daily allowance of food. It consisted of farinha, kidney-beans, and
dried beef, a fixed measure of each to every person. One man asked for
two portions, on account of the absence of his neighbour, whose wife had
desired it might be sent to her to make ready for him by the time he
returned. Some enquiries which Mr. P. made about this person, induced me
to ask his history. It seems he is a mulatto boatman, the most trusty
servant on the estate, and rich, because he is industrious enough to
have earned a good deal of private property, besides doing his duty to
his master. In his youth, and he is not now old, he had become attached
to a creole negress, born, like him, on the estate; but he did not marry
her till he had earned money enough to purchase her, in order that their
children, if they had any, might be born free. Since that time, he has
become rich enough to purchase himself, even at the high price which
such a slave might fetch; but his master will not sell him his freedom,
his services being too valuable to lose, notwithstanding his promise to
remain on the estate and work. Unfortunately these people have no
children; therefore on their death their property, now considerable,
will revert to the master. Had they children, as the woman is free, they
might inherit the mother’s property; and there is nothing to prevent the
father’s making over all he earns to her. I wish I had the talent of
novel writing, for the sake of this slave’s story; but my writing, like
my drawing, goes no farther than sketching from nature, and I make
better artists welcome to use the subject.
The evening was very stormy: deep clouds had covered the Organ
Mountains; and vivid lightning, sharp rain, and boisterous wind, had
threatened the fazenda with a night of terror. But it passed away,
leaving all the grand and gloomy beauty of a departed thunder-storm in a
mountainous country; when the moon broke through the clouds, and the
night seemed, from the contrast with the last few hours, even lovelier
than the last. Then just as the
"Sable clouds
Turned forth their silver lining on the night,
And cast a gleam over the tufted grove."
I heard the sounds of music; not such, indeed, as Milton’s echo, with
Henry Lawes’s notes, would have made,--of which the night and the scene
had made me dream; but the voice of the slaves on this their night of
holiday, beguiling their cares with uncouth airs, played on rude African
instruments. Taking one of my ship-mates with me, I immediately went to
the huts of the married slaves, where all merry-makings are held; and
found parties playing, singing, and dancing to the moonlight. A
superstitious veneration for that beautiful planet is said to be pretty
general in savage Africa, as that for the Pleiades was among the
Indians of Brazil; and probably the slaves, though baptized, dance to
the moon in memory of their homes. As for the instruments, they are the
most inartificial things that ever gave out musical sounds; yet they
have not an unpleasing effect. One is simply composed of a crooked
stick, a small hollow gourd, and a single string of brass wire. The
mouth of the gourd must be placed on the naked skin of the side; so that
the ribs of the player form the sounding-board, and the string is struck
with a short stick. A second has more the appearance of a guitar: the
hollow gourd is covered with skin; it has a bridge, and there are two
strings; it is played with the finger. Another of the same class is
played with a bow; it has but one string, but is fretted with the
fingers. All these are called Gourmis. There were, besides, drums made
of the hollow trunks of trees, four or five feet long, closed at one end
with wood, and covered with skin at the other. In playing these, the
drummer lays his instrument on the ground and gets astride on it, when
he beats time with his hands to his own songs, or the tunes of the
gourmis. The small marimba has a very sweet tone. On a flat piece of
sonorous wood a little bridge is fastened; and to this small slips of
iron, of different lengths, are attached, so as that both ends vibrate
on the board, one end being broader and more elevated than the other.
This broad end is played with the thumbs, the instrument being held with
both hands. All these are tuned in a peculiar manner, and with great
nicety, especially the marimba[92]; but, as I am no musician, I cannot
explain their methods.
[Note 92: The simplest of these stringed instruments, and two kinds
of marimba, have found a place in the Jesuit Bonnanis’ _Gabinetto
Armonica_, printed at Rome, 1722, and dedicated to Holy King David. The
great marimba consists of a large wooden frame; in which a number of
hollow canes, about nine inches long, are placed, with the mouth
upwards; across these open ends are laid pieces of sonorous wood, which
being struck with another yield a pleasant sound, like the wooden
armonicas of Malacca. The whole is suspended round the neck, like the
old man’s psaltery in the Dance of Death. Each nation of negroes has its
own peculiar instrument, which its exiles have introduced here. A king
of each tribe is annually elected, to whom his people are obedient,
something in the way of the gipsy monarchy. Before 1806 the election
took place with great ceremony and feasting, and sometimes fighting, in
the Campo de Sta. Anna; and the king of the whole was seated during the
day in the centre of the square under a huge state umbrella. This
festival is now abolished.]
_4th_.--I was very sorry indeed this morning at sunrise, when I saw the
boats ready to convey us from N.S. da Luz, where we had enjoyed our
three days as much as possible; a cheerful party, a kind host, free
disposal of our time, and no business but such as might beseem the
individuals of this castle of indolence, "where every man strolled off
his own glad way."
"There freedom reigned without the least alloy;
Nor gossip's tale, nor ancient maiden’s gall,
Nor saintly spleen, durst murmur at our joy,
And with envenomed tongue our pleasures pall.
For why? There was but one great rule for all;
To wit, that each should work his own desire."
We returned to the ship by a different way from that by which we went,
through the archipelago of beautiful islands on the eastern side of the
harbour; and I had the pleasure to find the Captain really better,
though still with tender feet.
_6th_.--His Majesty’s ship, Slaney, Capt. Stanhope, sailed from Rio.
_7th_.--The Superb arrived from Valparaiso, bringing no news of
importance. Indeed, if she had, we are scarcely in a state to attend to
it: we have sat up all night with B., one of our midshipmen, who is
dangerously ill.
_8th_.--Captain Graham not feeling well enough to leave the ship, I went
with Captain Prescott of the Aurora, to visit the French Commodore
Roussin on board the Amazone. I have seldom been better pleased. The
captains of the other French ships were there, to receive us. All the
urbanity of Frenchmen, joined with the delightful frankness of the
profession, assured us we were welcome. The ship itself, every part of
which we saw, is a model of all that can be done, either in the
dock-yard at home, or by officers afloat, for comfort, health, and
cleanliness, and is well as a man of war. Her captain, however, is a
superior man; and many ships of every and any nation might be visited
before his equal would be met with. I wish it were possible that we
should introduce into our ships the oven on the lower deck, which gives
fresh bread twice a week for the whole ship’s company, not only for the
sake of the bread, but the heating it must air and ventilate the ship.
_9th_.--The Portuguese squadron from Lisbon, with a reinforcement of
troops, arrived off the harbour. Troops are sent to reinforce the
garrisons in the forts, at the entrance; and the ships are forbidden to
enter, but promised victuals and water to carry them to Lisbon. I was on
shore all day on business, preparatory to our sailing for Valparaiso.
Captain Graham being too unwell to venture out of the ship himself, he
therefore undertook to nurse the invalid for me. I returned late. I
found B. dangerously ill, and Captain Graham very uneasy.
I received many persons on board, and took leave of many.
[Illustration]
_10th_.--We sailed at daylight from Rio, in full hope that the cool
weather we shall find on going round Cape Horn, and the fine climate of
Chile, will do us all good. I have not been in bed for three nights; my
invalids are in that state, that night watching is necessary for them.
_13th_.--In addition to our other troubles, the first lieutenant is
taken dangerously ill: but Captain Graham appears better, though not yet
able to go on deck.
_16th_.--Yesterday afternoon the mercury in the barometer sunk in a
very short space of time a whole inch, and we had a gale of wind. The
cold is sensibly increased. Fahrenheit’s thermometer often stood at 92°
in Rio harbour; it is now 68°, and we have many sick. B. is getting
better.
_17th_.--Wind and sea abated, and the barometer rising once more; the
mercury stands at 30 inches and two-tenths. I have lain down at four
o'clock these two mornings, Glennie having kindly relieved my watching
at that hour. We have removed the dead-lights from the cabin windows.
_18th_.--Every thing better. The young people again at school. Some
lunars taken. We are in 36° 55' S. latitude, and the thermometer is at
68°.; barometer 30-2.
On the 19_th_ and 20_th_ the mercury in the barometer sunk gradually
from 30 to 29-02, and rose again as before on the 21st. It blew hard;
the thermometer fell to 58°, in latitude 42° S. There are many
albatrosses and stormy petrels about the ship.
_22d_.--Latitude 46° 25' S., longitude 52° 40' W. The weather very cold,
though the thermometer is at 56°, barometer 29-08; a very heavy swell.
Great numbers of the Cape pigeon about the ship.
_24th_.--Latitude 50° 30'; thermometer 44° morning and evening, 47° at
noon. Seeing two penguins to-day, we supposed some land must be near,
but found no bottom with 100 fathoms line. The cold weather seems to
have a good effect on our invalids. The barometer fell suddenly, and a
strong S.W. wind succeeded, and we were glad to light a fire in the
cabin.
I am sorry we have passed so far out of sight of the Falkland Islands,
Sir John Hawkins’s maiden land. The idea of seeing a town left standing
as it was, by all its inhabitants at once, and of the tame animals
becoming wild, had something romantic. It seemed like a realisation of
the Arabian tale of the half-marble prince, and in real interest comes
near the discovery of the lost Greenland settlements. I do not know any
thing that gratifies the imagination, more than the situations and
incidents that by bringing distant periods of time together, places
them, as it were, at once within our own reach. I remember some years
ago spending a whole day with no companion but my guide at Pompeii, and
becoming so intimate with the ancients, their ways, and manners, that I
felt, when I went home to Naples, and its lazaroni, and its English
travellers, as I suppose, that one of the seven sleepers to have done,
who went to purchase bread with money five centuries old. As to the
marble cities of Moorish Africa, when we consider their exposure to the
sirocco, and read Dolomieu's Experiments on the Atmosphere, during the
prevalence of that wind at Malta, we shall find but too probable a
reason for their existence as reported.
_25th_.--Latitude 51° 58' S., longitude 51° W., thermometer 41°. Strong
south-westerly gales and heavy sea. Just as our friends in England are
looking forward to spring, its gay light days and early flowers, we are
sailing towards frozen regions, where avarice’ self has been forced to
give up half-formed settlements by the severity of the climate. We are
in the midst of a dark boisterous sea; over us, a dense, grey, cold sky.
The albatross, stormy petrel, and pintado are our companions; yet there
is a pleasure in stemming the apparently irresistible waves, and in
wrestling thus with the elements. I forget what writer it is who
observes, that the sublime and the ridiculous border on each other; I am
sure they approach very nearly at sea. If I look abroad, I see the
grandest and most sublime object in nature,--the ocean raging in its
might, and man, in all his honour, and dignity, and powers of mind and
body, wrestling with and commanding it: then I look within, round my
little home in the cabin, and every roll of the ship causes accidents
irresistibly ludicrous; and in spite of the inconveniences they bring
with them, one cannot choose but laugh. Sometimes, in spite of all usual
precautions, of cushions and clothes, the breakfast-table is suddenly
stripped of half its load, which is lodged in the lee scuppers, whither
the coal-scuttle and its contents had adjourned the instant before: then
succeed the school-room distresses of _capsized_ ink-stands, broken
slates, torn books, and lost places; not to mention the loss of many a
painful calculation, and other evils exquisite in their kind, but
abundantly laughable, especially, as it happened just now, if the
school-master is induced to measure his length on the deck, when in the
act of reprimanding the carelessness which subjects the slates and books
to these untoward chances.
_28th_.--Latitude 55° 26' S., longitude 56° 11' W. Captain Graham and
the first lieutenant still both very ill. At one o'clock this morning
the mercury in the barometer sunk to 28-09; at seven it rose again to
29-01. The thermometer is at 38° of Fahrenheit, and we have had squalls
of snow and sleet, and a heavy sea. There are flocks of very small birds
about the ship, and we have seen a great many whales.
_30th_.--Latitude 56° 51' S., longitude 59° W.; the thermometer at 30°
this morning, and 32° at noon. A violent gale of wind from the
south-west; the only thing like a hard gale since we left England. I had
breakfast spread on the cabin deck, as it was not possible to secure any
thing on a table. Clarke, one of the quartermasters, had two ribs broken
by a fall on deck; and Sinclair, a very strong man, was taken ill after
being an hour at the wheel. We have made gloves for the men at the wheel
of canvass, lined with dreadnought; and for the people at night,
waistbands of canvass, with dreadnought linings. The snow and hail
squalls are very severe; ice forms in every fold of the sails. This is
hard upon the men, so soon after leaving Rio in the hottest part of the
year.
Yesterday morning, about an hour before sunrise, a bright meteor was
seen in the south-west. It was first taken for the signal lanterns of a
large ship; then the officer of the watch thought it was a blue light,
and we made no doubt of its being Sir T. Hardy in the Creole. It
remained a long time stationary; then it was lost behind the clouds, and
reappeared between them about 10° high, when it disappeared.[93]
[Note 93: Frezier mentions seeing such a meteor in latitude 57° 30'
S., and longitude 69° W., in 1712.]
_April 1st_.--Latitude 57° 46'; the weather much more mild and moderate.
Our young men have caught a number of birds, principally petrels; the P.
Pelagica, or Mother Cary's chicken, is the least; the P. Pintado is
gayest on the water; but the P. Glacialis, or fulmer, is most beautiful
when brought on board: I cannot enough admire the delicate beauty of the
snow-white plumage, unwet and unsoiled, amid the salt waves. The poets
have scandalised both the arctic and antarctic regions as
"A bleak expanse,
Shagg'd o'er with wavy rocks, cheerless and _void
Of ev'ry life_;"
yet, on Capt. Parry's approach to the north pole, he found the solitude
teeming with _life_; and the farther south we have sailed, the more
_life_ we have found on the waters. Yesterday the sea was covered with
albatrosses, and four kinds of petrel: the penguin comes near us; shoals
of porpoises are constantly flitting by, and whales for ever rising to
the surface and blowing alongside of the ship.
With the thermometer not lower than 30°, we feel the cold excessive.
Yesterday morning the main rigging was cased in ice; and the ropes were
so frozen after the sleet in the night, that it was difficult to work
them. I never see these things but I think of Thomson's description of
Sir Hugh Willoughby's attempt to discover the northwest passage, when
"He with his hapless crew,
Each full exerted at his several task,
Froze into statues; to the cordage glued
The sailor, and the pilot to the helm."
I was glad to-day, when the dead-lights were removed, to see the bright,
blue, but still boisterous sea, spreading with ample waves curled with
snowy tops, in the sunshine; it is many days since we have seen the sun,
and the white birds flying and chattering, or wrestling on the water,
while the ship, like them, sometimes bravely mounts the very top of the
wave, and sometimes quietly subsides with it. These are the things we
behold "who go down to the sea in ships, "and occupy our business in the
great waters." No one can imagine, who has not felt, the exhilaration
of spirits produced by a dry clear day of sunshine at sea, after a week
of rain and snow.
_April 2d_.--A few minutes after noon, an iceberg was reported on the
lee-bow. As I had never seen one, I went on deck for the first time
since we left Rio to see it.[94] It appeared like a moderately high
conical hill, and looked very white upon the bleak grey sky; it might be
about twelve miles from us. The temperature of the water was 36° of
Fahrenheit's thermometer, that of the air 38°, when the ice was nearest.
[Note 94: We passed another on the 8th, which Glennie calculated to
be 410 feet high; it was near enough for us to see the waves break on
it. In conversing on this subject with the officers since,--for at the
time I was indeed unable to think of it,--I find there is reason to
think that, instead of an iceberg, we saw land on the 8th. It was seen
in the latitude and longitude of an island visited by Drake, marked in
the old charts.]
For some few days the violent motion of the ship, occasioned by the
heavy sea, has rendered writing and drawing irksome; for, as Lord
Dorset's song has it,
"Our paper, pens, and ink, and we,
Roll up and down our ships, at sea."
Nevertheless we are not idle. As the cabin has always a good fire in it,
it is the general rendezvous for invalids; and the midshipmen come in
and out as they please, as it is the school-room. In one corner Glennie
has his apparatus for skinning and dissecting the birds we take; and we
have constantly occasion to admire the beautiful contrivances of nature
in providing for her creatures. These huge sea-birds, that we find so
far from any land, have on each side large air-vessels adapted for
floating them in the air, or on the water; they are placed below the
wings, and the liver, gizzard, and entrails rest on them. In each
gizzard of those we have yet opened, there have been two small pebbles,
of unequal size; and the gizzard is very rough within. We have found
more vegetable than animal food in their stomachs.
_20th April, 1822_.--To-day we made the coast of Chile. I had continued
to write my Journal regularly; but though nearly two years are past
since I wrote it, I cannot bring myself to copy it: from the 3d of April
it became a register of acute suffering; and, on my part, of alternate
hopes and fears through days and nights of darkness and storms, which
aggravated the wretchedness of those wretched hours. On the night of the
ninth of April, I regularly undressed and went to bed for the first time
since I left Rio de Janeiro. All was then over, and I slept long and
rested; but I awoke to the consciousness of being alone, and a widow,
with half the globe between me and my kindred.
Many things very painful occurred. But I had comfort too. I found
sympathy and brotherly help from some; and I was not insensible to the
affectionate behaviour of _my boys_, as the midshipmen were called. And
I had the comfort to feel that no stranger hand had closed his eyes, or
smoothed his pillow.
Mr. London and Mr. Kift, the surgeon and assistant surgeon, never left
the bed-side; and, when my strength failed, my cousin Mr. Glennie, and
Mr. Blatchly, two passed midshipmen, did all that friends could do.
Mr. Dance, the second lieutenant,--though, from the illness of the first
lieutenant, the whole business of the ship devolved on him,--found time
to be near his friend's death-bed; and, whether at noon or midnight, was
never absent where kindness could be shown.
But what could any human kindness do for me? My comfort must come from
him who in his own time will "wipe off all tears from our faces."
SECOND VISIT TO BRAZIL.
Before I begin the Journal of my Second Visit to Brazil, from which I
was absent a year and three days, it will be necessary to give a short
account of the principal events which took place during that year, and
which changed the government of the country.
The Prince Regent had in vain sent the most pressing representations in
favour of Brazil to the Cortes. No notice whatever was taken of his
despatches; and the government at Lisbon continued to legislate for
Brazil as if it were a settlement on the coast of savage Africa. The
ministers who had served Don John had seen enough of the country, during
their residence in it, to be persuaded that Brazil, united, was at any
time competent to throw off all subjection to the mother country; the
object, therefore, became to divide it. Accordingly a scheme for the
government of Brazil was framed, by which each captaincy should be ruled
by a junta, whose acts were to be totally independent on each other, and
only recognisable by the authorities in Portugal; and the Prince was
ordered home in a peremptory and indecent manner. I have mentioned in my
Journal the reception those orders had met with, and the resolution His
Royal Highness had adopted of staying in Brazil. As soon as this
resolution became known to the provinces, addresses and deputations
poured in on all sides from every town and captaincy, excepting the city
of Bahia and the province of Maranliam, which had always had a
government independent of the rest of Brazil.
In December, 1821, the King had appointed General Madeira governor of
Bahia and commander of the troops. He entered on his office in February;
and shortly afterwards the first actual warfare between the Portuguese
and Brazilians began in the city of St. Salvador, on the 6th of the
month, when the Brazilians were defeated with some loss.[95] Meantime,
the province of St. Paul's had made every exertion to raise and arm
troops; and early in February 1100 men marched towards Rio, to put
themselves at the disposal of the Prince. Some recruits for the seamen
and marine corps were raised, and a naval academy established, the
object of all which was to prevent the carrying away the Prince by
force. It was now thought advisable that the Prince should visit the two
most important provinces, St. Paul's and the Mines; and on the 26th or
27th of March he left Rio for that purpose, leaving the executive
government in the hands of the minister José Bonifacio. His Royal
Highness was received every where with enthusiasm, until he arrived at
the last stage, on his way to Villa Rica, the capital of the province of
Minas Geraes; there he received intelligence of a party raised to oppose
his entrance by the Juiz de Fora, supported by a captain of one of the
regiments of Caçadores. He immediately caused some troops to be
assembled and joined with those which accompanied him, and then remained
where he was, and sent to the camara of the town, to say he was able to
enter by force, but had rather come among them as a friend and
protector. Several messages passed; the conspirators discovered that the
Prince was, indeed, sufficiently strong to overpower them; and besides,
they met with no support, as they had hoped, from the magistrates or
people. His Royal Highness, therefore, entered Villa Rica on the 9th of
April, and on the magistrates and people attending to compliment him, he
addressed them thus:--
"Brave Mineros! The shackles of despotism, which began to be loosened on
the 24th of August in Porto, are now bursting in this province. Be
free,--be constitutional! Unite with me, and proceed constitutionally. I
rely entirely on you. Do you depend on me. Let not yourselves be deluded
by those who seek the ruin of your province, and of the whole nation.
Viva, The Constitutional King!
Viva, Our Religion!
Viva, All honest men!
Viva, The Mineros!"
[Note 95: On the 25th of May following a solemn mass was performed
for the souls of those who had fallen on both sides, at the expense of
the Bahians resident at Rio, in the church of San Francesco de Paulo.
The cenotaph raised in the church was surrounded by inscriptions, in
Latin and Portuguese; one of the most striking is, "Eternal glory to
those who give their blood for their country."
("He quha dies for his cuntre
Sal herbyrit intil bewyn be," says _Barbour_.)
The day was one of those Brazilian rainy days, when it should seem
another deluge was coming: but the Prince and Princess were the first at
the ceremony.]
The next day the Prince held a general court, and remained eleven days
at Villa Rica. The only punishment inflicted on the conspirators, was
suspension from their offices; and this royal visit attached this
province to him, as firmly as those of St. Paul's and Rio.
He returned to Rio de Janeiro on the 25th, where he was received in the
most flattering manner, and where he became daily more popular; and on
the 13th of May, King John's birth-day, the senate and people bestowed
on him the title of Perpetual Defender of Brazil, and thenceforward his
style was, CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCE REGENT, AND PERPETUAL DEFENDER OF THE
KINGDOM OF BRAZIL.