one starts from Belém or Iquitos, from river steamers as safe and
comfortably equipped and setting as good a table as most of those in our
northern waters. Now the alligators and snakes and tigers have been
driven far from the beaten tracks—not too far, though, for the sportsman
who loves the excitement of hunting big game—now the negro slaves have
been freed and the Indians are no longer hostile; now, in many places,
lands have been drained and clearings made in the forests, and waste
marshes and giant trees have made way for pastures and thrifty-looking
plantations, where grain, coffee, sugar, tobacco and cotton, and
pineapples and many other things are cultivated; now the rubber and
cacao and nut gatherers penetrate far into the woods; now small,
isolated communities have grown to be large ones, that send their
produce directly from their own docks to the markets of the world.
There is Manãos, for instance, the capital of the State of Amazonas.
Manãos is situated at the mouth of the Rio Negro, which empties into the
Amazon a thousand miles from the coast. When Lieutenant Herndon was
there in 1851, it was a wretched little town, containing but four
hundred and seventy houses, most of them one story in height, and had a
population of about four thousand—whites, Indians, mixed breeds, and
negro slaves all combined. To-day it is a modern, rapidly growing city,
with a population already numbering fifty thousand, perhaps more,
including many foreigners. There is an imposing stone State House, a
white marble Palace of Justice, and a splendid monument commemorating
the opening of the Amazon to international trade. It has broad, shaded,
well-paved streets, lined with handsome buildings; it has electric
lights, trolley lines, a telephone system, water and harbor works, an
ice plant, banks, hotels, newspapers, up-to-date shops, warehouses and
public markets, a good library and excellent educational institutions,
and is rated among the greater ports of South America because of its
extensive shipments of rubber and other products of the country round
about.
A visit to the beautiful public gardens, where an orchestra plays in the
evenings, and to the Amazonas Theater is well worth while. It is said to
have cost $2,000,000 in gold, that theater—which is not at all
surprising to any one who has seen it, for it is truly superb, a
structure of stone with marble supporting columns, that stands on a
great causeway of masonry occupying a commanding site on the Avenida
Eduardo Ribeiro, the principal thoroughfare and fashionable promenade,
and has a lofty, brightly colored dome that can be seen from the harbor,
and a magnificent foyer adorned with paintings by a famous Italian
artist.
Obydos, too, perched on the bluffs beside an old fortress near the mouth
of the Trombetas, and Santarem, at the mouth of the Tapajos, about
midway between Manãos and the coast, are other progressive cities that
offer opportunities for agreeable breaks in the long journey. As it was
in the Tapajos that gold was first found in the region, Santarem is one
of the oldest if now one of the most up-to-date of the towns. It is
possessed, besides, of a peculiar interest for North Americans because
after our civil war it became the home of quite a number of our
“unreconstructed” Confederates.
But Belém, or Pará as it is more generally called by foreigners (one may
take his choice, since the full corporate name is _Santa Maria de
Nazareth de Belém do Grão Pará_), is by far the largest and most
interesting of them all, for not only has the wealth that has poured
into it in recent years transformed it into a big city of about two
hundred thousand inhabitants, boasting, like Manãos, all the modern
public utilities and conveniences, but it is old and rich in relics
associated with its romantic history, much care has been taken in the
adding of the new to beautify it, its climate is much more delightful
than the others (the mean annual temperature is only 82° F.), and it is
also charmingly clean and picturesque. “Who comes to Pará,” runs a local
proverb, “is glad to stay; who drinks _assai_ goes never away”—though
_assai_ need have no real terrors for that reason. It is nothing more
seductive than a most refreshing beverage made from the fruit of the
_assai_ palm.
Almost at the very threshold of the city, on the approach from the sea,
one encounters some of the wonders in which the region abounds—first the
“_pororoca_,” which is the name originally given by the Indians to the
huge waves that are created by the conflict of the descending waters of
the river with the inrushing current of the Atlantic and follow each
other in series of three or four, with thunderous intonations. For
nearly an hour in the progress through the great estuary the conflict
can be observed. Then the river seems to prevail; its surface grows more
placid, the color changes from the dark hue of the ocean to light green,
and, on beyond, to the tawny yellow of the Amazon. Yet they say the ebb
and flow of the tide is perceptible as far up as Obydos, 700 miles away,
and, when it ebbs, that the tawny yellow can be seen many miles out at
sea. Then, scattered about, here, there, and everywhere on the
twenty-mile-wide bosom of the Pará, as though in the titanic struggle
some larger body had been broken into bits, are hundreds of wooded
islands, moist and radiant in the sunlight, their varied greens in
delightful contrast with the silvery sheen on the waters and the bright
turquoise of the sky.
The city, seen from a distance, with its background of forests and rows
of white-walled, red-roofed houses, separated into clusters by the parks
and tree-lined avenues sloping down to the shores of its own spacious
bay, has the gay, holiday appearance of a summer resort. Only a closer
view dispels the illusion, for its harbor is filled with vessels of
every size and description, from the little _monatrias_, or canoes, of
the Indians, to the great liners of the Brazilian Lloyd. Its compact
business section in the vicinity of the quay, the Custom House and
market and the warehouses of the steamship companies present a
commercial aspect substantial and busy enough to command the respect
even of a Chicagoan or New Yorker. As already stated, more than three
fifths of the rubber supply of the world comes from Brazil, and two of
these three fifths pass this very port, to say nothing of the cacao,
nuts, oils, tobacco, woods, and other things shipped there, or of the
importations.
One of the features of a stay in Belém, by the way—that is, for any one
interested in seeing how the first crude form of an article so familiar
in its finished forms is produced, is a trip to one of the near-by
rubber estates. It has not yet been necessary in this section, if
anywhere in Brazil, to resort to cultivation to any great extent, and so
the huts of the _seringueiros_ (gatherers) are located right in the
woods, where the rubber trees grow promiscuously among the others, and
each _seringueiro_ is allotted as many as he can attend to. The sap,
which resembles milk in color and consistency, is collected in cups
placed under incisions in the bark, then brought into camp in bucketfuls
and reduced by a primitive process of evaporation to the slabs or cakes
forming the raw article of commerce. One does not have to leave Belém
itself, however, to see rubber trees and most of the other species, too,
for there the people have been generous enough to preserve within the
city limits a large tract of primeval forest, which has been cleared of
underbrush and converted into a park, known as the _Bosque Municipal_.
Also there is a wonderful botanical garden and a museum where the rarest
specimens of the vegetation, and animals and the birds and reptiles of
the country are assembled.
And even in the business section there are charming public squares. The
one nearest the quay, named for the Bishop Frei Caetano Brandão, whose
statue is in the center, is particularly interesting because facing it
is a fine old seventeenth-century cathedral of the Portuguese type,
massive and grave, an old marine arsenal now used as a hospital, and an
ancient fortification, called the _Castello_, which has been maintained
because of its historical associations. Then there is the Praca da
Independencia, where the Governor’s Palace is, and a quaint old
blue-walled City Hall, built in colonial times for a Portuguese
minister, the Marquis de Pombal, who dreamed of the permanent transfer
of the seat of the Lusitanian empire to the banks of the Amazon. In the
heart of the city, on its most elevated ground, is the celebrated Largo
da Polvora, now commonly called the Praca da Republica, after a superb
monument it contains—of marble surmounted by figures in bronze, symbolic
of the republic proclaimed when the Emperor Dom Pedro was dethroned in
the bloodless revolution of 1889. It is from this point that the four
principal avenues extend through the city in the cardinal directions.
“The Largo da Polvora,” Arthur Dias pays it the compliment of saying
(though this may, perhaps, be rather too enthusiastic), “shames our
Avenida da Liberdade in Lisbon; if they could place there the Arc de
Triomphe, it would rival the Champs-Elysées.” It may be that for most
its fascination lies not so much in its beauty as in its other
attractions, for it is the great social and amusement center of a
prosperous and pleasure-loving community, the thoroughfare along which
the best of its hotels and clubs and the fashionable cafés and concert
halls are located and many of its finest residences. It adds the lively
mundane touch that is needed to relieve the impressiveness of a region
where all nature is so overpoweringly beautiful. In the midst of the
gardens, which are separated by luxuriantly shaded streets, is the
Theatro da Paz, regarded as one of the best in Latin America, and the
Apollo Circus and Paz Carrousel. Near by is the handsome Paz Hotel, with
its popular café.
In the evenings, when the cool breeze sets in from the ocean, the whole
scene becomes animated. The brilliantly lighted avenues and driveways in
the park are thronged with the carriages and motor cars of the “four
hundred,” the sidewalks with crowds of pleasure-seekers, cosmopolitan
and well dressed. Then the cafés all have out their little zinc tables,
jammed with customers of both sexes (these cafés are not mere drinking
places, most of them, but a sort of peculiar combination of café, candy
store, and ice-cream saloon), dozens of orchestras play, the places of
amusement are in full blast, and music and gayety reign supreme.
II
Because of peculiar economic conditions, the railroads of Brazil, as
originally planned, were not intended, like ours, to facilitate commerce
among the States, but only for the purpose of bringing the products of
the various developed sections of the country to the nearest shipping
points. Thus Recife, the seaport of the State of Pernambuco, is the
focus of one system, São Salvador da Bahia of another, Rio de Janeiro of
a third, Santos, the port of São Paulo, of a fourth, and Porto Alegre,
the chief port of Rio Grande do Sul, of a fifth. Not long ago, when
these conditions began to undergo radical changes, the government
realized the desirability of establishing connections by means of lines
running north and south. The Rio de Janeiran system was extended north
to the growing port of Victoria, in the neighboring State of Espirito
Santo, and connected with the systems of São Paulo and Rio Grande do
Sul, and in 1910 pushed still farther south into Uruguay, so that by the
end of the year it was possible to travel by rail from Victoria to
Montevideo, a distance of more than two thousand miles.
The lines north of Victoria, however, have not yet been connected and
the nearly twenty-five-hundred-mile journey from Belém to Rio,
therefore, must still be made by sea. But, long though the trip is, it
is very far from being a monotonous one, if only the tourist has the
time to make it on a coastwise steamer that stops at the principal ports
of call. São Luiz da Maranhão, “the City of Little Palaces”; Fortaleza,
the port of Ceará, regarded as one of the loveliest in Brazil;
Pernambuco, with its canals and lagoons and bridges, a city that
inspired a famous Brazilian poet to exclaim: “Hail, beautiful land! O
Pernambuco, Venice transported to America, floating on the seas!” and
terraced, crescent-shaped São Salvador, enthroned on the hills beside
its magnificent bay—all these are so interesting that they richly repay
a visit. All are older than the oldest English settlement in the
northern continent, yet, unlike Jamestown, there is not one of them that
has not kept pace with the national progress.
The huge breast of land on which these cities are located, that reaches
out in a direct line toward the western extremity of Africa and lies in
the track of all ships bound by way of the Atlantic to and from the
country south of the equator, is the great sugar, cotton, and tobacco
region, and was the first in Brazil to contain a large European
population. The French coveted and poached on it and were the first to
settle São Luiz in Maranhão; the Dutch seized it in 1630, while Holland
was at war with Spain and Portugal and her possessions had fallen under
Spanish suzerainty, and held it for twenty-five years in spite of all
the Portuguese and Spanish could do, only to be driven out at last by
the persistence and courage of the colonists themselves.
It is doubtful whether anywhere else could be found such a mingling of
the classic, medieval, and modern in architecture, such quaint old
institutions and customs of living in an atmosphere permeated with
up-to-date business methods, such strangely attractive displays of
primitive ornaments and curios as may be seen in their shops side by
side with importations from Paris. In few other places could such
results be studied as have come from the process of racial assimilation
that has been going on for centuries in the mestizo classes—the Indian
by the Caucasian, the African by both; for in Brazil, as in the islands
of the Caribbean, immense numbers of blacks were brought over in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries after the enslavement of the Indians
had been forbidden. Nor could more cordial courtesy be met with anywhere
than that with which one is here treated by all, as a rule, from the
highly cultured, thoroughbred Portuguese to the poorest and most
illiterate mixed-breed or negro laborer—though this is true of nearly
every place in South America.
[Illustration: THE CITY OF BAHIA.]
Of all these cities, though, Pernambuco is perhaps the most interesting.
After Rio, São Paulo, and Bahia, it is the largest and most important in
the country. Its canals and lagoons and handsome bridges, which give it
an attractiveness distinct from the others, are accounted for by the
fact that the city is divided into sections by the channels of the river
at the mouth of which it lies, and a few hundred yards out from the
shore is a long reef, running parallel with it, that forms a natural
breakwater, which encloses the harbor and protects it from the heavy
rollers in time of storm. It is from this reef that the section known as
Recife, the old city proper, derives its name.
Recife is the commercial and shipping section now. There is not much to
commend it to the sightseer except a few fine old churches and the Praca
do Commercio, a place of general resort facing the local Wall Street,
where almost every one who is engaged in business down town is to be
seen taking a breathing spell at some hour or other during the day. Near
by is a large hucksters’ market, which, it must be confessed, serves
better than the hotel _menu_ to disclose the peculiarities of the fare
with which the denizens of the neighborhood regale themselves. And good
fare it is, too, and wonderful to behold—to a northerner unaccustomed to
such luxuriance.
The section in which the government buildings and custom house and the
principal retail stores, theaters, and places of amusement are to be
found is the one called São Antonio, on a large island a little to the
southeast. This part of the town is much better built. Many of the old
houses, as in Recife, are reminiscent, some of the early Portuguese,
others of the Dutch occupation—tall, pointed-roof structures, painted
white or pale blue or pink—but the newer ones, and the streets
generally, are more sightly and characteristic of the indulgent,
easy-going, artistic temperament of the people. The fashionable
residence district is called Boa Vista and lies back on the mainland,
where the bishop has his palace. Most of the houses here are the
charming one-story affairs, surrounded by beautiful gardens, so suited
to life in the tropics.
Three or four miles to the north is a suburban section called Olinda,
where many of the old families still have their homes. In colonial
times, as Dawson tells us, when this part of the country was supplying
Europe with nearly all of the sugar it used and the planters were
rolling in wealth, this “was the largest town in Brazil and the one
where there was the most luxurious living and the most polite society.
Great sums were spent in fêtes, religious processions, fairs, and
dinners. The simple Jesuit Fathers were shocked to see such velvets and
silks, such luxurious beds of crimson damask, such extravagance in the
trappings of the saddle horses. Carriages were unknown and, instead,
litters and sedan chairs were used, and these remained in common use
until very recent times.” Lots of these old houses and customs still
exist, and there are many new features of the town that are worth
seeing.
São Salvador da Bahia, “where the wicked Brazilian cigars come from,”
was the provincial capital once, and the seat of government of the whole
Portuguese empire when the King was forced by Napoleon’s aggressions to
take refuge in Brazil. Formerly, too, it was the headquarters for
diamonds, before the mines in the south and in South Africa were
developed. Now it is the capital of the rich Bay State, and is the third
of the big cities in point of size and importance—though here the
percentage of negro blood is much higher than anywhere else in the
country.
Its location is delightfully picturesque, the upper section built on
bluffs several hundred feet above the level of the bay, the lower along
the shore. In this lower section, behind the docks, are the warehouses
and factories, the arsenal and a great lighthouse, and, aside from
defensive works of modern type, the old fortifications which the Dutch
had made the most formidable in America in colonial times; and on the
upper terraces are the Governor’s palace and public buildings, one of
the best public libraries in the country, the cathedral and convents,
the municipal theater, and the better class of residences and amusement
resorts. In general, the streets are much like those of Belém and
Pernambuco: paved with cobblestones and narrow in the shopping and café
districts, with long white rows of two and three story houses built
closely together, many with balconies above the show windows; and the
parks are as beautiful and the residences out along the wide, palm-lined
driveways are fully as sumptuous.
But, interesting as are all these places, their attractions are fairly
dimmed by Rio’s, and especially by her gorgeous bay. From the Guianas to
its southernmost boundaries, in fact, Brazil is one grand series of
prismatic forests, majestic rivers and cascades, immense rolling plains
and mountains—a panorama that is matchless anywhere in the world—but, if
I were asked to point out some one feature that was preëminent among
them all, I should not hesitate to select that bay. The bay of Naples,
the Golden Horn of Constantinople, all those wonderful aspects by the
mention of which writers have sought to impress those who have not seen
the Rio bay with its grandeur and beauty, can but suffer by the
comparison. “Extravagant language must be used in writing of it,” says
Burton Holmes, “for there all is extravagance—extravagance of color,
extravagance of form.” It is so incomparably sublime, says the Rev.
James C. Fletcher, the author of one of the most noted of the
descriptions—though no pen or brush could possibly do it justice—that
“the first entrance must mark an era in the life of any one. I have seen
the rude and ignorant Russian sailor, the immoral and unreflecting
Australian adventurer, as well as the refined and cultivated European
gentleman, stand silent on the deck, lost in admiration of the gigantic
avenue of mountains and palm-covered isles, which, like the granite
pillars of the Temple of Luxor, form a fitting colonnade to the portal
of the finest bay in the world.”
Entering the outer bay, we see to the left the huge, fantastic figure of
Gavia looming up from the shore, rock-capped and bald, and, a little
beyond, the more symmetrical crests of the Three Brothers. Just
distinguishable, off behind where the city lies, the summit of Corcovado
(the Hunchback) appears. On the right are mound-shaped islands called
the Father and Mother, that protrude from the water like tops of
mountains partially submerged, and, off in the distance, the pinnacles
of the Organ group mount higher than all. In the center, on a point
jutting out from the mainland, is an isolated peak fifteen hundred feet
high, called the Sugar Loaf, that stands like a sentinel guarding the
narrow entrance to the harbor. As we draw nearer, the coloring of the
mountain sides and shores, only a confusion of vague tints before, grows
more and more vivid as the foliage begins to take form, and we see that
on the hills above the rocks at the extremities of the peninsulas that
extend from either side to form the gateway, are white-walled forts.
These are known as São João and Santa Cruz, and, passing through, we are
confronted by still another called Lage, midway between but a little
beyond. It is steel-clad like a man of war, this one, and frowns down
from an island of big rocks, dominating the passage. Once by this, we
are in the harbor itself.
[Illustration: _Copyright, 1911, by W. D. Boyce._
BOTAFOGO BAY, HARBOR OF RIO DE JANEIRO.
Photograph used by courtesy of Mr. W. D. Boyce and the Pan American
Union.]
Just within are shapely arms of the bay, Botafogo on the Rio side and
Jurujuba on the other, that sweep around in wide, graceful curves to two
other and much larger peninsulas opposite, like those of São João and
Santa Cruz; and on one of them, the one to the left, is the old or
commercial district of the national capital, on the other the pretty
little city of Nictheroy, the capital of the State of Rio de Janeiro—for
the city of Rio is the national capital and located in a separate
federal district, like our city of Washington. Above these larger
peninsulas the water broadens to a vast expanse, a sort of inland sea.
Inclosing it like a wall, and on beyond as far as the eye can reach,
stretch the serried peaks of the Coast Range.
Everywhere, bathed in the intense golden sunlight, are the same
gradations of green, the same riot of brilliantly colored flowers, that
we saw on the Amazon—only here the water is not muddy but deep blue, and
the beaches are lined with almost snow-white sand. Then, as we steam
slowly across to the anchorage, which lies over between the Villegagnon
and Cobra islands near the quay, we have the first view of the city,
dense in the center where it covers the peninsula, and stretching along
the shore and here and there back between the foothills, for miles and
miles to the north and south. The roofs of the houses are tiled in reds
and browns; the walls are cream or rose-tinted or else dazzling white.
“It looks like a fragment of fairy-land,” as Curtis expresses it—“a
cluster of alabaster castles decorated with vines.”