talents Brazil is so
greatly and permanently indebted as mine, and that I must be regarded
as the founder of that system so successfully pursued by the Jesuits in
Paraguay: a system productive of as much good as is compatible with
pious fraud. Thus you make me, at one and the same time, a teacher of
none but good principles, and a teacher of idolatry, and a believer in
idolatry, and still the founder of a system for which Brazil is greatly
and permanently indebted to me, though, by the by, the system was only
productive of as much good as is compatible with pious fraud!
"What means all this? After reading such incomparable nonsense, should
your countrymen wish to be properly informed concerning the Society of
Jesus, there are in England documents enough to show that the system of
the Jesuits was a system of Christian charity towards their
fellow-creatures administered in a manner which human prudence judged
best calculated to ensure success; and that the idolatry which you
uncharitably affirm they taught was really and truly the very same
faith which the Catholic Church taught for centuries in England, which
she still teaches to those who wish to hear her, and which she will
continue to teach, pure and unspotted, till time shall be no more."
The environs of Pernambuco are very pretty. You see country houses in
all directions, and the appearance of here and there a sugar-plantation
enriches the scenery. Palm-trees, cocoanut-trees, orange and lemon
groves, and all the different fruits peculiar to Brazil, are here in
the greatest abundance.
At Olinda there is a national botanical garden: it wants space, produce
and improvement. The forests, which are several leagues off, abound
with birds, beasts, insects and serpents. Besides a brilliant plumage,
many of the birds have a very fine song. The troupiale, noted for its
rich colours, sings delightfully in the environs of Pernambuco. The
red-headed finch, larger than the European sparrow, pours forth a sweet
and varied strain, in company with two species of wrens, a little
before daylight. There are also several species of the thrush, which
have a song somewhat different from that of the European thrush; and
two species of the linnet, whose strain is so soft and sweet that it
dooms them to captivity in the houses. A bird called here
sangre-do-buey, blood of the ox, cannot fail to engage your attention:
he is of the passerine tribe, and very common about the houses; the
wings and tail are black and every other part of the body a flaming
red. In Guiana there is a species exactly the same as this in shape,
note and economy, but differing in colour, its whole body being like
black velvet; on its breast a tinge of red appears through the black.
Thus Nature has ordered this little tangara to put on mourning to the
north of the line and wear scarlet to the south of it.
For three months in the year the environs of Pernambuco are animated
beyond description. From November to March the weather is particularly
fine; then it is that rich and poor, young and old, foreigners and
natives, all issue from the city to enjoy the country till Lent
approaches, when back they hie them. Villages and hamlets, where
nothing before but rags was seen, now shine in all the elegance of
dress; every house, every room, every shed become eligible places for
those whom nothing but extreme necessity could have forced to live
there a few weeks ago: some join in the merry dance, others saunter up
and down the orange groves; and towards evening the roads become a
moving scene of silk and jewels. The gaming-tables have constant
visitors: there thousands are daily and nightly lost and won--parties
even sit down to try their luck round the outside of the door as well
as in the room:
Vestibulum ante ipsum primisque in faucibus aulæ
Luctus et ultrices, posucre sedilia curæ.
About six or seven miles from Pernambuco stands a pretty little village
called Monteiro. The river runs close by it, and its rural beauties
seem to surpass all others in the neighbourhood. There the
Captain-General of Pernambuco resides during this time of merriment and
joy.
The traveller who allots a portion of his time to peep at his
fellow-creatures in their relaxations, and accustoms himself to read
their several little histories in their looks and gestures as he goes
musing on, may have full occupation for an hour or two every day at
this season amid the variegated scenes around the pretty village of
Monteiro. In the evening groups sitting at the door, he may sometimes
see with a sigh how wealth and the prince's favour cause a booby to
pass for a Solon, and be reverenced as such, while perhaps a poor
neglected Camoens stands silent at a distance, awed by the dazzling
glare of wealth and power. Retired from the public road he may see poor
Maria sitting under a palm-tree, with her elbow in her lap and her head
leaning on one side within her hand, weeping over her forbidden bans.
And as he moves on "with wandering step and slow," he may hear a
broken-hearted nymph ask her faithless swain:
How could you say my face was fair,
And yet that face forsake?
How could you win my virgin heart,
Yet leave that heart to break?
One afternoon, in an unfrequented part not far from Monteiro, these
adventures were near being brought to a speedy and a final close: six
or seven blackbirds, with a white spot betwixt the shoulders, were
making a noise and passing to and fro on the lower branches of a tree
in an abandoned, weed-grown orange-orchard. In the long grass
underneath the tree apparently a pale green grasshopper was fluttering,
as though it had got entangled in it. When you once fancy that the
thing you are looking at is really what you take it for, the more you
look at it the more you are convinced it is so. In the present case
this was a grasshopper beyond all doubt, and nothing more remained to
be done but to wait in patience till it had settled, in order that you
might run no risk of breaking its legs in attempting to lay hold of it
while it was fluttering--it still kept fluttering; and having quietly
approached it, intending to make sure of it --behold, the head of a
large rattlesnake appeared in the grass close by: an instantaneous
spring backwards prevented fatal consequences. What had been taken for
a grasshopper was, in fact, the elevated rattle of the snake in the act
of announcing that he was quite prepared, though unwilling, to make a
sure and deadly spring. He shortly after passed slowly from under the
orange-tree to the neighbouring wood on the side of a hill: as he moved
over a place bare of grass and weeds he appeared to be about eight feet
long; it was he who had engaged the attention of the birds and made
them heedless of danger from another quarter: they flew away on his
retiring--one alone left his little life in the air, destined to become
a specimen, mute and motionless, for the inspection of the curious in a
far distant clime.
It was now the rainy season. The birds were moulting--fifty-eight
specimens of the handsomest of them in the neighbourhood of Pernambuco
had been collected; and it was time to proceed elsewhere. The
conveyance to the interior was by horses, and this mode, together with
the heavy rains, would expose preserved specimens to almost certain
damage. The journey to Maranham by land would take at least forty days.
The route was not wild enough to engage the attention of an explorer,
or civilised enough to afford common comforts to a traveller. By sea
there were no opportunities, except slave-ships. As the transporting
poor negroes from port to port for sale pays well in Brazil, the ships'
decks are crowded with them. This would not do.
Excuse here, benevolent reader, a small tribute of gratitude to an
Irish family whose urbanity and goodness have long gained it the esteem
and respect of all ranks in Pernambuco. The kindness and attention I
received from Dennis Kearney, Esq., and his amiable lady will be
remembered with gratitude to my dying day.
After wishing farewell to this hospitable family, I embarked on board a
Portuguese brig, with poor accommodations, for Cayenne in Guiana. The
most eligible bedroom was the top of a hen-coop on deck. Even here an
unsavoury little beast, called bug, was neither shy nor deficient in
appetite.
The Portuguese seamen are famed for catching fish. One evening, under
the line, four sharks made their appearance in the wake of the vessel.
The sailors caught them all.
On the fourteenth day after leaving Pernambuco, the brig cast anchor
off the Island of Cayenne. The entrance is beautiful. To windward, not
far off, there are two bold wooded islands called the Father and
Mother, and near them are others, their children, smaller, though as
beautiful as their parents. Another is seen a long way to leeward of
the family, and seems as if it had strayed from home and cannot find
its way back. The French call it "l'enfant perdu." As you pass the
islands the stately hills on the main, ornamented with ever-verdant
foliage, show you that this is by far the sublimest scenery on the
sea-coast from the Amazons to the Oroonoque. On casting your eye
towards Dutch Guiana you will see that the mountains become unconnected
and few in number, and long before you reach Surinam the Atlantic wave
washes a flat and muddy shore.
Considerably to windward of Cayenne, and about twelve leagues from
land, stands a stately and towering rock called the Constable. As
nothing grows on it to tempt greedy and aspiring man to claim it as his
own, the sea-fowl rest and raise their offspring there. The bird called
the frigate is ever soaring round its rugged summit. Hither the phaeton
bends his rapid flight, and flocks of rosy flamingos here defy the
fowler's cunning. All along the coast, opposite the Constable, and
indeed on every uncultivated part of it to windward and leeward, are
seen innumerable quantities of snow-white egrets, scarlet curlews,
spoonbills and flamingos.
Cayenne is capable of being a noble and productive colony. At present
it is thought to be the poorest on the coast of Guiana. Its estates are
too much separated one from the other by immense tracts of forest; and
the revolutionary war, like a cold eastern wind, has chilled their zeal
and blasted their best expectations.
The clove-tree, the cinnamon, pepper and nutmeg, and many other choice
spices and fruits of the Eastern and Asiatic regions, produce
abundantly in Cayenne.
The town itself is prettily laid out, and was once well fortified. They
tell you it might easily have been defended against the invading force
of the two united nations; but Victor Hugues, its governor, ordered the
tri-coloured flag to be struck; and ever since that day the standard of
Braganza has waved on the ramparts of Cayenne.
He who has received humiliations from the hand of this haughty,
iron-hearted governor may see him now, in Cayenne, stripped of all his
revolutionary honours, broken down and ruined, and under arrest in his
own house. He has four accomplished daughters, respected by the whole
town. Towards the close of day, when the sun's rays are no longer
oppressive, these much-pitied ladies are seen walking up and down the
balcony with their aged parent, trying, by their kind and filial
attention, to remove the settled gloom from his too guilty brow.