CHAPTER I.

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[Illustration: DON PEDRO II. EMPERADOR DEL BRASIL.]

BRAZIL,

THE RIVER PLATE,

AND THE

FALKLAND ISLANDS;

WITH THE CAPE HORN ROUTE TO AUSTRALIA.

INCLUDING NOTICES OF

LISBON, MADEIRA, THE CANARIES, AND CAPE VERDS.

BY

WILLIAM HADFIELD,

MANY YEARS RESIDENT IN BRAZIL, AND SECRETARY TO THE SOUTH

AMERICAN AND GENERAL STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY.

ILLUSTRATED, BY PERMISSION, FROM THE SOUTH AMERICAN SKETCHES OF

SIR W. GORE OUSELEY, K.C.B.,

LATE HER MAJESTY’S MINISTER PLENIPOTENTIARY TO THE STATES OF LA

PLATA, AND FORMERLY CHARGE D’AFFAIRES AT THE COURT OF BRAZIL.

AND, BY PERMISSION, FROM THE DRAWINGS OF

SIR CHARLES HOTHAM, K.C.B.,

DURING HIS RECENT

MISSION TO PARAGUAY,

OF WHICH COUNTRY MUCH NEW INFORMATION IS SUPPLIED; AS ALSO OF

THE REGION OF THE AMAZON.

PORTRAITS, MAPS, CHARTS, AND PLANS.

LONDON:

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS.

1854.

LONDON:

JOHN CASSELL, PRINTER,

LUDGATE-HILL.

CONTENTS.

Transcriber’s Note: In the original printing, some of the illustrations

were not listed in the table of contents. They have been added here.

PAGE

EXPLANATORY PREFACE.

_Steam requirements of Anglo South American commerce anterior

to 1850. How supplied then. Inadequacy of means to the general

end, and to Lancastrian ends in particular. Subsequent supply.

Liverpool still left out. Chartered liberty to help itself,

and the consequence thereof. Paddle pioneer of the ocean

fleet to the Plate. Dates and distances in a new line. What

may be done by putting on the screw for three months. Fifteen

thousand miles of steaming, with the Author’s notes thereon,

and suggestions for the same being continued by other people.

Epilogue apologetic._ 1

INTRODUCTION.

_Cursory retrospect of South American discoveries. Their

difficulties then, how to be estimated at present. Their

interest to this age as compared with that of ancient

conquests. Cruelties of the early invaders. Retributive

visitations. Columbus and his cotemporaries. Cortez and the

conquest of Mexico. Subsequent position of the country.

Santa Anna, his antecedents and prospects. Pizarro in Peru,

and his Lieutenant, Almagro, in Chili. Condition of those

republics since and now: their past gold and present guano.

Modern commanders in those countries. Predominance of the

Irish element in the fray. The O’Learys and O’Higginses in

the Andes. San Martin and his aid-de-camp, O’Brien, and his

auxiliary, M’Cabe. The Portuguese discoverers. Magellan and

his Straits, and Peacock’s steaming to the Pacific three

hundred years afterwards. Cabral and Brazil. De Gama and

the Cape, and Camoens’ celebration of the achievement.

Enrichment of the Iberian Peninsula from these causes.

Subsequent impoverishment of mother countries and colonies.

Exceptional position of Brazil in this respect, and reason

thereof. Different results in North America, and why.

Imperfect knowledge in Europe of South America. Works thereon.

Characteristics of the several authorities: Prescott, Southey,

Koster, Gardner, Humboldt, Dr. Dundas, Woodbine Parish,

M’Cann, Edwards, Maury, and others. Want of information still

on Paraguay and the region of the Amazon. Object of this

volume to supply that void. Aim of the Author not political,

but commercial._ 8

CHAP. I.—LIVERPOOL TO LISBON.

Illustrations—The Argentina on her maiden voyage. Belem

Castle, mouth of the Tagus. Praça do Commercio, Lisbon.

Cintra, near Lisbon. Palace of Adjuda.

_The Argentina on her maiden voyage. Capacity and capability

of the river boat at sea. From the Mersey to the Tagus in four

days. Lord Carnarvon on Mafra and its marble halls. Aspect

and Attributes of the Lusitanian Capital and its Vicinage.

Portuguese Millers and the grinding process among the grain

growers. Native memorabilia of the earthquake, and Anglo

reminiscence thereof. The hic jacet of Tom Jones, and eke

of Roderick Random. Portuguese peculiarities. Personal and

political economy. Fiscal fatuities. Market-place notabilia.

Lisbon society. Clubs and Cookery. Tea and turn-out. Friars,

females, and fashions. Lusitanian fidalgos, or Portuguese

peers in parliament. Portugal the Paradise of protectionists

and poverty. Free Trade the only corrective of such

calamities. Court circulars, Conventions, and Commanders. Few

books about Portugal, and necessity for more. Hints from the

newest, including the Oliveira prize essay. Diplomatic and

consular memoranda._ 35

CHAP. II.—LISBON TO MADEIRA.

Illustration—The Laurel Tree.

_Two more days’ pleasant paddling on the ocean. Approach to

Madeira. Charming aspect of the island. Unique boats and

benevolent boatmen. Pastoral progression in bucolic barouches

extraordinary. Personal appearance of the inhabitants.

Atmospheric attractions of Madeira, and absence of all natural

annoyances. The vine-blight and its consequences, present

and prospective, on the people at home and the consumption

of their wine abroad. Funchal, and its urban and suburban et

ceteras. Romance and reality of the history of the island.

‘Once Upon a Time.’ Importance of English residents to the

place. Cost of living, and what you get for your money. Royal

and illustrious visitors. Mercantile matters, and consular

cordiality. Grave reflections in the British burial-ground._ 65

CHAP. III.—MADEIRA TO CAPE VERDS.

Illustration—Interior of Hotel, Teneriffe.

_Oceanic sailing again. Halcyon weather, and modern steaming

to the _Fortunatæ Insulæ_ of the ancients. A stare on the

saffron-coloured singing birds. Touching Teneriffe, and

Miltonic parallel to the Arch-Enemy. Approach to Porto

Grande, and what we found there, especially its extensive

accommodation for steamers. Deficiency of water the one

drawback. Something concerning Ethiopic Serenaders under

the line. Promethean promontory extraordinary. A memento of

mortality midway in the world. Portuguese rewards honourably

earned by an Englishman. Utility of Consuls in such places.

First acquaintance with an earthquake. Verd grapes soured by a

paternal government. Interchange of news between the Outward

and the Homeward bound. A good propelling turn towards a

brother of the screw._ 74

CHAP. IV.—CAPE ST. VINCENT TO PERNAMBUCO.

_Progress from Porto Grande to Pernambuco. Steam triumphs

against trade wind. Further superiority of screw over

sail. The Argentina in a south-wester. Apropos of malaria,

and something sanitary about Brazil. The yellow fever:

whence comes it, and what has become of it. Quarrels about

quarantine. Brazil in advance of the old country in these

matters_ 82

CHAP. V.—EMPIRE OF BRAZIL.

Illustration—Entrance to Pernambuco Harbour.

_Rather prefatory and not very particular, though somewhat

personal. Books on Brazil should be in the _Mediam Viam_ for

the present route, avoiding the Scylla of extreme succinctness

and the Charybdis of needless diffuseness. Object of the

author to attain the golden medium. With what success, gentle

reader, say? Discovery of the country by the Portuguese.

Their subsequent disputes with, and final expulsion of, the

Dutch. Extent and population; variety of soil and produce.

Difficulty of communication between the provinces and the

capital, in consequence of the extreme distance and imperfect

means of travelling. Extraordinary instance of the round-about

nature of news circulating in Brazil some time ago. Steam

corrective of such sluggishness. A glance at the Brazilian

littoral, beginning with the Amazon, and ending with Rio

Grande do Sul. Pará and its productions. Rio Negro, and its

recent political elevation. Maranham and its mercantile

importance. Laird’s steam leveller, on the singular stream of

the Itapecuru. Justice for England by Maranham magistrates.

Piauhy and its products; also Ceara, Rio Grande do Norte, and

Paraiba. Pernambuco revisited by the writer, and welcomed with

a rythmetical sentimental something concerning ‘Long, long ago!’_ 88

CHAP. VI.—PERNAMBUCO.

Illustrations—Pernambuco. Chora Meninas. De Mornay’s Patent

Cane Mill.

_‘That strain again!’ ‘It hath a dying fall.’ ‘Auld Lang

Syne, or ’tis thirty years ago.’ Aspect of Pernambuco from

the sea. Tripartite division of the city, Recife, St.

Antonio, and Boa Vista. Note on the old town of Olinda and

its new namesake, the steamer No. 2 of this A 1 line. March

of improvement by land and sea, in respect to ships and

city. Such Brazilian progress a lesson for West Indians.

Frugality and personal activity on the one hand, prodigality

and vicarial mismanagement on the other, being the real

difference between the position of the planters in either

place. Sugar-manufacturing improvements. De Mornay’s patent

cane-crushing mill, and its merits. Exports of Pernambuco

to United States. Peculiarities of the soil, population,

and produce. Hygienic hints to the consumptive and the

yellow-feverish. Initiation of the railway era, by the De

Mornays, in Pernambuco, and the immense importance of the

proposed line. Mr. Borthwick’s report on the project, and the

writer’s anticipation of its success._ 100

CHAP. VII.—ALAGOAS AND SEREGIPE.

_Area, products, and population of Alagoas. Maceio, the

principal seaport. Rivers navigable only by boats, except

the San Francisco. Primitive condition of the province

of Seregipe, and prospects of rapid improvement through

railways._ 117

CHAP. VIII.—BAHIA.

Illustrations—Entrance to the port of Bahia. Chapel of San

Gonçalo, Bahia.

_Bahia, its old name retained in a new place: the province

and the city; present condition and splendid prospects of

both. Intra-mural peculiarities and extra-mural properties.

Prolific sugar produce. Historic, artistic, and archæological

attractions of Bahia. Souvenirs of the Jesuits. Relics of St.

Ignatius Loyola and St. Francis Xavier. A Bahian church built

in Europe. British Bahian clergyman and local railways. Health

of the city. A Brazilian poet warbling native wood-notes very

wild. Necessity for keeping a nautical eye in fine frenzy

rolling towards the Abrolhos. Departure from Bahia, and

approach to the Brazilian capital. Notes._ 120

CHAP IX.—RIO JANEIRO.

Illustrations—Entrance to the Harbour. Organ Mountains and

Sugar-loaf Rock. Aqueduct and Convent of St. Teresa. Convent

of Nossa Senora da Penha. Falls of Itamarity.

_Night, upon the waters, and daybreak on the land. Beauty

of the approaches. Apprehended retrogression, but real

progression, in the city. The stag mania in the tropics,

and some of its consequences. Notes on carriages, operas,

snuff-taking, polking washerwomen, blacks, whites, odds

and ends, and things in general, original and imported.

Social, sanitary, and governmental matters of divers kinds.

Composition of the Brazilian Chambers, and business therein.

State of parties. Abolition of the slave trade. Sittings of

the senate. No necessity for Mr. Brotherton in the Brazils.

Character of the present Emperor. Wreck of the Pernambucano.

Heroism of a black sailor. Rigorous regulations of the Rio

custom-house. Suggestions for the extension of Brazilian

commerce, and the prevention of smuggling. Revisal of the

Brazilian tariff. Educational progress since 1808. French

literature and fashion. Provisions in the Rio market. Monkeys

and lizards articles of food. Oranges, bananas, chirimoyas,

and granadillas. Difficulties of the labour question since

the suppression of the slave-trade. Character of the Indians.

State of feeling as regards the coloured people. Negro

emancipation ‘looming in the future.’ An experimental trip on

the Rio and Petropolis railway._ 136

MEMOIR OF ADMIRAL GRENFELL.

Illustration—Portrait of Admiral Grenfell. 185

CHAP. X.—THE AMAZON.

_Sources of the Marañon. Rapids and cataracts. Embouchures

of the Amazon. Its volume, compared with the Ganges and the

Brahmapootra. Its discovery by Pinzon. Expedition of Orellana.

Gold-seeking expedition of Pedro de Orsua. Settlement of Pará,

and discovery of the Rio Negro. The missions of the Jesuits,

and their expulsion. Discovery of the communication between

the Amazon and the Orinoco. Revolution of 1835. Pará: its

streets and public buildings. Explorations of M. Castelnau

and Lieutenant Herndon. Tributaries and settlements of the

Tocantins. Lieutenant Gibbon’s exploration of the Madera.

His interview with General Belzu. What is wanted to turn the

stream of tropical South American commerce eastward. Herndon’s

descent of the Huallaga. Tarapoto, and its future prospects.

Chasuta: its trade with Lima and Pará. Yurimaguas, and the

Cachiyacu. Steamboat communication between Nauta and Pará.

Progress of a piece of cotton from Liverpool to Sarayacu.

Estimated cost and profit of steam vessels on the Amazon.

Trade of Egas. The new province of Amazonas. Exports of Barra.

The Rio Negro and its tributaries. Communication by the

Cassiquiari between the Amazon and the Orinoco. Productions of

Amazonas. Santarem. The Tapajos, and its tributaries. Rapids

of the Parú and the Xingù. Climate and products of Pará.

Benefits to be expected from the opening of the Amazon and

European immigration._ 193

DR. DUNDAS ON BRAZIL: ITS CLIMATE AND PEOPLE.

_Salubrity of the Climate. Causes of, proofs of, objections

to. Northern, southern, and central provinces. Equability

of temperature. Heat, humidity, rain, winds, electricity,

hail, ice. Tropical heat and light. Influence on Europeans.

Acclimatization. Increase of certain diseases. Yellow fever;

its probable disappearance. Physical, social, moral, and

religious condition of the people. Prophylactic measures._ 214

CHAP. XI. MONTE VIDEO.

Illustrations—Portrait of Sir W. G. Ouseley, K.C.B. View of

Monte Video. The Lasso. The Stray Cow. Milk at a rial a glass.

_First impressions of the Uruguayan capital unfavourable. The

New Custom House. An instance of enterprise without prudence.

Commercial advantages of Monte Video. Prosperity obtained at

the expense of Buenos Ayres. Revisal of the Buenos Ayrean

tariff. Alluvial deposits of the Rio Plata. Gas from mares’

grease. Traces of a siege. Unprofitable ploughing by Oribe’s

projectiles. Condition of the Streets. The horses of La Plata,

and the Lasso. Commerce of London with Monte Video and Buenos

Ayres. Mules for the Australian gold diggings. Diminution of

the Customs. Bitter fruits of British and French intervention.

Sir William Gore Ouseley and the British Loan. The

market-place. Italian boatmen. Encouragement to foreigners.

Aspect of the environs. The latest revolution. Sketch of the

history of Monte Video._ 229

CHAP. XII.—BUENOS AYRES.

Illustrations—Going to mass. View from the terrace of the

quinta. Quinta, or country house. View of Buenos Ayres.

Sweetmeat-seller. Palermo. Negro laundresses at Buenos Ayres.

La Plaza Victoria. Apothecary’s shop. View on the river.

Going to the ball. May-day in Buenos Ayres.

_Departure from Monte Video. Streets and buildings of the

Argentine capital. The climate and the people. Prohibition of

the slave trade. Characters of the dictator and his successor,

Urquiza. Argentine Confederation. Foreign intervention and

capture of Rosas’ feet. Capitulation of General Oribe, and

fall of Rosas. Fluvial obstructions to trade and navigation.

English residents. Railway projects. South American debate.

Foreign shopkeepers and Irish servants. General Paz._ 260

MEMORANDA ON ROSAS, URQUIZA, AND THE PAMPAS.

Illustration—Portraits of Generals Rosas and Urquiza. 290

CHAP. XIII.—UP THE PARANA.

Illustrations—San Nicolas. Corrientes. Rosario. Travelling

Waggons.

_Preparations for an experimental trip up the Parana. Captain

Sullivan’s descent of the river at a terrific pace. Island

of Martin Garcia. Note on the confluents of the Rio Plata.

A Scotch experimental philosopher in Corrientes. Alluvial

deposits at the delta of the Parana. Signs of progress in the

interior. An American pioneer of civilization. The steamer

aground, and fired upon. Moonlight on the river and the woods.

Geographical note on the Parana and the Plata. Obligado and

San Nicolas. Mr. Mackinnon’s description of the scenery.

Arrival at Rosario. Multifarious applications of hides and

horns. Descent of the river, and arrival at Martin Garcia.

Corrientes and the guachos. Difficulties of the navigation,

and a word about the Uruguay._ 305

CHAP. XIV.—PARAGUAY.

Illustrations—Portrait of Sir Charles Hotham, K.C.B. View near

Assumption. View of Assumption. Portrait of General Lopez.

Church of the Recoleta.

_Sources of information. General Pacheco. Inaccuracies of Sir

Woodbine Parish. Navigability of the Parana by large vessels.

Decrees of the government of Paraguay on the treatment of

foreigners. Decrees relative to inventions and improvements.

Mr. Drabble’s commercial mission, and its results. Cultivation

of cotton. Drawbacks to its extension. Scarcity of labour.

Provisions of the treaty between Great Britain and Paraguay.

The commercial resources of that country little known in this.

Navigability of the Paraguay and the Uruguay. Obligation

of the Brazilian and Buenos Ayrean governments to remove

impediments. Population of Paraguay. Public works undertaken

by the Consular Government. Salubrity of the climate.

Fertility of the soil. Pasturage illimitable. Character of

the Paraguayans. President Lopez. Diplomatic mission of Sir

Charles Hotham. General Lopez. State of the country at the

death of Francia. First measures of the Consular Government.

Revenue of Paraguay. Administration of justice. Revision of

the tariff. Release of political prisoners at the termination

of Francia’s Reign of Terror. Anticipations of intercourse

with Europe._ 328

MEMOIR OF SIR CHARLES HOTHAM, K.C.B.

CHAP. XV.—HOMEWARD BOUND.

Illustration—The Brazileira on her homeward voyage.

_Departure from Buenos Ayres. Arrival at Monte Video. Guano

deposits of Patagonia. Bahia Blanca. Eligibility of the

district for an overland route to Chili. Chilian grant for

direct steam communication with England. Accessions to steam

navigation on the Brazilian coast. Opening of the Amazon.

Departure from Monte Video. Rough wind and heavy sea. Aspect

of Raza under various lights and shades. Hotel accommodation

of Rio Janeiro. A wet day at Bahia. Consular memoranda on

Venezuela, Bolivia, and Equador. Arrival at Pernambuco.

Meeting with the Olinda. Arrival at Porto Grande. Seven days’

steaming against the wind. Madeira in the distance. Arrival

at Belem. Miseries and absurdities of the quarantine system.

Towing the pilot astern. Passage up St. George’s Channel.

Arrival in the Mersey. Loss of the Olinda and the Argentina.

New ocean and river steamers._ 359

THE FALKLAND ISLANDS.

_Advantages presented as a convict settlement, as place of

re-fit for merchantmen, and a naval depôt. The Corporation of

the Falkland Islands’ Company. Healthiness of the climate.

The abundance of fresh water. Cost of transport less than

that to other colonies. Geographical position and extent.

Distance from the Main. The small naval force required.

Causes of insecurity at other settlements not found here.

Their detachment a provision against escape. Guard less

required here than elsewhere. The cheapness of provisions:

how supplied. Employment. The gradual supply of convicts not

requisite. How first comers may be disposed of. Smallness

of preliminary outlay, and its speedy return. Opinions of

various servants of the Crown. Two propositions. The riddance

of convicts. Relief to the mother country. Redemption of

the pledge made to convicts. Facilities for reformation.

Restoration of the penitent to society without risk to the

innocent. Agricultural school for juvenile convicts. Complete

depôt for naval re-fit near Cape Horn. Saving of port charges

and of freight. Easy performance of ships’ repairs, if

patent slip laid down. Secure coaling station for steamers.

First-rate naval station: ‘key of the Pacific’ in time of war.

Testimony of Governor Rennie and Captain Matthews of the Great

Britain._ 376

EXPLANATORY PREFACE.

Steam Requirements of Anglo South American commerce anterior

to 1850.—How supplied then.—Inadequacy of Means to the General

End, and to Lancastrian Ends in particular.—Subsequent

Supply.—Liverpool still left out.—Chartered Liberty to help

itself, and the consequences thereof.—Paddle Pioneer of

the Ocean Fleet to the Plate.—Dates and Distances in a new

Line.—What may be done by putting on the Screw for Three

Months.—Fifteen Thousand Miles of Steaming, with the Author’s

Notes thereon, and Suggestions for the same being continued by

other people.—Epilogue apologetic.

Until 1850, the Eastern coast of South America, including the extensive

and flourishing empire of Brazil, and the boundless regions watered

by the La Plata and its tributaries, were entirely without European

steam navigation. The old process of sailing-ships, and a monthly

sailing-packet from Falmouth, conveying mails, were the only medium of

communication. In that year, the Royal Mail Company entered upon the

service they had undertaken with government, to run a monthly steamer

from Southampton to Rio Janeiro, and a branch steamer to the River

Plate. The vessels placed on the station were drafted from their West

India fleet; and, although not possessed of extraordinary steaming or

sailing qualities, they performed the voyage with regularity, and in a

space of time which reduced to one half that ordinarily occupied by the

sailing-craft. The consequence was an augmentation of traffic, both of

goods and passengers, such as few persons contemplated, and the line

proved speedily unequal to the task of dealing with either to the extent

required. Moreover, it was found that one very important feature in the

case, a direct traffic with the River Plate, was quite unprovided for,

and no provision whatever made by which goods and merchandize could

be forwarded thither, the branch steamer from Rio Janeiro only taking

passengers. But, even had mercantile necessities in this direction been

supplied, there was a strong feeling that Liverpool, as the emporium

of British trade with South America, ought to possess a steam-line of

its own, and that goods and passengers should not be compelled to find

their way to Southampton. The great manufacturing districts which have

Liverpool for their seaport supply at least seven-eighths of the entire

trade to South America,[1] and it seemed an anomaly that no direct steam

communication should exist between them. Accordingly, in 1851, parties

connected with the district, having organized a company, went before

the Board of Trade for a royal charter, alleging, as a reason for such

concession, the importance of our interests in the quarter named, the

necessity of more frequent intercourse since steam had been established,

and that once a month was not sufficient for wants so extensive and

pressing. These arguments, backed, as they were, by memorials from

Liverpool, Manchester, and other places, had weight with Her Majesty’s

Government, and a charter of incorporation was obtained. The directors

immediately proceeded to contract for the building of suitable steamers;

but delay, caused by unusual pressure of work, somewhat retarded intended

operations.[2]

On the 27th of August, 1853, the company’s first, or pioneer, steamer

intended for the River Plate station, sailed from Liverpool, and was

followed on the 24th of September by the ocean steamer, Brazileira,

Captain Daniel Green, who had long commanded clipper vessels in the

Brazil trade. As secretary to the company, and possessing a local

knowledge of Brazil, it was thought desirable that the author should

proceed in the Argentina, for the purpose of seeing that proper

arrangements were made at the ports of call for their vessels, and to

obtain from foreign governments the facilities and assistance requisite

to carry on a steam company of this magnitude with any success. The

voyage was accomplished in a little more than three months, the writer

having returned to Liverpool, by the Brazileira, on the 5th of November,

during which time he had gone over nearly 15,000 miles of distance

(including a trip up the Parana), spent a fortnight at Rio Janeiro, and

three weeks in the River Plate, besides calling at all the stations

both ways, namely, outwards—Lisbon, Madeira, St. Vincent, Pernambuco,

and Bahia; and, homewards—Bahia, Pernambuco, St. Vincent, and Lisbon,

which latter is to be the track of the regular ocean line, subject to

modifications, &c.

Thus, it will be seen, from this brief recapitulation of dates and

distances, that in the space of two months a merchant can visit his

Brazil establishment, and another, under three months, can look after

his River Plate affairs, often saving himself much anxiety and loss

of time. The manufacturer can, without great trouble, make himself

practically acquainted with the markets he wishes to trade to; the

botanist and naturalist can quickly be transported to the virgin

ground of Paraguay, or, now that the Brazilian government have placed

contract steamers on the greatest of all great rivers, may ascend the

Amazon, with like certainty of reward as novel and varied, and depend

on a prompt return of his newly acquired specimens. Whilst, which is

equally important, the natives of those countries have an opportunity

of visiting Europe, and forming, by personal contact, those relations of

amity and good will which tend so much to soften prejudices, and bring

about a right understanding on all points mutually advantageous. Hence

the ramifications of such enterprises as steam are most interesting in

their results to mankind; and, if once the tide of emigration begins to

set in fairly towards that immense agricultural field watered by the

rivers of South America, there is no foreseeing the extension of wealth

and prosperity that must assuredly follow; for population is the sole

requirement to fit these limitless and teeming regions to work out the

destiny which it is impossible to doubt that Providence, in the fulness

of time, has designed for that portion of the earth, where the majesty

and the luxuriance of nature invite the presence of man through highways

at once the mightiest and most facile in the world.

A desire to place these objects forcibly before the public is the origin

of this work. Though conscious of its imperfections and short-comings,

the writer would guard against the imputation of impertinence in offering

it as the result merely of the experience derived from the rapid run out

and home indicated in the remarks just preceding. He is no book-maker;

though he ventures to hope that his book will, in some degree, fill a

vacuum left by certain recent accomplished professors of that branch

of the fine arts in this department of travellers’ information for

the untravelled public. The several topics discussed in the ensuing

pages have been the subject-matter of his earnest consideration for

many years. Long resident in South America, and familiar with its

commercial necessities, his attention had naturally been directed to

all the mercantile points embraced in the old circle of communication

with Europe; while the circumstances of his position, in connection

with a new enterprise, enabled him to contemplate matters in a somewhat

novel light; and he was peculiarly fortunate in deriving his knowledge

of the recent interesting diplomatic and commercial incidents in the

Upper Parana and the Paraguay on the spot, and from the most competent

sources. Assiduously availing of these and all others of a like kind

whenever they presented themselves,—which was not unfrequently—he

has, wherever practicable, rendered the expression of his own remarks

subordinate to the main design of bringing together whatever data should

serve to make his volume useful as an exposition, at one view, of the

present condition, primarily, of the East Coast and the Amazon and

Platine interior, and, incidentally, of South America generally—an object

embraced in no other single publication of this class. He is well aware

that a complete embodiment of such a design would tax powers far higher

and opportunities more varied than his. But he will be content, if, in

succeeding a little, he should be the means of stimulating others to

achieve a great deal more in a like direction.

Though necessarily containing little that is new, the _resumé_ of

discoveries, prefixed to the opening chapter, is offered as likely to be

serviceable in recalling to the elder reader some of the more salient

facts he already knows, but which are necessary to be repeated: and

in suggesting to the younger student of South American history,—than

which it is hardly possible to name any more exciting, delightful, or

instructive,—those sources that will render him easily cognizant of

what has been written on the several branches of the subject up to the

present date. A similar justification, it is hoped, will serve for the

seeming surplusage of the remarks under the head of Lisbon, Madeira, and

the Verds; though it will be found that the chapters devoted to those

well-known places contain a good deal of fresh information calculated to

be acceptable too all calling at the several ports.

Often observing the inconvenience experienced by South Americans

coming to England, and by Englishmen proceeding to South America, from

unacquaintance with the names and residences of the respective diplomatic

and consular agents in both countries, the author has been at some pains

to collect the necessary information on this head; and, as regards the

antecedents of the English officials, has relied upon that very useful

manual, the ‘Foreign Office List for 1854,’ by Mr. F. W. H. Cavendish,

_Précis_ Writer to the Earl of Clarendon. The large map of South America

has been expressly prepared for this volume, chiefly with a view to

exhibit the river navigation affected by the late treaties, and will be

found, I have every reason to believe, much the most correct that has yet

been published of the whole continent; for, generally speaking, maps of

South America, or of any portion of it, are ludicrously inaccurate. The

map of the growingly important settlement of the Falkland Islands has

likewise been adapted from the most recent surveys, and is calculated to

prove of benefit to captains making the homeward Australian voyage by

Cape Horn.

Claughton, Birkenhead,

March 30, 1854.

INTRODUCTION.

Cursory Retrospect of South American Discoveries.—Their

difficulties then, how to be estimated at present.—Their

interest to this age as compared with ancient

conquests.—Cruelties of the early invaders.—Retributive

visitations.—Columbus and his cotemporaries.—Cortez and the

conquest of Mexico.—Subsequent position of the country.—Santa

Anna, his antecedents and prospects.—Pizarro in Peru, and his

Lieutenant, Almagro, in Chili.—Condition of those Republics

since and now: their past gold and present guano.—Modern

commanders in those countries.—Predominance of the Irish

element in the fray.—The O’Learys and O’Higginses in the

Andes.—San Martin and his aid-de-camp, O’Brien, and _his_

auxiliary, M’Cabe.—The Portuguese discoverers.—Magellan and his

Straits, and Peacock’s steaming to the Pacific three hundred

years afterwards.—Cabra, and Brazil.—De Gama and the Cape, and

Camoens’ celebration of the achievement.—Enrichment of the

Iberian Peninsula from these causes—Subsequent impoverishment

of mother countries and colonies.—Exceptional position of

Brazil in this respect, and reason thereof.—Different results

in North America, and why.—Imperfect knowledge in Europe of

South America.—Works thereon.—Characteristics of the several

authorities: Prescott, Southey, Koster, Gardner, Humboldt,

Dr. Dundas, Woodbine Parish, M’Cann, Edwards, Maury, and

others.—Want of information still on Paraguay and the region of

the Amazon.—Object of this Volume to supply that void.—Aim of

the Author not Political, but Commercial.

Nearly four centuries have rolled past since the great discoveries of

Columbus and his followers led to the establishment of Spanish and

Portuguese dominion over the vast continent of South America, and were

succeeded somewhat later by the still more important settlement of the

Anglo-Saxon race on the northern portion of the New World.[3] These

events, marvellous in themselves and in their accessories, and momentous

from the way in which they have affected the destinies of the human

race, present a study singularly and enduringly interesting, differing

so strongly as they do from the characteristics of ancient history. The

latter are necessarily contemplated by the reader as types and symbols

of the past, on which he has only the privilege of reflecting; whilst

in the former case, in perusing the story of these comparatively modern

discoveries of hitherto unknown continents, he feels himself almost a

sharer in the adventures of those extraordinary men by whose deeds his

own present destiny is so essentially influenced. He cannot desire to

be a Lycurgus or a Phocion, a Cæsar or a Cato; but it is no tax on the

imagination, no repulse to the feeling, to picture himself a Columbus

in embryo, and his soul and being is wrapt up in the narrative of that

great voyager. The English are proverbially a nautical people, nursed

and cradled in the lap of that ocean with whose element their earliest

sympathies are enlisted and identified. In these days it is a light

matter indeed, with the facilities of progression abounding on all sides,

and the great ministrant of celerity, steam, at our command in every

form, to ramble from one extremity of the earth to the other; but the

slightest retrospection suffices to demonstrate how very different a

state of things prevailed at the close of the fifteenth century. The

mere existence of a western continent was a phantasy of dream-land, when

the mysteries of that mighty waste of waters which separated the then

known world from all beyond, was shrouded in obscurity as unfathomable

as its deepest depths; when only frail barks and mariners who dreaded to

lose sight of the land could be found to attempt the seemingly-desperate

fate of exploring an unknown sea in search of what at best existed

but in the imagination of those who were regarded as visionaries, and

whose presumptuous rashness the very winds themselves seemed to rebuke

by blowing with unprecedented constancy in the one direction, as if to

proclaim the impossibility of return.[4] Taking these circumstances into

our consideration, a most thrilling interest is attached to this recital

that will endure to the latest posterity; and school-boys for generations

to come will ponder over the amazing achievements of these wondrous

knights-errant of the main with the same eager curiosity as the grown men

of to-day.

On the other hand, it must be as readily conceded that there is

something painfully oppressive in the records of ancient history, with

its never-ending conflict between nations for the aggrandisement of a

few ambitious monarchs or republican leaders, in which the destruction

of cities, towns, and countries, as well as of the lives of their

inhabitants, is the theme perpetually dwelt upon, as if the annihilation

of his kind were the only achievement entitling man to the admiration of

humanity. War in all its horrors, and the military extirpation of our

species, is the delight of the classic chroniclers, whether in poetry

or prose; and its accompaniments of battles, sieges, pillage, murder,

and atrocities such as nature revolts at, are depicted with a species

of barbaric satisfaction, calculated (as it no doubt often did) to

evoke the vengeance of the Deity against enormities perpetrated in the

mere wantonness of licentious ferocity, and too frequently lacking the

miserable palliative of provocation. Infinitely is it to be deplored

that this sanguinary animus was carried, in a large degree, by the

Spaniards and Portuguese, but probably still more by the Dutch (with

whom, however, we are not now concerned), into their conquests in the

New World; but it brought with it its own retributive punishment; and

finally, under Providence, became the most potent instrument that caused

war to be looked upon as an enormous evil, and a curse upon any country

unrighteously practising it.

To the discovery of the New World we may fairly trace the benign

effects of that wholesome correction of a most pernicious estimate of

human merit. This, gradually softening the minds of men, instilled the

principle of commercial intercourse amongst nations; demonstrating

how much more conducive to true greatness and human happiness is

the cultivation of amicable relations than even the most successful

aggression and devastation, and the acquisition of wealth by iniquitous

appliances.

It was in the year 1492 that Columbus landed on one of the West India

islands. (See _ante_, page 8.) Subsequently, what is now termed the

Spanish Main was crossed in rapid succession by various Peninsular

adventurers, one and all of whom were distinguished by bravery the

most exalted and selfishness the most abased, each attribute being

inflamed by a fanaticism that sought to honour God and appease His

anger towards their iniquities, by incredible offences in the name of

religion against the unoffending aborigines. Preëminent, perhaps, among

these bold bad captains, on the score of political prescience, military

skill, and administrative civil ability, as well as from the magnitude

of his acquisitions, was Hernan Cortez, who, in 1521, conquered the

table land of Mexico, its coasts being discovered some three years

before.[5] The immensity and enormity of his massacres, and the perfidy

that distinguished them—the ingenuity of his multitudinous outrages upon

the Emperor Montezuma and scores of thousands of his subjects—have

rendered his name indelibly detestable, though there were many traits

of true heroism about him, beyond what their biographers have been

able to preserve of his invading cotemporary destroyers on the same

scene. As was the case, too, with so many of them, his fruit in the

end proved but bitterness and ashes; for though the vast enrichment of

the revenues of Spain, through his means, extorted from an ungrateful

sovereign a marquisate, and the grant of a portion of the territories

he had conquered, he died at home, the object of courtly suspicion and

distrust; stung to death by mortification, that all his achievements

had been productive of coldness and neglect; where he had most expected

to meet with eulogium and honour, he found, like Columbus, (says the

eloquent historian of his conquests) that it was possible to deserve too

greatly.[6]

Passing next to him before whose golden sun the star of Cortez waned, we

find that the ruthless valour and iron perseverance of Pizarro subjugated

Peru[7] in 1531; while one of his followers, who most resembled him

in the cruelty of his life, as he did in the untimeliness of his death

(caused by a quarrel with his old master about the spoil), after the

seeming consummation of his ambition—Diego Almagro—having committed

horrors till then almost unheard of, over-ran Chili[8] in 1535. He

exterminated the family of Atahualpa, the last of the Incas, in a mode

which only the most hardened familiars of the Inquisition, in the mother

country, could read of without emotion; and to this day the records of

such revolting transactions constitute probably the foulest blot on

the Columbian escutcheon of the country of Du Guesclin and the Cid.

But the sins of these men may be said to have been avenged by heaven

in the noon of their iniquities. Pizarro, having defeated Almagro at

Cuzco, and put many of his officers to death, in cold blood, had his old

comrade strangled and then beheaded in Lima, where the despot himself

was assassinated by young Almagro, who, in his turn, being defeated in

battle, also at Cuzco, by Vaca de Castro, was likewise put to death by

decapitation.

Passing next to the Portuguese discoveries, that of Brazil was effected

by Alvarez de Cabral, he having landed, by accident, through stress of

weather, at Porto Seguro, on the 24th of April, 1500, calling the country

Santa Cruz (Holy Cross) in gratitude for his delivery from shipwreck; but

the appellation was afterwards altered to that which it at present bears,

signifying redwood, the well-known substance familiar to us as Brazil

wood; yet it was the subsequent exploration of this coast, some four

years afterwards, that enabled Amerigo Vespucci to eternise his own name

as the accepted discoverer of the continent itself.

Another instance of the vagaries and mutations of geographical

nomenclature, in this region of the world, occurs in connection with

the great achievement that next solicits our notice, viz., the doubling

of the Cape, and consequent opening-up of an oceanic highway to India.

This was second in importance only to the discovery of the New World

itself, and, indeed, well nigh placed Portugal on a par with Spain

in honorary maritime status. Vasco de Gama, whose exploits inspired

the muse of Camoens in the Lusiad,[10] which noble poem is in a great

measure only a rythmetical narrative of the perils of the navigator,

‘made the Cape’ November 20th, 1497; and, with the expressiveness of all

the earlier mariners, named it the ‘Cape of Tempests,’[11] and it was

afterwards known as the ‘Lion of the Sea,’ and the ‘Head of Africa.’

These designations were different indeed to that it has long rejoiced

in—the ‘Cape of Good Hope’—so called by John the Second of Portugal, who

drew a favourable augury of future discoveries thence, because of his

adventurous subject, Diaz, having reached the extremity of Africa, at

that point, though in doing so, he perished there in 1500, having divided

with Gama the honour of being its original discoverer, and supposed by

some to have preceded him by nearly ten years. Previous, however, to this

latter occurrence, even if we accept the earliest date claimed for Diaz,

mankind was amazed by reports of the circumnavigation of the globe—a

feat, which, like those already named, has been a fruitful source of

controversy as to the just recipient of the meed of priority. Sebastian

de Elcano is, perhaps, the most generally accepted by foreign writers.

Goralva and Alvalradi, both Spaniards, performed the task—astounding,

indeed, when we think of the fragile craft employed, and the unknown

courses ventured upon—in one and the same year, 1537, without concert

with each other. Mendana, another Spaniard, repeated it in 1567—preceding

our own immortal sovereign of the seas, Drake, by ten years. But long

anterior to all these, was the Portuguese Magellan, who, in 1519, being

in the service of Spain, determined the sphericity of the earth by

keeping a westerly course through the straits bearing his name, across

the Pacific, and returning to the spot he set out from, or rather the

ship did, for he was killed at the Philippines, on his passage back, the

whole voyage occupying three years and twenty-nine days.[12] These,

and a series of marvels, only subordinate in wonder because inferior in

importance, kept the western world in unflagging excitement for a long

succession of years, during which Europe tingled with the tidings of

vast countries being discovered, assailed, and captured, by mere handfuls

of obscure fortune-hunters, and yielding up such exhaustless treasures

as rendered the Spanish and Portuguese peninsula, for a prolonged season,

the richest kingdoms in the world—the veritable ‘envy and admiration

of surrounding nations.’ To all this we may add that momentum given to

commerce and navigation which has gone rolling on, until fleets of all

nations cover the seas; and, so far as we are aware at present, not an

island now unknown, of any importance, remains to reward the search of

him[13] who has been last commissioned to find one if he can, even in the

comparatively little frequented Polynesian group, for the penal purposes

of England.

I will not dwell on the different results that have attended different

courses of action with reference to the conquered territories of North

and South America; nor attempt to trace the decline of one power at the

expense of another. Spain and Portugal, unfortunately for themselves,

dealt with their gifts on purely selfish principles; and the consequence

of such a system was, not only the loss of the greater part of their

colonies, but an almost total estrangement between the parent and child,

never afterwards thoroughly healed. We attempted the same game in North

America, and the giant-like progress of the United States has followed;

only that, wiser in our generation, more forgiving, and actuated by

true commercial principles, we have cultivated, to the utmost extent,

relations of amity and good-will with the new power, and both countries

are largely gainers thereby, and will continue to be so while the same

feelings of mutual concession and respect actuate both.

Whilst, therefore, North America has made such astonishing progress, and

completely outstrips the Old World in rapidity of thought and execution,

carrying her commerce and people to the limits of the habitable

globe, the states to the southward have had many severe ordeals to go

through—arising, in the first place, from the cause just mentioned, viz.,

that the mother countries considered their colonies as mere appanages,

and prevented communication, in some cases even intercourse, with other

nations. Secondly, from the disseverment of the link which united them

to Europe, having an entirely new phase to pass through, new forms of

government to establish, and fresh relations to cultivate; whilst another

immediate effect of the revolution was to drive away most of the wealthy

inhabitants who, being Spanish and Portuguese citizens, were not a

little vain of their superiority in that respect to their colonial-born

brethren. This fruitful source of dissent and violence in nearly all

the disturbances by which the several states were torn is by no means

wholly obliterated to this day, any more than in some of the transmarine

possessions of Great Britain, in either hemisphere. Then came intestine

divisions among the American-born colonists themselves, raging between

the upstart leaders of mushroom parties, whose very names it taxed the

memory of men at the time to remember; and, as a matter of course, there

followed all the thousand drawbacks resulting from a state of anarchic

confusion. Hence, as is obvious must have been the case under such

circumstances, material progress has been slow, and political progress

for a long time almost imperceptible, if not frequently retrogressive,

if one may use a phrase so seemingly contradictory. Moreover, until of

late years very little was known of the internal resources of South

America, with the exception of the Brazils—a country to which a variety

of circumstances conspired to impart an impetus along the groove of

civilization and consequent advancement. Paramount amongst those aids

was undoubtedly the establishment there, in 1806, of the old Portuguese

monarchy, consequent upon the European troubles of the house of Braganza.

The inappreciable advantage of this regular form of government, arising

out of local monarchic institutions, that country has retained, though

under a new sovereign and with a liberalized system of administration,

ever since, with every guarantee for continuously rapid but enduring

improvement. Still, even Brazil was, to Europeans, comparatively

speaking, an unknown region, to which, in incongruous confusion, attached

associations of the soft and the savage, of barbarism and luxury, of the

majestic and the feeble, in the minds of all nearly whose reading about

her was not corrected by personal familiarity with the country itself.

But ignorance so arising is being happily fast dissipated; and it shall

not be the author’s fault if its departure be not further expedited on

some points to which it still adheres.

Both the Spaniards and Portuguese possess works of rare merit, far

exceeding in magnitude and minuteness any we can boast of, illustrating

the achievements of their early navigators, and the rise and progress

of their former colonial possessions. But few of these works have

been rendered familiar to the British public, and are very imperfectly

known, even to those writers who profess to treat of the same or similar

subjects. Of course we except Prescott, the appreciation of whose

invaluable volumes on the Conquest of Peru, the Conquest of Mexico,

and the History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, is testified

by the exhaustion of six large and expensive editions, and one cheaper

edition, in this country, besides the incorporation of the fruits of

his extraordinary research in a thousand publications that have since

been issued on either side of the Atlantic. Previously, however, to

Prescott, and in nearly as large a degree, in respect to the territory

described, were we indebted to Southey, for his History of Brazil;[14]

to Koster for valuable details of his travels in the northern provinces

of the same empire; and to Gardner, for a most elaborate research into

its botanical treasures, as also a graphic description of the interior

of the empire, which he traversed from north to south.[15] The hygiene

of the same region has been thoroughly investigated, and its rationale

expounded with consummate ability and simplicity of style, by my learned

and accomplished fellow-townsman, Dr. Dundas, than whom no man was more

competent for the task; and I rejoice to see that, though the subject

is necessarily of a very circumscribed range, comparatively speaking,

and one not very likely to command public attention, its treatment was

so masterly, that nearly all the professional journals in the kingdom

received it as an important contribution to medical literature.[16]

Its perusal, however, may be also recommended to the general reader as

containing notices of Brazilian life and manners and scenery nowhere else

to be met with, and which the peculiar facilities enjoyed by the author

enabled him to describe with a life-like minuteness whose truthfulness at

once stamps its accuracy both on the stranger at a distance and on the

most experienced Brazilian resident or native. In speaking thus, I am

merely echoing well-recognized facts; my opinion, which would of course

be utterly valueless in a medical sense, being in no degree warped by the

personal obligation Dr. Dundas has placed me under from the circumstance

of his having kindly consented to enrich this volume with a special

chapter on a theme analogous to that which his ‘Sketches’ are devoted to.

It is, however, the now patriarchal, or, as he calls himself,

‘Antediluvian’ Humboldt, who has showered upon European understanding

the light of scientific knowledge concerning the vast South American

continent, and his inimitable descriptions of the country and its natural

resources have scarcely been appreciated amongst us as they deserve. It

is only when confronted with the great fact, so long regarded as the

sentimental aspiration of utopiaists, that South America is actually

becoming an additional field for our industry and enterprise—when its

magnificent fluvial highways are about being traversed by an endless

succession of steamers, and its plains by railways—that we really

discover how infinitesimal is our knowledge of those resources or

capabilities to whose development these means can alone effectually

conduce. As a medium of forming an estimate of the material position,

as well as of the natural features of the countries described by him,

Humboldt cannot be too highly commended, as the author, of all others,

whose flowing narrative, profundity of reflection, and copiousness of

illustration—commensurate with the greatness of the subject itself—will

amply repay all ordinary curiosity; apart from that superabounding

erudition and scientific affluence which pervade the whole works of the

great living father of historical philosophers, though singularly freed,

like the treatises of our own Herschel, from technicalities that repel

the uninitiated. As relates to the Rio Plata and its immense tributaries,

we have had, in the course of the preceding year, Sir W. Parish’s

elaborate and excellent volume,[17] whose only, though it is undoubtedly

a great drawback, is, that having been written obviously from inspiration

of Rosas, and through the sources that personage opened to him for the

purpose at Buenos Ayres, events are recorded in a light entirely in

conformity with the views of the Dictator, whose whole past policy is

upheld, and his intended plans prospectively eulogised in a manner to

which subsequent events, and the judgment pronounced upon them, furnish a

significant commentary. In harmony with Rosas’s principle of representing

Buenos Ayres as virtually constituting the whole Argentine Confederation,

and himself as the exponent of public opinion and the embodiment of

actual power therein, Sir Woodbine almost altogether ignores the

existence of Monte Video, and scarcely alludes to such a state as the

Banda Oriental. Hence, as regards the latter province and its capital,

and all pertaining to them, Sir Woodbine’s book is a blank, or something

worse—a deficiency which it is one of the objects of the present volume,

in some degree, to supply. Of the condition of some of the interior

provinces, likewise, Sir Woodbine, being obliged to take his information,

not only at second hand, but through a channel in which every thing

was conductive to the one end, that of exalting Rosas, or depreciating

his opponents, gives us particulars not merely inaccurate, but leading

to conclusions the very reverse of what a true state of the case would

warrant. On this head, especially as regards by far the most important

of all the interior states—Paraguay—it is hoped that the present volume

will be found to contain much new and reliable information. For this,

the writer is mainly indebted to notes of observations made on the

route to, and during a residence in, Assumption, by parties personally

cognizant of the late most successful and important mission sent out by

Lord Malmesbury, whose prescience, in foreseeing the right moment—and in

selecting the right agent, Sir C. Hotham, for urging negociations towards

that object—the author had the satisfaction of hearing emphatically

panegyrized in all commercial circles—whether native, British, or

foreign—in the course of his late visit to South America.

Lastly, Mr. M’Cann,[18] whose previous work on the Plate had evinced

great knowledge of the subject, has recorded his later experience of

some of the Riverine provinces in a very agreeable and instructive work,

partly formed on the model of Sir F. Bond Head’s fascinating Rough Rides

on the Pampas, and embracing a review of mercantile matters and prospects

in those countries. Written with that knowledge of trade which only a

mercantile man can be expected to possess, its spirit is so dispassionate

as to be quite unique in a critic, on topics which would seem to impart

their partizan atmosphere to all who endeavour to detail their position

to those at a distance. Neither must I, by any means, omit to mention

the labours of another of my townsmen, Mr. Thomas Baines, who, with that

mastery of detail and facility of statistic exposition which seem to

be an heir-loom in the family of the late estimable member for Leeds,

placed in a very lucid light, some years ago, a subject to which it

was difficult at the time to draw general attention, and a popular

elucidation of which could only be expected from a pen so qualified.

But of all portions of South America, there is one perhaps concerning

which our knowledge is most imperfect, and with which it is most

essential that it should be extended, because of the rapid extension

of both native and European enterprise in that quarter. We especially

allude to that district of the vast region watered by the Amazon of

which Pará (city) may be considered the _entrepot_. Fortunately, two

very admirable volumes have recently been directed to supplying our

deficiency on this head.[19] The obligations due to these sources will

be found amply acknowledged in the chapter devoted to a consideration of

the subject. Our own text is enriched with matter drawn from original

authorities, long resident on the spot, and in every way calculated to

supply trustworthy intelligence. From these the reader will draw his

own deductions, as our informants, not encumbering their data with

disquisition, have left their facts to speak for themselves.

Notwithstanding the number of publications enumerated as being lately

issued upon South America, and not taking into account others published

in the United States, still there is a field of immense extent, as

yet comparatively unexplored and hidden, which requires to be opened

up to view, in order to enable us to form a sufficiently accurate

judgment of the character and capabilities of such countries as Brazil

and the republics bordering on the river Plate and its affluents. The

main design, therefore, towards this end on the part of the writer

in revisiting the scenes of his early youth, is to endeavour to

present some fresh sources of information; partly derived from his own

actual observation, and partly from the experience of others, who,

possessing the best opportunities, have converted them to the best

use in furtherance of the purpose now sought to be attained—viz., the

elimination of what shall serve for a compact but comprehensive _precis_

of the general condition of the countries named in the title page, and

particularly their commercial status and prospective indications of a

mercantile complexion. To refresh the memory on such analogous subjects

as may prove interesting in connection with these matters, there is

appended what it is hoped will prove a mass of desirable information, in

the shape of a collection of notes, bringing down incidents to the latest

practicable period antecedent to publication. In order to interfere as

little as possible with the current of the narrative, in which it has

been deemed expedient to convey the accompanying observations, the writer

intends offering his memoranda in the shape of a record of his voyage,

taking in all points touched upon as they naturally arose in connection

with it; and incidentally referring to those authors who have exhibited

the greatest acquaintance with the topics embraced.

CHAPTER I.

OUTWARD BOUND.—LIVERPOOL TO LISBON.

The Argentina on her maiden voyage.—Capacity and capability of

the river boat at sea.—From the Mersey to the Tagus in four

days.—Lisbon and its Laureats, Vathek and Childe Harold.—Lord

Carnarvon on Mafra and its marble halls.—Monasticism and

Monarchy.—Aspect and Attributes of the Lusitanian Capital

and its Vicinage.—Portuguese Millers and the Grinding

process among the Grain Growers.—A ‘bold peasantry, their

country’s pride,’ the same everywhere.—Native memorabilia of

the earthquake, and Anglo reminiscence thereof.—Anatomical

offerings extraordinary.—The hic jacet of Tom Jones, and eke

of Roderick Random.—Memento Mori, with admonitions to the

Living.—Portuguese peculiarities.—Personal and political

economy.—Fiscal fatuities.—Market-place notabilia.—Lisbon

society.—Clubs and Cookery.—Tea and Turn-out.—Friars, Females,

Fashions, and so forth, Operatic and Terpsichoratic.—Lusitanian

fidalgos, or Portuguese Peers in Parliament.—Portugal the

Paradise of Protectionists and Poverty.—Free-trade the only

corrective of such calamities.—Court Circulars, Conventions,

and Commanders.—Few books about Portugal, and necessity for

more.—Hints from the newest, including the Oliveira Prize

Essay.—A man’s house something like a castle in Lisbon, at the

cost of a cottage ornée.—Diplomatic and Consular Memoranda.

[Illustration: ARGENTINA—OUTWARD BOUND.]

On, on the vessel flies, the land is gone,

And winds are rude in Biscay’s sleepless bay.

_Three_ days are sped, but with the _fourth_, anon,

New shores descried make every bosom gay;

And Cintra’s mountain greets them on their way,

And Tagus, dashing onward to the deep,

His fabled golden tribute bent to pay;

And soon on board the Lusian pilots leap,

And steer ’twixt fertile shores where yet few rustics reap.

CHILDE HAROLD.

Innumerable as are the craft of every calibre and formation,—sail, steam,

and screw,[20]—by which this favourite and familiar route is traversed,

seldom had the voyager seen in its course a vessel of dimensions similar

to those of the Argentina, paddle-wheel, in which I had embarked,

constructed at Birkenhead by Mr. John Laird, to run between Monte Video

and Buenos Ayres. She is, (or rather was, for alack, she is now a

thing of the past,) 185 feet long by 21 feet beam, and with very fine,

hollow lines; her engines of 120-horse power, by Fawcett, Preston, and

Co. Intended for river work, and of a light draught of water, it was

hardly to be expected that in ocean steaming, when compelled to carry

coals, provisions, and all the bulky and ponderous requirements of a

long voyage, the same results could be obtained as in the comparatively

tranquil waters of inland navigation; but under all the disadvantages of

being so laden, and having to make way against a strong head-wind and

heavy sea, our average speed to Cape Finisterre was nearly 12 knots.

Subsequently, we had a more favourable wind, and canvas assisted us a

little, until we made the Berlings, (bold islets standing out some

half-dozen miles from the land, with a light-house upon them,) getting to

our moorings in the Tagus, before dark, on the evening of the fourth day

after quitting the Mersey.

It is impossible to conceive an easier navigation than that to Lisbon;

when once across the Bay of Biscay and round Cape Finisterre, you make

direct for the Berlings, and other high rocks more to seaward, called

the ‘Estellas’ and ‘Farilhoes de Velha.’ There is plenty of spare room

for any vessel to pass inside the Berlings, thus saving some distance;

and from Cape Corvoeiro the coast tends inwards to the mouth of the

Tagus,[21] presenting a succession of scenery, so novel and attractive,

as at once to satisfy the spectator that the poetry of Byron and the

poetic prose of Beckford,[22] have failed to exaggerate its beauties.

Conspicuous among the latter, though it is the handiwork of man

availing himself of nature in her picturesquest mood, stands out the

height-crowning, marble-built Mafra, termed the Escurial of Portugal,

from its immensity, magnificence, and the diversity of its contents,

consisting of a palace, a convent, and most superb church, whose six

organs were pronounced by Byron to be the most beautiful he ever beheld

in point of decoration, and was told that their tones corresponded to

their splendour. The town of Mafra itself is a small place, 18 miles

N.W. of Lisbon, containing about 3,000 inhabitants, and owes what

importance it possesses to the celebrated regal and ecclesiastical

edifice, constructed in its vicinity by John V., in pursuance of a vow

that he would select the poorest locality in the kingdom; and, finding

twelve Franciscan friars living in one hut here, he gave the preference

to Mafra—a partiality which its position, if not its preëminent poverty,

abundantly justifies.[23]

[Illustration: BELEM CASTLE, LISBON.]

A cluster of shoals, called the bar, forms a semicircle at the mouth of

the Tagus, but is seldom an obstacle to vessels entering, for there is

generally abundance of water on it to float even the largest vessels, the

least depth in the north channel, at low water, being 4 fathoms, and in

the south, 6. The only time that any difficulty is encountered, is when

the freshes, after heavy rains up the country, add their strength to that

of the ebbing tide, which then runs out at the rate of seven or eight

miles an hour, and encounters a gale from seaward, for this causes the

water to break right across, and vessels must await the turn of the tide

to get in; but in other respects the approach appears very easy, scarcely

any captain who has been there before requiring the services of a pilot.

After the intricacies and dangers of our own (the St. George’s) Channel

navigation, with the miles of sandbank that have to be threaded in

approaching Liverpool, such an entrance as that to Lisbon calls but for

small skill indeed in seamanship; and almost the veriest tyro in boxing

the compass might enact the part of Palinurus.

Passing up the Tagus there are numerous forts, palaces, and other

imposing buildings, or at least what appeared to be such in the dim

twilight that prevailed during our advance towards the Lusitanian

capital. The most commanding object (whereof presently) among these is

Belem Castle, near which we were visited by the health officers, and

allowed to proceed to our moorings off Lisbon, or rather to those of the

Royal Mail Company, which had been kindly lent until such time as our

own are laid down. The rule at the Custom-house, in respect to vessels,

is for the masters to enter them and declare whether their cargoes are

destined to be landed in Lisbon or not; if this be doubtful, which was

not our case, they ask to be put in _franquia_, that is, for leave to

remain eight days in port until the point is decided. On obtaining this

they proceed a little way up the river for the appointed period. From

Belem to that part of the river which is opposite to the centre of the

city, a distance of about four miles, the Tagus is some one and a half

wide, and displays on its northern bank, mingled with the dark foliage

of the orange and other trees, successive clusters of dwellings and

churches, including the palaces of the Ajúda and of Necessidades, in

which latter the court is generally held, and from it mostly are dated

the royal decrees.

With but few exceptions, these buildings are white, which gives the

city, at first sight, a much cleaner appearance than is presented on

a nearer view. On the south side, which is hilly, but few buildings,

unless we include a small fishing village near the mouth of the river,

are visible, until the small town of Almada, opposite to the city, is

reached, containing 4,000 inhabitants, and in whose vicinity is the gold

mine of Adissa, which has been worked now for some years. A peculiar

characteristic of the neighbourhood of Lisbon are the little mills with

sails, gyrating away on every eminence, sometimes half a dozen within

a few yards of each other, and they whisk round so merrily, as to be

quite a pleasant feature in the landscape. It might be the land, _par

excellence_, of Jolly Millers; for the floury sons of the Tagus seem

to belong to the same race as their jovial brothers of the Dee, whose

philosophic indifference to the opinion of the world has been made alike

musical and memorable by Mr. Braham. That the Portuguese should be

sprightly, however, is extremely surprising, seeing that they are ground

into dust, almost as literally as their own grain, or at least, the

growers thereof; for one who knows them well, writing during a visit as

late as last year, (1853), says:—

They are a people much resembling in heartiness and good will

our own Irish brethren: they are also most apt to learn, and,

like the much calumniated sons of Erin, can work, and will

work when they are properly encouraged and remunerated. They

toil under a burning sun, half-naked and bare-headed, or in

the winter under drenching rains and piercing cold, with

naught else to protect them from the weather than a straw

thatch, or cloak; and without other aliment at times than a

lump of Indian-maize bread, and a mess of humble pottage, or,

at others, the same bread, and a raw onion, with water from

the brook as their only drink. _Couve gallego_ (cow cabbage,)

from their own little garden, a spoonful of oil from their own

olive-tree, a handful of salt gathered from the rocks on the

sea-shore, with crumbled Indian-corn bread, baked in their own

oven, (which, as is still the case in Canada, is built outside

every tenement,) form a stir-about, on which the labourer

contentedly makes his principal or even-tide meal, after the

toils of the day are over. Occasionally, he may indulge in a

morsel of _bacalhao_ (salt cod-fish), or a rancid sardine: but

where the family is numerous, from year’s end to year’s end,

they know not the taste of animal food.

There are but few wharves alongside of which vessels can take in and

discharge their cargoes, so they lie at anchor in the stream, and those

operations are performed by means of lighters. There are, nevertheless,

some handsome quays, with convenient landing-places, of which those

at the fish-market and the Caes Sodré are the most frequented; at the

former, the scene being highly animated, particularly in the season for

sardinhas, or sardines, which constitute a considerable proportion of

the food of the lower orders. The handsomest quay is that which forms

one side of Blackhorse Square (Terreiro do Paço), so called from the

statue of Joseph the First on horseback in the centre; the other sides

consisting of public buildings, viz.: the Public Library, the Offices of

the Ministers of State, the Custom-house, and, at the eastern extremity,

the Exchange, being chiefly of marble, as, indeed, nearly all the

principal edifices are. It makes a splendid promenade, where crowds of

well-dressed persons may be seen, on the sultry summer evenings, walking,

or seated on the stone benches, enjoying the cool air from the river,

until a late hour. From this square, five parallel and level streets,

in which are the best shops, lead to the Roçio—a large, open space

surrounded by buildings, and appropriated to reviews, processions, &c.,

and where, on its northern side, at one time existed the odious Prison

of the Inquisition, adjoining the Palace of the same name, now no longer

occupied, though sometimes visited on festive occasions by royalty. Just

beyond are the public gardens, well laid out, and stocked with flowers

and shrubs, that bespeak the luxuriance and brilliancy of the Lusitanian

arboretum.

[Illustration: PRACA DO COMMERCIO, LISBON.]

All this portion of the city is more regularly built than the remainder,

and is situated just over the very spot that felt the effects of the

terrible earthquake, traces of which are now and then met with, in the

shape of patches of old pavement, in digging for the foundations of

houses, &c.; though there are no traces of the successful storming of the

city by the French, under Junot, in 1807, nor of its equally successful

resistance of a similar attempt a couple of years afterwards. In the

vicinity of the Hospital of St. José are the ruins of a church, in which,

embedded in the earth, were to be seen, some years since, if not now,

skeletons, in various attitudes, of persons who formed the congregation

at the time the catastrophe took place, which was, as the reader will

recollect, when the greater number of the citizens were assembled at mass

in the churches on All-Saints’ Day, November 1st, in the ever-memorable

year 1755—a circumstance that will probably account for the enormous

number of 30,000 lives being lost; for, although 6,000 private dwellings

were destroyed, the fatality could hardly have been so great but for the

multitudes being assembled in the mode mentioned. The celebration of the

festival, too, was otherwise the occasion of prodigious mischief; for,

owing to the immense number of tapers in the churches, the curtains,

drapery, and other combustible materials, caught fire, and a devastating

conflagration swept the doomed city from end to end, carrying off what

the convulsion had not already prostrated in ruin. Indirectly, however,

the commemoration of the festival was productive of some good—at least

to our countrymen in Lisbon; for, in order to avoid exciting religious

prejudice during a fête so solemn in the Papal calendar, they had nearly

all retired to their country houses, and but ten who remained in the

city were killed, a fact which renders, if possible, more magnanimous

the grant by the British parliament of £100,000 to the relief of the

suffering Portuguese, immediately the dismal tidings arrived; news

of like events, but not on such a scale, continuing to be received

for a long time after, from various portions of the New World. As in

the case of our own dear delightful ante-diluvian Chester, the older

quarters of Lisbon city generally interest a stranger most, from their

very irregularity; the streets being narrow, steep, and destitute of

_trottoirs_, and the houses very lofty, ranging in height from five to

as many as eleven stories, in each of which dwells a separate family,

all using one staircase in common. Notwithstanding the seeming peril

from this cause, in the event of another earthquake, the danger of the

walls falling is considerably lessened by their being built with a strong

framework of timber, dovetailed together, before the addition of brick or

stone.

Some of the churches are very handsome, although the absence of steeples

will perhaps cause them to be hardly so regarded by the majority of

Englishmen; and, moreover, many are in an unfinished state, for want of

funds. The one that probably astonishes unsophisticated Saxons most,

is the Patriarchal Church, from the circumstance of the pillars which

support the roof being covered with wax models of heads, arms, legs,

&c.—the _naif_ native offerings of individuals, desirous of testifying

their gratitude to the Virgin, for her cures of complaints affecting

those corporeal adjuncts. In the church of St. Roque is a small chapel,

containing imitations, in mosaic, of several pictures of the Italian

masters. These, with the splendid decorations, consisting of lapis lazuli

columns, candelabra in the precious metals, &c., are credibly estimated

to have cost upwards of one million sterling. This vast expense, of

course, could only have been in Portugal’s most palmy days, when the

genius of Albuquerque threw open the portals of the East, and showered

‘barbaric pearl and gold’ upon his noble king, Emanuel, rightly indeed

called the ‘Fortunate,’ and deserving so to be, as worthily inheriting

the throne of Alphonso the Victorious (son of the heroic Henry of

Burgundy) who routed five Saracen monarchs at Ourique, and freed his

country from the Moors. The British cemetery[24] (_Os aciprestes_),

surrounding a neat chapel, is well worth a visit, including, in its

attractions, a monument to Fielding, who there lies buried. Few of our

countrymen, who have the opportunity, ever fail to make a pilgrimage to

the spot where rests all that is mortal of him who drew Partridge and

Blifil, Squire Western and Sophia, Parson Adams and Tom Jones—his tomb

being as eagerly sought as is that of his brother humourist, Smollett,

at Leghorn. Strange that two of the most essentially English of all our

writers should have died and been entombed so far from their native land,

whose literature their genius has so long enriched, and will for ever

continue to do so.

Besides the public buildings already mentioned, there are several

well-managed hospitals, an arsenal, academies for instruction in the

naval, military, and other sciences; the Castle of St. George, used as

a prison more than as a place of defence: museums; a noble national

library, of 30,000 volumes, formed from those of the convents suppressed

in 1835; and, lastly, the aqueduct of Alcantara, with thirty-six arches,

a splendid structure, north of the city, supplying the greater part of

the inhabitants with water, and so solid, that it withstood the shock

of earthquake, which laid nearly all else in ruins. The central arch is

of sufficient dimensions to allow of a three-decker, under full sail,

passing through, were there water to float her.

The population of Lisbon is between 250,000 and 300,000, having increased

rapidly of late years, though sadly thinned during Don Miguel’s

usurpation, owing to the wholesale murders which were then committed, the

numbers obliged to serve in the army, and killed, and also the emigration

so many hundreds, nay thousands, were compelled to have recourse to, in

order to escape from his cruelties, and those of his satellites. The

remembrance of these atrocities, however, would seem insufficient to

deprive him of some partizans in the country yet, if we may judge by the

intrigues in his favour that have supervened on the death of the queen.

[Illustration: CINTRA, NEAR LISBON.]

A first visit to Portugal cannot fail to revive—in the minds of

Englishmen—‘memories of the past,’ full of ‘sweet and bitter fancies,’

as being alike the spot where England, by her diplomatic fatuity, earned

an immortality of ridicule, and, by her valour, an eternity of praise,

thanks to the Great Duke and his troops, so many of whom fell in defence

of those liberties, which, if what survives here be a fair specimen,

were certainly hardly worth the cost of preservation;[25] for, even at

this distance of time, how many families can recal the bereavements

they sustained in that glorious struggle. Moreover, Portugal possesses

a deep interest from the great deeds of its early navigators, already

slightly adverted to. None who sympathize with the noble qualities the

mention of these heroic names conjures up can fail to deplore that the

spirit of Vasco de Gama, Cabral, Camoens,[26] and many others, has not

descended to succeeding generations, rendering the land their genius and

patriotism had adorned what it might yet be made under an enlightened

government, viz., one of the most prosperous countries in Europe. That it

is not so, even after the mismanagement it has endured, and is enduring

now, nearly as bad as ever, is a matter of never-ending wonderment to

those who know its means and appliances for advancement in the scale of

nations. As regards myself, desire for personal authentication on the

spot of what I had known from others, imparted an additional zest to my

visit, from long acquaintance with the Brazils, even in the time of the

grandfather of the late Queen, when the present splendid South American

empire was a struggling colony of the now enfeebled and decaying parent

kingdom. Hence I was prepared to look with a favourable eye on all that

came under my notice in the capital of Portugal—a disposition enhanced

by the first glance I had an opportunity of bestowing upon it; for, seen

from the river on a bright sunny morning, Lisbon’s strikingly picturesque

aspect and position reminded me strongly both of Bahia and Rio Janeiro, a

portion of the city being built, like them, on low ground; hills, covered

in every direction with handsome structures of variegated colours,

chiefly white, rising like an amphitheatre behind; whilst the red-tiled

roofs, green verandahs, and other fanciful decorations, lend to the whole

a very foreign, almost tropical, but extremely pleasing appearance.

Unfortunately, the parallel between the capital of Portugal and the

metropolis of her flourishing transatlantic offspring further holds good,

as, on landing, much of the pleasing illusion vanishes:

For whoso entereth within this town,

That, sheening far, celestial seems to be,

Disconsolate will wander up and down,

’Mid many things unsightly to strange ee;

For hut and palace show like filthily;

The dingy denizens are rear’d in dirt;

No personage of high or mean degree

Doth care for cleanness of surtout or shirt,

Though shent with Egypt’s plague, unkempt, unwash’d, unhurt.

Nor are you greatly disposed to make allowances for the cause of your

topographical disenchantment, as you find yourself a mere object of

fiscal surveillance—obliged to be set ashore at the Custom-house, like

a biped bale of merchandise, and have your hat or umbrella scanned as

if they ought to be subjected to duty, like everything else, animate

and inanimate, that approaches these most absurdly protected waters.

Very soon, however, mere chagrin at such petty personal annoyances

deepens into gloom, as you observe the mournful absence of that incessant

activity you expect to meet with in so large and important a place.

The fatal spell of lethargy and exclusiveness seems to be laid upon

everything and everybody:—the very carriages and public conveyances (at

least a large portion) are redolent of the past century, and all idea of

locomotion is put to flight at the sight of them; and just the same is

the case with the owners. Torpidity pervades the whole population, from

the infant in arms, who is too lazy to laugh, to the cripple on crutches,

who is too sluggish to grumble. An exception to this rule, however, is

the market-place, where fruit, vegetables, the sardines already spoken

of, and other odd articles, are brought for sale. The motley groups, with

their baskets or little stalls, sheltered by umbrellas of all sizes and

colours, are like so many fancy-fair Chinese, whom Portuguese a good deal

resemble in bodily configuration, as well as in other attributes equally

little spiritualised, however Celestial. The kaleidoscopic tableau going

on here is a relief to the monotony of other places of resort, and so

vividly impresses the stranger that he fancies the performers in the

scene must be foreigners, and not ‘natives and to the manner born.’ The

theatrical air of the whole thing is not a little heightened, in his

opinion, on finding that no sooner has the clock told one, than, like

one o’clock, they all have to pack up their wares and depart till next

day, in preparation for the business whereof the market is thoroughly

cleaned and put in order. This regulation might be advantageously

adopted in regions where the mention of the word Portuguese, especially

in connection with cleanliness, immediately superinduces a spasmodic

agitation in the hearer’s nose, if indeed he can keep his countenance at

all.

But Portuguese society, as I happen to know very well, from long and

varied experience, is extremely agreeable in many places; and certainly

the natives of the old country are exceedingly hospitable to strangers.

There are several clubs, at the balls of one of which, the Foreign

Assembly-rooms, all the rank and fashion of the capital are to be seen,

to the number of several hundreds. I had the gratification of being

introduced at the Lisbon Club. The house had been formerly, like so many

similar institutions in London, a nobleman’s palace. Although not on so

grand a scale, it possesses superior accommodation to most places of

the kind amongst us; and if the Portuguese keep no Soyer, Francatelli,

or Ude, with a _batterie de cuisine_ corresponding in magnitude and

diversity to the celebrity of these professors of the finest art—that

of giving a good dinner—they have a social party of an evening,[27]

when a piquant and substantial tea is provided for those who wish to

sacrifice to the ‘Chinese nymph of tears, Bohea.’ The original taste of

the Portuguese, who were the first to introduce the beverage to Europe,

long before Mr. Pepys drank his ‘cup of China drink,’ [1661,] still

survives, as well as the taste for coffee, the berry of Mocha being a

favourite among the offspring of the victims of the Arabs. Chocolate,

also, is a very popular beverage, and is consumed in considerable

quantities at breakfast and supper, the two principal meals among the

majority of Portuguese. The upper classes dress like those of other

European capitals, but the lower order of females still retain the cloak

and hood peculiar to this part of the Peninsula. There is not, however,

so much difference now between the costume of the population and that of

other cities, as the cowls, sandals, and rope belts of the friars, are no

longer to be seen; for, as is well known, all the religious orders (not

those of nuns) were suppressed in 1835. There is a strong partiality for

gaudy colours and trinkets; but that is passing away.

Though, generally speaking, the female population of Portugal are not

of very prepossessing appearance, especially the humbler classes, whose

naturally swarthy complexion is embrowned by exposure to the sun, there

are few capitals in Europe where more perfect specimens of beauty are

to be seen than in Lisbon: and what enhances the effect their somewhat

unexpected presence produces is, that they are almost invariably

_blondes_, therein differing from most of their Iberian sisterhood on

the other side of the Douro, especially those of Cadiz, of whom the

noble lord, already quoted, says that they are the Lancashire Witches

of Spain. But the other noble lord, whom we have also quoted—and we

certainly can corroborate all he says, from our individual experience in

Brazil, of the classes he speaks of—observes: ‘If I could divest myself

of every national partiality, and suppose myself an inhabitant of the

other hemisphere, and were asked in what country society had attained its

most polished form, I should say in Portugal. This perfection of manner

is, perhaps, most appreciated by an Englishman: Portuguese politeness

is delightful, because it is by no means purely artificial, but flows,

in a great measure, from a national kindness of feeling. The restless

feeling, so often perceptible in English society, hardly exists in

Portugal; there is little prepared wit in Portuguese society, and no one

talks for the mere purpose of producing an effect, but simply because his

natural taste leads him to take an active part in conversation. Dandyism

is unknown among their men, and coquetry, so common among Spanish women,

is little in vogue among the fair Portuguese. They do not possess, to

the same extent, the hasty passions and romantic feelings of their

beautiful neighbours; but they are softer, more tractable, and equally

affectionate. Even when they err, the aberrations of a married Portuguese

never spring from fashion or caprice, seldom from vanity, and, however

culpable, are always the result of real preference. Certainly, with

some exceptions, the women are not highly educated; they feel little

interest, on general subjects, and, consequently, have little general

conversation. A stranger may, at first, draw an unfavourable inference

as to their natural powers, because he has few subjects in common with

them; but, when once received into their circles, and acquainted with

their friends, he becomes delighted with their liveliness, wit, and

ready perception of character.’ I quote this passage, believing from all

I heard and observed in Lisbon, that it is an accurate summary of the

Portuguese character there; that it is nearly equally applicable, in a

great degree, to Portuguese society in Madeira; and, knowing that it is

so, in respect to Portuguese society in Brazil.

The places of amusement consist of five theatres, including the

opera-house, where, as the London and Parisian _dilettanti_ well know,

many excellent singers make their _début_: the getting up the scenery,

&c., are inferior to few establishments of the kind anywhere, and the

prices are very moderate. It is called San Carlos, and it is scarcely

inferior in any respect, either in its architectural extent or the

liberality of its appointments, to its more famous Neapolitan namesake.

Madame Castellan—herself, I believe, a fellow-countrywoman of Inez de

Castro, whose portrait she greatly resembles—has been the principal lyric

artiste during the past season. There is also a building for bull-fights,

which, though perhaps as much a national sport as in Spain, is not

pursued with the same passionate ardour, nor with the same skill, as is

displayed by professors of the tauro-machiac art in the sister country.

I also attended a sitting of the two Chambers, which appeared to be

conducted with great decorum, but, at the same time, without that

listlessness or buzzy-fussiness which pervades our own Senate when

a bore or a nobody happens to be on his legs. The accommodation for

members is at least as good as ours. To be sure, it could not possibly

be much worse, if we may judge from those most qualified to form an

opinion—the members themselves; for, what with the perpetual complaints

about pestilent smells, hot blasts, freezing draughts, blinding light,

and sightless darkness, one would imagine that the British Senate-house

was constructed to serve as a ‘frightful example’ of deleterious

architecture. The wonder is, that any M.P. has the face to approach a

life-insurance office, at the beginning of a session, without being

prepared with a ‘doubly hazardous’ premium on his ‘policy,’ knowing

that he is going to talk, or listen to the talk, of politics for some

six months; and, certainly, the looks of many of our law-makers can be

consolatory to none but coffin-makers and residuary legatees. Not so

with the Portuguese Conscript Fathers, nearly all of whom seemed as

hale as new moidores out of the mint, both as to stamina, complexion,

and sensibility. The enormous building where they meet (the old convent

of San Bento) contains all the needful official and red-tape-ical

departments. In the Upper Chamber, the Patriarch occupied the chair, in

habiliments not unlike those of the Bishop of Oxford, when enrobed in

his costume of Chancellor of the Order of the Garter; and it was curious

to see an epitome of our own admixture of the ecclesiastical with the

temporal system of legislation, in the House of Lords, carried out in

this Portuguese conjunction of spiritual with lay law-makers.

In vain you look in the Tagus for that forest of shipping which should

fringe the watery highway to, and ought to constitute the leading feature

in, so fine a port—the capital of a country the once nautical genius of

whose people is expressed in the only poem in any language that makes

adventures on the deep its theme. A few stray vessels here and there,

with river and fishing boats, and those singular latine sails, that so

strike the stranger,[28] some steamers and Government vessels, were

all that could now be seen on the bosom of the river, so famed amongst

the ancients for its golden attributes, not because of its auriferous

sands,[29] but because of the affluent tide of its teeming commerce—that

port whence, in after ages, though now ages long ago, went forth those

expeditions which brought much of Asia into comparative contiguity with

Europe, and discovered, and long held so much of, the finest portion of

the New World. For a wonder, not a ‘speck of power’ of that nation, whose

commerce rose as Lusitania’s fell, not an English man-of-war, ubiquitous

in every water, and very often present, and too long at a time, in most

unnecessary numbers, in these waters in particular, was to be seen,

though Admiral Corry’s squadron, containing many of the finest and latest

built men-of-war in our navy, including the ‘Duke of Wellington,’ and now

with Napier in the Baltic, has since been there. Their absence, however

gratifying to financial economists and advocates of non-intervention in

politics, helped to complete the triste and dreary air of the empty mart

and shipless bay. The cause of this poverty of trade must be obvious

to all, even to enlightened Portuguese. The Government, blind to all

experience elsewhere, deaf to the supplications of common sense and

even self-interest, draw a kind of cordon round the little trade they

still possess, and encumber it with such a net-work of preposterous

restrictions, as actually to squeeze the life-blood out of it, or,

rather, altogether arrest its circulation, which is the same thing in

the end, as regards the vitality of commerce. The evil extends to every

ramification of industrial pursuit; and one half of the population live

upon a system that seems to have been invented to exclude, instead of

encouraging business to come to their shores. Hence, it need hardly be

said, that smuggling is the most profitable trade going; and a large

and rapidly increasing business in that line is carried on, along the

frontier in particular.

If Colonel Sibthorpe, Mr. Newdegate, and the remainder of that Spartan

band of fifty-nine, who followed the phantom of Protection into the lobby

of the House of Commons a couple of years ago, finding that the sun of

England has indeed for ever set, as they so often anticipated, desire

to bask in the beams of unmitigated monopoly, by all means let them hie

hither forthwith; and they will behold one realm, at least, that carries

out their views to the utmost possible extent. By way of apparently

bolstering up native industry, Portugal fosters a few stray manufacturing

establishments, and farms out monopolies of certain articles (tobacco

and soap for instance) to parties who, in the rigorous exercise of their

privileges, put another and most effectual drag-chain on the march of

commerce. The fruits of such policy are but too apparent; for even

the neighbouring state of Spain, so long the synonyme of every fiscal

fatuity, but now awaking to a true sense of what it owes to her glorious

maritime associations, and to her present and perspective well-being,

is taking away a large portion of Portuguese traffic, by judiciously

reducing her tariff, promoting railway enterprise, and gradually

adopting those liberal views, without whose practical recognition now

every country must lapse into almost primeval barbarism. Undoubtedly an

extenuation of the imbecility of Portugal is her complete dependence

and reliance on her colonies so long, for while she enjoyed a monopoly

of them she flourished at their expense. Now things are reversed, and

Portugal cannot bring herself to adopt the only remedy, free-trade and

unrestricted commerce, in its largest and fullest extent. These would

soon fill her ports with shipping, raise rents, augment revenue, and

place her in a position worthy of the countrymen of Cabral, and of the

_prestige_ which he and so many of his cotemporaries and followers so

long secured her. That she has an aptitude for commerce is well known;

for, though it was long deemed degrading, and even criminal, in high

caste Portuguese, to meddle in commercial matters, or to intermarry or

associate with those who did, there is scarcely any ’Change in the world

at the present day that does not number a Lisbon or Oporto merchant among

its ablest members.

A stay of two days is a short time to enable a stranger to appreciate

fully the merits of a large place like Lisbon; but the defects in her

national fiscal system as here manifested, at the very fountain head

of the intelligence and influence of the empire, and its mischievous

tendency in retarding prosperity, are unmistakeable. The handwriting

on the wall requires no interpreter; it points out approaching decay,

unless Portugal alters her system before it is too late, and determines

to go with the stream of events and the destinies of the world. The

real hope for the country still points in the direction of Brazil; not

only because of the peculiar weight of example in that quarter, where

prosperity has progressively and unvaryingly followed every step in the

path of commercial and political enlightenment—every assimilation to the

existing English system of mercantile polity—but from the circumstance

of the affluence of Brazil healthily reacting upon, and wakening up

the energies of the old country to join _pari passu_ in the march with

her vigorous progeny. In a trading, especially in a passenger-trading

sense, the connection between the two is still important, and is every

day becoming more so, through Anglo-Brazilian enterprise, (of which

the Liverpool Company I have the honour to belong to affords the most

prominent instance yet), and is likely to be vastly improved by the

establishment of direct steam navigation, chiefly carried on by native

and South American capital. The principal promoter of this is Mr. Moser,

well known for enterprise of a like kind in the navigation of the Minho,

from which river to the Guadiana a screw steamer now plies.

Most of the _bourgeoisie_ of Brazil were either born in Portugal

or are descendants of Portuguese. Shop-keeping is a business these

Peninsulars fully understand, especially those from Oporto; particularly

in everything pertaining to trinkets, articles of jewellery, and

goldsmith’s-work, the Portuguese being therein cunning workmen, though

for the most part, regarded as indifferent carpenters, shoemakers, and

the like, at least by British employers. After realizing money abroad,

they naturally find their way to Portugal; where, if even for a season,

they enjoy themselves as only children of the South or of the tropics

can when they have the means; or spend the remainder of their days

where their fathers lived and died before them. They will soon have the

invaluable advantage of the steamers of no less than three companies

calling at Lisbon, including the ‘Luso-Brazileira,’ which is also

composed of Portuguese and Brazilian shareholders. These, let us hope,

will prove the immediate harbingers of that good time which can alone be

brought about by the multiplication of such instruments of a national

good; for it must be obvious to every one who knows Portugal, or the

Portuguese abroad, that what is wanted is abundance of communication

by steam, both by sea and land, railways, and free-trade, or some

approximation to it. With these she may resume her position amongst the

nations, and share with her oldest ally, England, the benefits arising

from a mutually advantageous intercourse.

Respecting the Royal Family, during my stay at Lisbon, when there was,

of course, every apparent prospect of a long, if not a very tranquil

and happy reign for the late Queen, I learnt that they kept themselves

as retired and quiet as their exalted station would permit, appearing

little in public, but understood to be busy in those plots and intrigues,

suspicion of which on the part both of the people and the upper classes,

deprived her Majesty of much of that popularity which her many excellent

qualities were calculated personally to secure her. What may be the

course that her husband, the Regent, will pursue, or that may be pursued

by her son when he attains his legal majority in 1858, it is of course

impossible to foresee. His young Majesty is now in the course of making

a tour through Europe, chiefly with a view, it is said, of finding a

partner for his throne; and rumour points to one of the house of Coburg

to which his father belongs, viz., a daughter of the King of the

Belgians. This alliance, though otherwise eligible in itself, is deemed

by some politicians likely to aggravate the troubles of the country, by

making it a hot-bed of extraneous intrigue, in addition to the domestic

Miguelite plottings that appear chronic in Portugal.

There are, as already mentioned, several royal palaces, but few of them

completely finished, or ever likely to be so, owing to the limited state

of the civil list and the reluctance of the Cortes to grant supplies

for such purposes. The Palace of Ajúda is a truly regal building, whose

external magnificence at least, fills every one with regret that it

should so far resemble so many others, of vast pretensions and undoubted

beauty, as to remain incompleted, and in consequence, unoccupied.

Visitors to the Court are generally located in a pretty marine palace,

with a terrace and garden facing the river, at Belem, the town of

which name contains about 5,000 inhabitants. In its vicinage is the

burial-place of many of the earlier Portuguese monarchs; it possesses

also, in addition to the castle and custom-house already mentioned,

and a singular-looking fortress, some other public institutions of

note, including a high-school, a convent, and the largest iron-foundry

in Portugal, together with a noble church, built to commemorate the

memorable departure of Vasco de Gama on his great voyage, as so

beautifully alluded to by the national poet.

It may not be superfluous to caution the young or casual reader not to

confound this town with one somewhat similarly pronounced, Baylen, in

Spain—a spot that sounds in French ears pretty much as Cintra does in

ours. And for much the same reason—the blundering incapacity of those

charged with the conduct of the transactions that took place, almost

simultaneously, in the same year, and within a month of each other;

except that the former, having had priority of occurrence, rendered

the latter more inexcusable. It was in July, 1808, that 14,000 French,

commanded by Dupont and Wedel, being defeated by 25,000 Spaniards under

Pena and Compigny, Dupont’s entire division of 8,000 men laid down their

arms—the beginning of the French disasters in Spain, as lending courage

to the whole native population to pursue that system of resistance which

in the end, aided and directed by British valour and science, rendered

nugatory all the efforts of the invader permanently to subdue the

country. Of Belem, the recent military celebrity is not great, the two

chief incidents in its history being its capture by the French, the year

before the occurrence just named; and, secondly, its capture under the

troops of Don Pedro, in 1833. What lends its real historic, or at least

archæologic interest to the place, is its propinquity to the remains

of some of the finest Moorish architecture in the world, the Alhambra

itself scarcely excepted; and these alone ought to suffice to render a

trip fashionable among our _ennuyéd_ tourists, to whom almost all the

remainder of Europe is nearly as well known as the beach at Brighton or

the Westmoreland lakes. Notwithstanding the charm to British ears of the

words Busaco, Vimiera, Badajos, Braga, Torres Vedras, and the Douro,

Portugal is a _terrâ incognita_ to the pic-nicish and Pickwickian tribe,

and altogether exempt from the remonstrance of the _blazé_ bard—

And is there then no earthly place,

Where we can rest, in dream Elysian,

Without some curst, round English face,

Popping up near, to break the vision?

’Mid northern lakes, ’mid southern vines,

Unholy cits we’re doom’d to meet;

Nor highest Alps nor Apennines

Are sacred from Threadneedle Street!

If up the Simplon’s path we wind,

Fancying we leave this world behind,

Such pleasant sounds salute one’s ear

As—‘Baddish news from ’Change, my dear.’

But how can it be wondered that Portugal should be a yet untrodden Eden

to the tourist, seeing that it is the only country, or tract of country,

in Europe, or on the confines thereof, from Odessa to Iceland, that

Murray hasn’t hand-booked? The ‘Anak of Booksellers,’ who has ‘done’ the

Pyramids and the Pyrenees, Styria and Finland, Whitechapel and Wallachia,

the Dnieper and the Nile, has left Portugal undone; for it cannot be

called doing it, in the Albemarle-street sense of the term, to devote to

it a few small pages of large type, and call them ‘Hints.’ Nevertheless,

far below the Murrayan standard as that is, still it will be useful, as

being likely to incite travellers thitherward;[30] and then the great

publisher will, doubtless, provide for their use some Head capable of

turning out a sizeable and seasonable octavo of reading as delightful as

Borrow and as instructive as Ford has done for the scarcely more romantic

region the other side of the Guadiana. Meanwhile, calling attention to

that one[31] of the ‘Hints’ which tells how others may be taken, as to

the London means of getting there, in addition to those still better

Liverpool means furnished by our South American Steam Company, it is well

to apprise the reader, desirous of the latest and best information about

Portugal, that it will be found in the extremely agreeable and attractive

volume[32] which owes its origin to the munificence and patriotism of

the accomplished member for Pontefract, Mr. Oliveira, who, sprung of

the ancient Lusitanian stock himself, and numbering among his ancestors

the Pombals, de Castros, Tojals, and Thomars, has laboured assiduously,

and most successfully, in disseminating among the most intelligent and

influential minds of either country a correct knowledge of what conduces

to the commercial prosperity of both. Towards this end nothing can be

more effectual than a careful study of the admirable essay alluded to

below, and from which some few of the foregoing facts are taken. Indeed,

we would fain hope that, at least some of the excellent arguments it

addresses to the Portuguese government have already produced a good

effect; for, in the speech to the Cortes by the Regent, in January last,

there is great promise not only of railway encouragement, but regulations

we have spoken of being relinquished, such as the monopoly on salt, and

even that on tobacco is likely soon to be abandoned. Improvements of a

similar kind are to be extended to Madeira.

In concluding this brief chapter, which is, unfortunately, necessarily

much more brief than the subject warrants, we have only to add, that

should its perusal, or that of the several works already enumerated,

induce readers to visit Lisbon in search of pleasure, and more especially

those in search of health, the important item of house-rent will be found

almost fabulously moderate compared with any other capital in Europe,

and, I should imagine, in the world. A perfect palace, in the literal

meaning of the term, may be had for £100 a year, containing suites of

rooms in which a coach and four might be turned. Provisions and all the

produce of the country are exceedingly cheap, but all imported articles

are equally dear, because of the absurd protective system already spoken

of, which permits and encourages native manufacturers to make the worst

articles at the highest price, thus of course entailing the most limited

consumption, and restricts purchases of all commodities that can possibly

be dispensed with. Amongst hotels, the Braganza, built on an eminence

overlooking the Tagus, stands preëminent, and is part of the Braganza

family estate. The bill of fare is attractive, and charges moderate,

regret being felt that travellers by sea cannot go at once to such

comfortable quarters, instead of to the vile Lazarette, to which they are

now consigned _en route_ from England or Brazil!

[Illustration: ADJUDA PALACE, RESIDENCE OF THE ROYAL FAMILY OF PORTUGAL,

NEAR LISBON.]