THE BAY OF ALL BEAUTIES.
I have said that I must pass over Rio without a description; but just
now such a flood of scented reminiscences steals over me, that I must
needs yield and recant, as I inhale that musky air.
More than one hundred and fifty miles’ circuit of living green hills
embosoms a translucent expanse, so gemmed in by sierras of grass, that
among the Indian tribes the place was known as “The Hidden Water.” On
all sides, in the distance, rise high conical peaks, which at sunrise
and sunset burn like vast tapers; and down from the interior, through
vineyards and forests, flow radiating streams, all emptying into the
harbour.
Talk not of Bahia de Todos os Santos—the Bay of All Saints; for though
that be a glorious haven, yet Rio is the Bay of all Rivers—the Bay of
all Delights—the Bay of all Beauties. From circumjacent hillsides,
untiring summer hangs perpetually in terraces of vivid verdure; and,
embossed with old mosses, convent and castle nestle in valley and glen.
All round, deep inlets run into the green mountain land, and, overhung
with wild Highlands, more resemble Loch Katrines than Lake Lemans. And
though Loch Katrine has been sung by the bonneted Scott, and Lake Leman
by the coroneted Byron; yet here, in Rio, both the loch and the lake
are but two wild flowers in a prospect that is almost unlimited. For,
behold! far away and away, stretches the broad blue of the water, to
yonder soft-swelling hills of light green, backed by the purple
pinnacles and pipes of the grand Organ Mountains; fitly so called, for
in thunder-time they roll cannonades down the bay, drowning the blended
bass of all the cathedrals in Rio. Shout amain, exalt your voices,
stamp your feet, jubilate, Organ Mountains! and roll your Te Deums
round the world!
What though, for more than five thousand five hundred years, this grand
harbour of Rio lay hid in the hills, unknown by the Catholic
Portuguese? Centuries ere Haydn performed before emperors and kings,
these Organ Mountains played his Oratorio of the Creation, before the
Creator himself. But nervous Haydn could not have endured that
cannonading choir, since this composer of thunderbolts himself died at
last through the crashing commotion of Napoleon’s bombardment of
Vienna.
But all mountains are Organ Mountains: the Alps and the Himalayas; the
Appalachian Chain, the Ural, the Andes, the Green Hills and the White.
All of them play anthems forever: The Messiah, and Samson, and Israel
in Egypt, and Saul, and Judas Maccabeus, and Solomon.
Archipelago Rio! ere Noah on old Ararat anchored his ark, there lay
anchored in you all these green, rocky isles I now see. But God did not
build on you, isles! those long lines of batteries; nor did our blessed
Saviour stand godfather at the christening of yon frowning fortress of
Santa Cruz, though named in honour of himself, the divine Prince of
Peace!
Amphitheatrical Rio! in your broad expanse might be held the
Resurrection and Judgment-day of the whole world’s men-of-war,
represented by the flag-ships of fleets—the flag-ships of the
Phoenician armed galleys of Tyre and Sidon; of King Solomon’s annual
squadrons that sailed to Ophir; whence in after times, perhaps, sailed
the Acapulco fleets of the Spaniards, with golden ingots for
ballasting; the flag-ships of all the Greek and Persian craft that
exchanged the war-hug at Salamis; of all the Roman and Egyptian galleys
that, eagle-like, with blood-dripping prows, beaked each other at
Actium; of all the Danish keels of the Vikings; of all the musquito
craft of Abba Thule, king of the Pelaws, when he went to vanquish
Artinsall; of all the Venetian, Genoese, and Papal fleets that came to
the shock at Lepanto; of both horns of the crescent of the Spanish
Armada; of the Portuguese squadron that, under the gallant Gama,
chastised the Moors, and discovered the Moluccas; of all the Dutch
navies red by Van Tromp, and sunk by Admiral Hawke; of the forty-seven
French and Spanish sail-of-the-line that, for three months, essayed to
batter down Gibraltar; of all Nelson’s seventy-fours that
thunder-bolted off St. Vincent’s, at the Nile, Copenhagen, and
Trafalgar; of all the frigate-merchantmen of the East India Company; of
Perry’s war-brigs, sloops, and schooners that scattered the British
armament on Lake Erie; of all the Barbary corsairs captured by
Bainbridge; of the war-canoes of the Polynesian kings, Tammahammaha and
Pomare—ay! one and all, with Commodore Noah for their Lord High
Admiral—in this abounding Bay of Rio these flag-ships might all come to
anchor, and swing round in concert to the first of the flood.
Rio is a small Mediterranean; and what was fabled of the entrance to
that sea, in Rio is partly made true; for here, at the mouth, stands
one of Hercules’ Pillars, the Sugar-Loaf Mountain, one thousand feet
high, inclining over a little, like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. At its
base crouch, like mastiffs, the batteries of Jose and Theodosia; while
opposite, you are menaced by a rock-founded fort.
The channel between—the sole inlet to the bay—seems but a biscuit’s
toss over; you see naught of the land-locked sea within till fairly in
the strait. But, then, what a sight is beheld! Diversified as the
harbour of Constantinople, but a thousand-fold grander. When the
Neversink swept in, word was passed, “Aloft, top-men! and furl
t’-gallant-sails and royals!”
At the sound I sprang into the rigging, and was soon at my perch. How I
hung over that main-royal-yard in a rapture High in air, poised over
that magnificent bay, a new world to my ravished eyes, I felt like the
foremost of a flight of angels, new-lighted upon earth, from some star
in the Milky Way.