CAPE ST. VINCENT TO PERNAMBUCO.—A WORD ON THE CLIMATE OF THE BRAZILS.
Progress from Porto Grande to Pernambuco.—Steam triumphs
against adverse 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 it comes, and what has become of it?—Quarrels about
Quarantine.—Brazil in advance of the old country in these
matters.
Leaving Porto Grande, we shaped our rapid course southwards, to the
Brazils, across the wide expanse of ocean lying between the two
continents, and in all which prodigious waste of waters there is no port
of call nearer than St. Helena, latitude, 15 deg. 55 min. S., long.,
5. 44 E., unless we except the turtle-famed Island of Ascension, 800
miles N.E. of the Bonapartean place of exile, which itself is 1,200
miles from the coast of Lower Guinea. The trade winds vary a good deal
in their extension towards the line, and in these latitudes commence
the difficulties of a sailing ship, which has to deal with calms and
variable winds, blowing from all points of the compass, until such time
as it catches the south-east trade, and is carried onwards. Our course
lay towards Pernambuco, a place I visited for the first time upwards of
thirty years back, and where I have often been since, but never in a
steamer; and only those who have experienced the difference between the
two modes of propulsion, wind alone and steam, can fairly appreciate the
value of the latter power. In former years, 40 to 50 days were considered
an average passage to Pernambuco, lately reduced to about 30 to 35 by
clipper-vessels, whilst a steamer will traverse the distance easily in 20
days, including stoppages to coal, and for any other requisite purpose.
The consequence is, that numbers pass to and fro, who would never do so
but for the facilities thus afforded, and which afford at the same time a
further evidence of the trite truth, already frequently dwelt upon, and
which will have to be still more frequently repeated, before we come to
a close, that steam navigation becomes the great civilizer of the world,
and brings distant nations so much nearer to our own shores.
Our run from St. Vincent to Brazil was a very hard one. Losing the
trade-wind the day after that on which we left the island, it was
replaced by an implacable south-wester, against which our little vessel
steamed vigorously, and we could barely carry fore and aft canvas. When,
after eight days’ tugging we arrived at Pernambuco, there was not an
hour’s coal left, a consideration which naturally rendered all on board
anxious for some short time before. We shaved close past the Island of
Fernando de Noronha, showing a conical hill, very like a ship under
canvas at a distance. It is a penal settlement of Brazil, and considered
very healthy.
Before describing other ports of call on our way to the River Plate,
let us just take a glance at the Empire of Brazil, which, from its
geographical position, immense fertility and internal resources,
is second only in importance to the great Empire of the West—the
United States of North America. And, first, in regard to that primal
consideration, health, as affected by the climate—a subject on which
many years’ experience in my own person, and an attentive observation of
the health of various classes of Europeans in the tropics enable me to
speak with as much weight as should probably attach to the opinion of the
majority of non-medical men on a medical topic; and some remarks on that
head in the chapter on Pernambuco will probably be found not altogether
unworthy of the attention even of the faculty.
Notwithstanding its well-known heat, in common with all other countries
within the tropics, and especially a country so large a portion of which
is directly beneath the equator, until within the last few years Brazil
has been proverbially one of the healthiest climates in the world, and
European residents could indulge almost with impunity in the pleasures
and luxuries of tropical life. Unfortunately yellow fever has changed
all this, and rendered the vital statistics of the harbours and cities
of the empire mournful catalogues of suffering and disaster, threatening
serious injury to its national prosperity, if the scourge does not soon
finally depart from its shores. This, it is devoutly hoped may be the
case, and fortunately seems to be so at present, as far as can be augured
from the reports now continued for a considerable time. During over
thirty years’ acquaintance with, and frequent residence in the country, I
never experienced or heard of any existing epidemic worthy of the name,
or such as could not be readily accounted for; but the aspect of things,
at the period of my last arrival, had sadly indeed changed, and the dread
pestilence in its ravages seemed to spare neither the hardy European
mariner, the native resident, the blacks, nor indeed any class of
persons brought within its influence. How or from whence this mysterious
visitation had arisen it was impossible to say. Some maintain that it was
brought from the coast of Africa, and is a kind of retributive punishment
for the iniquitous traffic in human flesh carried on so extensively in
the Brazils, until lately, that the government have shown themselves
determined to put it down. But those who argue in this fashion forget
that the same doctrine would apply in a thousand instances at home and
abroad; that the exceptions are unfortunately more numerous than the rule
which would be thus set up by human presumption for the admeasurement of
the justice of Omniscience; and that it is always imprudent, to say the
least of it, to attempt to interpret the causes of such dispensations of
Providence by our own notions of human requirement. Others deny the fever
to be either epidemic or contagious, affirming that it must be induced by
some peculiar atmosphere, generated, no one knows how, on the sea coast;
and it certainly is curious enough that vessels have had the sickness on
board, whilst coming down the coast, before even touching at a Brazilian
port. Whatever be the true cause of this affliction, it ought to teach
the Brazilians a lesson not to abuse the bounties of Providence, which
they enjoy in almost unexampled profusion, or neglect those means of
sanitary protection which are needful even in the healthiest portions
of Europe. No doubt much is required to be done in this way, and not
in trying to enforce stupid quarantine regulations, which only add to
suffering without arresting the arm of the devastator. Indeed, the
Brazilian government has shown great good sense in eschewing the absurd
formalities in question, therein again exhibiting an immense superiority
of intelligence over the mother country; for at Lisbon all the antiquated
and superannuated encumbrances and ceremonials are rigorously exacted,
though there be not even the shadow of a pretext for enforcing them; for
although a ship’s bill of health may be perfectly clean, and although the
ports she last sailed from may have been long known to be uninfected,
still the circumstance of their having been once tainted is sufficient
warrant for the Portuguese procrastinators in exacting any amount of
detention that may be agreeable to their caprice, whether the vessel be
sail or steamer.
THE EMPIRE OF BRAZIL.
“Stern winter smiles on this auspicious clime;
The fields are florid in eternal prime;
From the bleak pole no winds inclement blow,
Mould the round hail, or flake the fleecy snow;
But from the breezy deep the groves inhale
The fragrant murmurs of the eastern gale!”