education beyond counting-house forms, and their whole time is, I
believe, spent between trade and gambling: in the latter, the ladies
partake largely after they are married. Before that happy period, when
there is no evening dance, they surround the card tables, and with eager
eyes follow the game, and long for the time when they too may mingle in
it. I scarcely wonder at this propensity. Without education, and
consequently without the resources of mind, and in a climate where
exercise out of doors is all but impossible, a stimulus must be had; and
gambling, from the sage to the savage, has always been resorted to, to
quicken the current of life. On the present occasion, we feared the
young people would have been disappointed of their dance, because the
fiddlers, after waiting some time, went away, as they alleged, because
they had not their tea early enough; however, some of the ladies
volunteered to play the piano, and the ball lasted till past midnight.
_Tuesday, 23d._--I rode with Mr. Dance and Mr. Ricken along the banks of
the lake, decidedly the most beautiful scenery in this beautiful
country; and then through wild groves, where all the splendours of
Brazilian animal and vegetable life were displayed. The gaudy plumage of
the birds, the brilliant hues of the insects, the size, and shape, and
colour, and fragrance, of the flowers and shrubs, seen mostly for the
first time, enchanted us, and rendered our little journey to the great
pepper gardens, whither we were going, delightful. Every hedge is at
this season gay with coffee blossom, but it is too early in the year for
the pepper or the cotton to be in beauty. It is not many years since
Francisco da Cunha and Menezes sent the pepper plant from Goa for these
gardens, which were afterwards enlarged by him, when he became governor
of Bahia. Plants were sent from hence to Pernambuco, which have
succeeded in the botanical garden.
From the pepper gardens we rode on to a convent at the farther extremity
of the town, and overlooking both the bays, above and below the
peninsula of Bon fin, or N.S. da Monserrat. It is called the Soledad,
and the nuns are famous for their delicate sweetmeats, and for the
manufacture of artificial flowers, formed of the feathers of the
many-coloured birds of their country. I admired the white water-lily
most, though the pomegranate flower, the carnation, and the rose are
imitated with the greatest exactness. The price of all these things is
exorbitant; but the convents having lost much of their property since
the revolution, the nuns are fain to make up by the produce of this
petty industry, for the privations imposed on them by the reduction of
their rents.
_Wednesday, October 24th._--Mr. Pennell, his daughter, and a few other
friends, joined us in an expedition to Itaparica[70], a large island
that forms the western side of the Bay of All Saints. A shoal runs off
from it a long way to sea, and there are reefs of coral rocks on
different parts of its coast. The distance from the city to the nearest
landing place on the island is five miles and a half, which our boats'
crews rowed in less than two hours. We put in between two ledges of
rock, to a little jetty, belonging to the fazenda or factory of Aseoli,
or Filisberti, both of whom were partners in Jerome Buonaparte's
commercial establishment here. There is no town on Itaparica; but there
is a villa, or village, with a fort on the Punto de Itaparica, which
commands the passage between it and the main land, and also the mouth of
the river, on which stands Nazareth da Farinha, so called from the
abundance of that article which it produces. There are also a great many
fazendas, which, with their establishment of slaves and cattle, may be
considered as so many hamlets. Each sugar farm, or ingenho, as the
fazendas are oftener called here, has its little community of slaves
around it; and in their huts something like the blessings of freedom are
enjoyed, in the family ties and charities they are not forbidden to
enjoy. I went into several of the huts, and found them cleaner and more
comfortable than I expected; each contains four or five rooms, and each
room appeared to hold a family. These out-of-door slaves, belonging to
the great ingenhos, in general are better off than the slaves of masters
whose condition is nearer to their own, because, "The more the master is
removed from us, in place and rank, the greater the liberty we enjoy;
the less our actions are inspected and controuled; and the fainter that
cruel comparison becomes betwixt our own subjection, and the freedom, or
even dominion of another." But, at best, the comforts of slaves must be
precarious. Here it is not uncommon to give a slave his freedom, when he
is too old or too infirm to work; that is, to turn him out of doors to
beg or starve. A few days ago, as a party of gentlemen were returning
from a _pic nic_, they found a poor negro woman lying in a dying state,
by the side of the road. The English gentlemen applied to their
Portuguese companions to speak to her, and comfort her, as thinking she
would understand them better; but they said, "Oh, 'tis only a black: let
us ride on," and so they did without further notice. The poor creature,
who was a dismissed slave, was carried to the English hospital, where
she died in two days. Her diseases were age and hunger.[71] The slaves I
saw here working in the distillery, appear thin, and I should say
over-worked; but, I am told, that it is only in the distilling months
that they appear so, and that at other seasons they are as fat and
cheerful as those in the city, which is saying a great deal. They have a
little church and burying-ground here, and as they see their little lot
the lot of all, are more contented than I thought a slave could be.
[Note 70: _Itapa_ is the Indian name: the Portuguese termination,
_Rica_, indicates the fertility of the island. On this island Francesco
Pereira Coutinho, the first donatory, was killed by the savages. He had
founded his city near the watering place called Villa Velha, by what is
now the fort of Gamboa, and not far from the habitation of the
adventurer Caramuru. The first Christian settlement formed here was in
1561, when the Jesuits founded an Aldea, and collected and humanised
some of the natives.]
[Note 71: "The custom of exposing old, useless, or sick slaves, in
an island of the Tyber, there to starve, seems to have been pretty
common in Rome; and whoever recovered, after being so exposed, had his
liberty given him, by an edict of the Emperor Claudius; where it was
likewise forbid to _kill any slave, merely for old age or
sickness_."--"We may imagine what others would practise, when it was the
professed maxim of the elder Cato, to sell his superannuated slaves for
any price, rather than maintain a useless burden."--_Discourses of the
Populousness of Ancient Nations_.]
Sugar is the principal product of Itaparica; but the greater part of the
poultry, vegetables, and fruit, consumed in Bahia, are also from the
island, and lime is made here in considerable quantities from the
madrepores and corals found on the beach. This island used to furnish
the neighbourhood with horses. When the English fleet and army stopped
here, on the way to the Cape of Good Hope, the horses for the cavalry
regiments were procured here. However, there is nothing remarkable in
Itaparica but its fertility; the landscape is the same in character with
that of Bahia, though in humbler style; but it is fresh and green, and
pleasing. After dining in a palm-grove, and walking about till we were
tired, we re-embarked to return; but the tide was unfavourable; we
drifted among the rocks, where Coutinho, the first founder of the colony
of Bahia, was wrecked and afterwards murdered by the natives, and we
were in consequence four hours in returning home.
26th, 27th, 28th, passed in pleasant enough intercourse with our
countrymen, though neither of us were well enough to go much on shore,
therefore our friends came to us. There are eighteen English mercantile
houses established at Bahia, two French, and two German. The English
trade is principally carried on with Liverpool, which supplies
manufactured goods and salt, in exchange for sugars, rums, tobaccos,
cottons, very little coffee, and molasses. Lately, sugars have been
shipped, on English account, for Hamburgh to a great extent, and I
believe part of the returns are in German or Prussian woollen-cloths.
The province of Bahia, by its neglect of manufactures, is quite
dependent on commerce. But the distance from the sea of the province of
Minas Geraes, has induced the inhabitants to weave not only enough
coarse cotton cloths for home consumption, but even to become an article
of trade with the other captaincies.
In the province of Esperitu Santo, cotton sail-cloth is made; but the
chief trade of this place is _slaving_. This year no less than
seventy-six slave-ships have sailed, without reckoning the smugglers in
that line.
_Sunday, 28th._--Mr. Pennell had kindly fixed to-day for giving us a
party in the country, and accordingly some of our young people were to
go and assist in putting up tents, &c.; but a miscalculation of tide and
time, and a mistake as to the practicability of landing on part of the
beach beyond the light-house, occasioned a variety of adventures and
accidents, without which I have always heard no fête champêtre could be
perfect. However that may be, our party was a pleasant one. Instead of
the tents, we made use of a country-house called the Roça, where beauty
of situation, and neatness in itself and garden, made up for whatever we
might have thought romantic in the tents, had they been erected. It is
the fashion to pave the courts of the country-houses here with dark
pebbles, and to form in the pavement a sort of mosaic with milk-white
shells. The gardens are laid out in alleys, something in the oriental
taste. The millions of ants, which often in the course of a single night
leave the best-clothed orange-tree bare both of leaves and flowers,
render it necessary to surround each tree with a little stucco wall, or
rather canal, in which there is water, till they are strong enough to
recover if attacked by the ants. In the garden at Roça, every shrub of
value, either for fruit or beauty, was so fenced, and there were seats,
and water channels, and porcelain flower-pots, that made me almost think
myself in the East. But there is a newness in every thing here, a want
of interest on account of what has been, that is most sensibly felt. At
most, we can only go back to the naked savage who devoured his prisoner,
and adorned himself with bones and feathers here. In the East,
imagination is at liberty to expatiate on past grandeur, wisdom, and
politeness. Monuments of art and of science meet us at every step:
_here_, every thing, nature herself, wears an air of newness, and the
Europeans, so evidently foreign to the climate, and their African
slaves, repugnant to every wholesome feeling, show too plainly that they
are intruders, ever to be in harmony with the scene. However, Roça is
beautiful, and all those grave thoughts did not prevent us from
delighting in the fair prospect of
"Hill and valley, fountain and fresh shade;"
nor enjoying the scent of oleander, jasmine, tuberose, and rose,
although they are adopted, not native children of the soil.
Of the Portuguese society here I know so very little, that it would be
presumptuous to give an opinion of it. I have met with two or three
well-informed men of the world, and some lively conversable women; but
none of either sex that at all reminded me of the well-educated men and
women of Europe. Here the state of general education is so low, that
more than common talent and desire of knowledge is requisite to attain
any; therefore the clever men are acute, and sometimes a little vain,
feeling themselves so much above their fellow-citizens, and the portion
of book-learning is small. Of those who read on political subjects, most
are disciples of Voltaire, and they outgo his doctrines on politics, and
equal his indecency as to religion; hence to sober people who have seen
through the European revolutions, their discourses are sometimes
disgusting. The Portuguese seldom dine with each other; when they do, it
is on some great occasion, to justify a splendid feast: they meet every
evening either at the play, or in private houses, and in the last case
gamble very deeply. The English society is just such as one may expect.
A few merchants, not of the first order, whose thoughts are engrossed by
sugars and cottons, to the utter exclusion of all public; matters that
do not bear directly on their private trade, and of all matters of
general science or information. Not one knew the name of the plants
around his own door; not one is acquainted with the country ten miles
beyond St. Salvador's; not one could tell me even the situation of the
fine red clay, of which the only manufacture, pottery, here is made: in
short, I was completely out of patience with these incurious
money-makers. I was perhaps unjust to my countrymen: I dare say there
are many who _could_ have told me these things, but I am sure none _did_
tell me, and equally sure that I asked information of all I met with.
But a woman is not, I believe, considered as privileged to know any
thing by these commercial personages. The English are, however,
hospitable and sociable among each other. They often dine together: the
ladies love music and dancing, and some of the men gamble as much as the
Portuguese. Upon the whole, society is at a low, very low scale here
among the English. Good eating and good drinking they contrive, to have,
for the flesh, fish, and fowl are good; fruits and vegetables various
and excellent, and bread of the finest. Their slaves, for the English
are all served by slaves, indeed, eat a sort of porridge of mandioc meal
with small squares of jerked beef stirred into it, or, as their greatest
luxury, stewed caravansas; and this is likewise the principal food of
the lower classes even of the free inhabitants. In the fruit season,
pumpkins, jackfruit, cocoa-nut, and melons, nearly take place of the
mandioc. The huts of the poor are formed of upright poles, with branches
of trees wattled between, and covered and lined either with cocoa-leaf
mats, or clay; the roofs are also thatched. The better houses are built
either of a fine blue stone, quarried on the beach of Victoria, or of
brick. They are all white-washed: where the floor is not laid with wood,
a fine red brick, six to nine inches square, and three in thickness, is
used, and they are roofed with round red tiles. The houses are generally
of one story high, with a room or two above by way of a look-out house.
Under the house is generally a sort of cellar, in which the slaves live;
and really I have sometimes wondered that human beings could exist in
such.
_Friday, 2d November._--Several of our people having yielded to the
temptations of some worthless persons in the town, who induce sailors to
desert in order that they themselves may profit by the premium given for
the discovery of deserters, and having consequently swam on shore, the
frigate has been moved up the harbour as far as Bom Fim, and it is
intended to take her up still higher. I am glad of the opportunity of
seeing more of this beautiful bay, and shall endeavour to land on the
Ilha do Medo, or the point of Itaparica, where the first adventurers
from Europe underwent hardship that appear hardly credible in our modern
days. We also wish to examine the harbour within the funil or passage
between the two islands, and into which the river or creek of Nazareth,
which supplies Bahia with great part of the mandioc flour consumed
there, runs.
_Saturday, 3d November._--Our plan of proceeding farther up the harbour
is suspended for the present. The disputes between the European
Portuguese and the Brazilians in the city, seem to be about to come to a
crisis. Early this morning, we learned that troops were assembling from
all quarters, and that therefore it was advisable, for the protection of
the British property and the persons of the merchants, that the ship
should return to her station opposite to the town. The first provisional
junta has lost several of its members, two of them being gone as
delegates to Lisbon, and others being absent on account of ill health or
disgust. The party opposing this junta talk loudly of independence, and
wish at least one-half of the members of the provisional government to
be native Brazilians. They also complain bitterly, that instead of
redressing the evils they before endured, the junta has increased them
by several arbitrary acts; and assert that one of the members who has a
great grazing estate, has procured a monopoly, by which no man can
supply the market with beef without his permission, so that the city is
ill supplied. Such a ground of complaint will always excite popular
indignation, and it appears now to be at its height. There has already
been some skirmishing, in which, however, I hear there have been only
three men killed. The Brazilian artillery occupies Fort San Pedro; the
governor, and the wreck of the junta, have the town and the palace. The
governor, indeed, has arrested several, I think seventeen persons, in an
arbitrary manner; among these, two of my acquaintance, Colonel
Salvador[72] and Mr. Soares, and have put them, some on board the Don
Pedro, some on board transports in the bay, for the purpose of
transporting them to Lisbon. Some of these persons are not permitted to
have any communication with their families; others, more favoured, are
allowed to carry them with them. These are not the means to conciliate.
We have sent on shore to offer shelter to the ladies, and Captain Graham
has agreed upon certain signals with the consul, in case of increased
danger to his family.
[Note 72: Colonel Salvador, though born in Portugal, has all his
property and connections in Brazil; he served with credit in the
peninsula. Mr. Soares, a Brazilian, had been long in England.]
_Sunday, November 4th._--On looking out at daylight this morning, we saw
artillery planted, and troops drawn up on the platform opposite to the
opera house. I went on shore to see if Miss Pennell, her sister, or any
of our other friends would come on board; but they naturally prefer
staying to the last with their fathers and husbands. Notwithstanding the
warlike movements of these last two days, it appears most likely that
the chiefs of the opposite parties will agree to await the decision of
the cortes at Lisbon, with respect to their grievances, and at least a
temporary peace will succeed to this little disturbance.
It appears, however, next to impossible that things should remain as
they are. The extreme inconvenience of having the supreme courts of
justice so far distant as Lisbon must be more and more felt as the
country increases in population and riches. The deputies to the cortes
are too far removed from their constituents to be guided in their
deliberations or votes by them; and the establishment of so many juntas
of government, each only accountable to the cortes, must be a cause of
internal disorder, if not of civil war, at no distant time.
_Monday, 5th._--A day of heavy tropical rain, which has forced both
parties on shore to house their guns, and to desist for the present from
all farther hostility. The governor, however, continues his arbitrary
arrestations. It is curious how ancient authority awes men; for surely
it is the accustomed obedience to the name of the king, and the dread of
the name of rebellion, that prevents the Brazilians, armed as they are,
from resisting these things.
_Tuesday, November 6th._--The Morgiana, Captain Finlaison, came in from
Rio de Janeiro. She belongs to the African station, and came to Brazil
about some prize business connected with the slave trade. Captain
Finlaison tells me tales that make my blood run cold, of horrors
committed in the French slave ships especially. Of young negresses,
headed up in casks and thrown overboard, when the ships are chased. Of
others, stowed in boxes when a ship was searched; with a bare chance of
surviving their confinement. But where the trade is once admitted, no
wonder the heart becomes callous to the individual sufferings of the
slaves. The other day I took up some old Bahia newspapers, numbers of
the Idade d'Ouro, and I find in the list of ships entered during three
months of this year,
Alive. Dead.
1 slave ship from Moyanbique, 25th March, with 313 180
1 do. 6th March 378 61
1 do. 30th May 293 10
1 do. 29th June from Molendo, 357 102
1 do. 26th June 233 21
____ ___
1574 374
____ ___
So that of the cargoes of these five ships reckoned thus accidentally,
more than one in five had died on the passage!
It seems the English ships of war on the African coast are allowed to
hire free blacks to make up their complements when deficient. There are
several now onboard the Morgiana, two of whom are petty officers, and
they are found most useful hands. They are paid and victualled like our
own seamen.[73]
[Note 73: The negroes of the _Cru_ nation come to Sierra Leone from
a great distance, and hire themselves out for any kind of labour, for
six, eight, or ten months, sometimes for a year or two. They have then
earned enough to go home and live like idle gentlemen, for at least
twice that time, and then return to work. When their engagements on
board men of war are fulfilled, they receive regular discharges and
certificates.]
_Thursday, November 8._--We went on board Morgiana to call on Mrs.
Macgregor, a lively intelligent Spaniard, who with her husband, Colonel
Macgregor, is a passenger. She joined me in visits on shore, where the
only news is, that the governor continues to arrest all persons
suspected of favouring independence.
_November 9._--The Brazilians who occupy the forts of San Pedro and
Santa Maria, had threatened to fire on the Don Pedro, if she attempted
to get under weigh with the state prisoners on board. Nevertheless
during the night she bent her sails, and sailed early this morning,
carrying, it is said, twenty-eight gentlemen, who have been taken up
without any ostensible reason. They are understood to have spoken in
favour of the independence of Brazil. Several of our officers went on
shore to dine with the gentlemen of the English club, who meet once a
month, to eat a very good dinner, and drink an immoderate quantity of
wine for the honour of their country.
_Tuesday, November 13._--We have had, for ten days past, some of the
heaviest showers I remember to have seen, and in going to and from the
ship, we have generally been wet through; nevertheless some of our
friends ventured on board to-day to dine with us, among the rest Colonel
and Mrs. Macgregor; they were a little late, owing to a skirmish between
the Portuguese and Brazilians, that occurred close to their house, just
as they were setting off. Apparently it had not been premeditated, for
the parties were fighting with sticks and stones, as well as swords and
fire-arms. The combatants would not allow any officer in Portuguese
regimentals to pass, so that Colonel Macgregor was obliged to go back
and change his dress before he could come. All this appears to proceed
more from a want of police than any other cause.
_16th_.--Several of our young people and I myself have begun to feel the
bad effects of exposing ourselves too much to the sun and the rain.
Yesterday I was so unwell as to put on a blister for cough and pain in
my side, and several of the others have slight degrees of fever. But
generally speaking, the ship's company has been remarkably healthy.