each gentler tribe was interested in their destruction; and by open
fight or secret ambush wasted their population, and robbed them of their
food. The Guaymures had neither industry nor foresight, they were
therefore exposed to perpetual want and suffering, even in that
bounteous climate, where nature’s liberality almost out-runs the wishes
of man: the rainy season produced amongst them the most grievous
diseases, (for they had no better lodgings than trees) and the sick
abandoned by their relations, perished in crowds every winter from
starvation and bodily anguish.
Even while drawing this horrid picture, De Castro added some faint
touches descriptive of humanity: here and there he could record an
instance of magnanimity or of mercy, which inspired Sebastian with the
hope of reclaiming these unhappy creatures from their habits of blood.
The tribe was now reduced to a number comparatively trifling; their
situation was deplorable, “for every man’s hand was against them and
their hand was against every man;” they were hunted like wild animals:
thus pressed by famine and by persecution, they might not perhaps be so
difficult to tame. Sebastian paused and considered.
“Force and terror have been used in vain,” said he, “let us then try
gentleness: I still think so well of human nature, as to believe that no
heart is beyond the touch of gratitude. The dismal condition of this
exasperated race goes to my soul; surely I shall be able to convince
them that I pity them, that I wish to succour them, that I want nothing
from them, and if so, to win their affection will not be a chimerical
attempt.”
As it would be prudent for Sebastian to shun scrutiny and promiscuous
society in the capital, and as the viceroy now offered him a lodge near
a country house of his own, within a league of the Guaymures, Sebastian
instantly resolved to take up his abode there.
In this retirement his active mind would still find employment and
objects of interest. The new task of humanizing a savage race, of
teaching them the arts of European nations, elevating their thoughts
beyond the mere animal part of our nature, and leading them to the
knowledge and the worship of the one true God, would be a task of
permanent gratification.
Blessed with love and friendship, and having regained the power of
benefitting his fellow-creatures, he would no longer feel existence a
blank: he would no longer consider this portion of his life wasted
without memorial or recompence. It was sweet also to reflect, that such
a plan embraced not merely his own views, but the peaceful wishes of
Kara Aziek; sharing in each others satisfaction, both would be
satisfied.
Having agreed on the propriety of extreme circumspection in their future
intercourse, yet determining to avoid any appearance of mystery, the
King and Don Emanuel settled the mode of their mutual visits. As a
Portuguese merchant desirous of using his wealth for public good, the
viceroy’s consideration of him might pass uncensured: his money and
jewels were to be deposited for the present in the treasury of St.
Salvador, and hereafter, part of it might be employed advantageously in
commerce; with the remainder he could follow at will the dictates of
benevolence.
Eager to impart this amiable project to Kara Aziek and to Caspar,
Sebastian took leave of De Castro, who scarcely knew how to yield to
the formalities imposed by his situation, since they retained him from
hastening to pay the homage of duty and inclination to the wife of his
sovereign.
A servant conducted the supposed merchant from the presence of the
viceroy, to his temporary lodging in the city, where welcomed by her he
loved, and by him he esteemed, Sebastian gave himself to joy, and strove
to forget those horrid features of perfidy and depravity which the hand
of De Castro had unveiled.
After this period, a scene completely new, opened before the King of
Portugal; he removed to the house destined for him near the district of
Guaymures, where he devoted himself to win the confidence of a
suspicious and cruel, because fearful and once ill-used people.
By his orders the desolate solitude was filled with cottages, to which
he invited his wandering neighbours: his first care was to supply their
wants without exacting or seeming to wish for any influence over their
feelings. He frequently allured their children to his dwelling, and
returned them to their native forests, loaded with presents of ornament
and use: the children communicated a portion of their own curiosity to
their parents, and these were thus brought to come and be spectators of
his conduct.
Imitating the example of Orpheus (the first tamer of men,) Sebastian
touched their hearts through the purest of our senses: his flute, joined
to the yet softer voice of Kara Aziek, called from their remotest haunt
the amazed and delighted savages. Thus beguiled near him, they witnessed
the comforts and the elegancies of polished life, in his own beautiful
residence; from wandering, they came to understand and to admire; and
the transition was easy from admiration to the wish of possession, and
the desire of imitation.
One by one they deserted their woods and came to dwell in his cottages;
at length they sent their children to the schools he established, in
which the most simple and useful manufactures were taught. They learned
to trust and to love him: by degrees they lost all doubt, they passed
from the extreme of suspicion, to the extreme of confidence: and soon,
as if drawn by magnetic force, the whole of the Guaymures deserted their
mountain dens, abandoned their precarious existence, crouded around his
colony, asking to be instructed in the arts of agriculture and building.
Industry like knowledge, has the property of humanizing; for the
Guaymures ceased to delight in destruction: in proportion as they
acquired the power of creating comfort around them, they became
disgusted with scenes of wretchedness; and Sebastian had soon the
gratification of beholding a people tamed by kindness, and rapidly
proceeding in the path of improvement.
The village of Cachoeira became a town; it grew into the wonder and the
boast of Brazil.
It was situated in a deep valley, embosomed among mountains covered with
forests; the gentle Cachoeira washed their feet: plantations of young
sugar-canes, maize and cotton, clothed the earth with their tender
green; domestic cattle were seen feeding in meadows of the most
luxuriant verdure; and round the lightly-constructed cottages arose
gardens, in which beauty blended with utility.
The various and brilliant flowers of that benevolent climate grew there
spontaneous: bowers of Tatai-iba and Guaiba appeared together, the
purple fruitage of the one, and the glittering leaves and variegated
blossoms of the other, mingled in the same shade.
Sometimes in summer evenings when the sun was about to set, and a
freshening spirit breathed upon the reviving sense, Sebastian and Kara
Aziek would sit under the flowery porch of their dwelling, and delight
themselves with the joyous scene.
The village, with its white buildings, (each surrounded by cultivated
ground) afforded a smiling prospect: its simple inhabitants released
from labour, were collected under the shade of their trees, observing
the sports of their children, as they pursued the gaudy insects of the
country from flower to flower. Above their heads, shining like coloured
foils in the sun and varying the spotless blue of the heavens, myriads
of birds (whose plumage has no rival in our colder skies,) were seen
flashing to and fro. Everything was magnificent, or beautiful, or
cheerful: the very reptiles gliding through the grass, partook of beauty
and glowed with living gold.
Sometimes a sudden and heavy rain would transiently interrupt their
festivity, and fall with a mighty noise alarming to those who have never
heard it before: but these fearful showers are of short continuance,
they cease as suddenly as they commence; again the veil would disappear
from the azure sky, again the scattered birds would sparkle in the
setting light; and rainbows of inconceivable magnitude and splendor,
would stretch from height to height, clasping in their gigantic arch the
dark and massy forests below.
Far remote from the depths of these pathless woods, would come the sound
of mountain-torrents and river falls which the rain had hastily swelled.
Sebastian saw not the forests of Brazil without sublime emotions: their
depth, their darkness, the immeasurable height of their trees, (whose
thick branches had been woven together since creation;) the strange and
solemn sounds proceeding from them, (to which the mind could not affix
any distinct image, but which were indeed the mixed noise of insects, of
birds, and of serpents, that dwelt among their innumerous leaves) all
conspired to arrest and fix attention.
These vast solitudes seemed to him like the impenetrable depths of time
past, and time to come: he contemplated them with similar feelings, and
often did their mysterious gloom soberize his thoughts, when the
delighted spirit of Kara Aziek had beguiled him into joyance. Then, lost
in profound reveries, he would amaze himself with comparing the
different parts of his chequered life: the years of his youth and
prosperity, those of his manhood and misfortune would pass in review
before him, and while he alternately remembered the days he had spent
amongst the nobles in Portugal, and those he had lingered out in bitter
servitude in Africa, he started to find himself thus isolated from all
that was familiar, an individual almost solitary, standing on the shore
of the broad Atlantic, teaching savages how to live, and peaceably
gliding through existence without a name, a station, almost without a
wish!
But was there not a voice within his own breast, the sound of which was
more precious to him than the loudest blast of fame? Were there not eyes
that looked on him with such fulness of love and joy that he needed no
livelier emotion?
The countenance of Kara Aziek beamed with her happy and approving heart:
she beheld her Sebastian with enthusiasm, for she saw in him at
Cachoeira, more than a King.
What palace could present so majectic a spectacle as the populous and
busy valley which his beneficence had spread with dwellings and crouded
with inhabitants? What train of courtiers, what pomp of ceremonies might
compare with the touching and sublime sight of parents and children,
husbands and wives, hanging round his steps, with thanks and
assiduities, abhorring their former brutish and desperate lives, and
owing to him all the blessings of civilization?
The savages reclaimed from their barbarous habits, and won to imitate
the social virtues by feeling their sweet effects, were led to seek
some acquaintance with their benefactor’s worship.
It was to this point Sebastian had looked for the only binding principle
capable of cementing and giving duration to the virtues they had learned
from selfish motives, but which it was necessary for them to practise
with nobler feelings, in order to deserve the name of virtuous. He
taught them the religion he believed and loved himself; but he spoke
only to their hearts, they were not yet sufficiently enlightened to
comprehend a direct appeal to their reason. He bewildered not their
just-awakening intellect by such mysterious contradictions as the
professors of popery were used to force upon their converts: it was
enough for him to place them on the right track, confident that as their
minds expanded by exercise on minor subjects, their moral and religious
views would expand also.
At first the monks adjacent, were clamorous against this heresy of the
Indians, but Don Emanuel De Castro’s authority suppressed their
murmurs, and the Brazilian Portuguese relieved from the terror which the
Guaymures formerly inspired, and benefitted by the gold of their
countryman, suffered themselves to believe that to no other form of
Christian worship would these savages have submitted.
Thus protected by the power of Don Emanuel, and assured of his
friendship, Sebastian was content to remain in exile from his country
and his throne, while Providence allowed him thus amply to fill even an
obscure sphere of usefulness. His soul and his senses had pleasures in
Brazil far superior to all they had ever enjoyed in the old world: the
sight of so many human beings rescued from the misery of ignorance,
indolence, and crime, was a never-ceasing source of satisfaction; and to
this was added the society of a tried friend, (for Gaspar had come to
Cachoeira) and the perpetual possession of her who summed up in herself
all that was necessary to complete the happiness of Sebastian: she
delighted his taste, she filled his heart.
The magnificent scenery of Brazil, its wondrous productions, and
balsamic climate, added to his enjoyments by producing a variety of
pleasurable sensations; he tasted for the first time a sweet and
tranquil happiness; tranquil because it was profound and constant in its
flow: he forgot not his kingdom, but he thought of it with less anxiety,
and knowing that his days were passed in action, he ceased to regret his
separation from other duties.
Kara Aziek’s soul dwelt in the light of his: like the beautiful planet
of night she reflected his happiness with a softened brightness. He knew
himself the source of all the blessings he witnessed around him,
therefore his feelings were animated and striking; she lived to love his
goodness, to watch the daily colour of his mind, to adapt herself to the
passing humour of the hour, to receive her bliss from the knowledge of
his, and that bliss therefore wore a tenderer and more touching aspect.
Her natural humility taught her to overlook the value of her own
character and actions; but Sebastian marked them all with fond
approbation; and often pausing to regard her as she administered to the
wants or infirmities of the aged Guaymures, he confessed to himself that
to elevate her to a throne would be to remove her from a scene in which
the most endearing virtues of her soul were exercised.
Gaspar alone preserved an undiminished thirst for his King’s
restoration: he beheld him with a devotion nearly allied to idolatry,
and in proportion as that exalted friend became absorbed in his new
duties and delighted with the pleasures growing out of them, Gaspar’s
admiration and love increased, and with them his wish to see him
re-seated on the throne of his ancestors.
He languished to have those royal virtues shine upon his own country; he
languished to have that chastened character known in its full
excellence, where it was now remembered only with a mixture of esteem
and blame. His eyes would often fill with tears, while those of
Sebastian and Kara Aziek were sparkling with amiable sympathy in the
simple pastimes of their Indians; but his heart shared in that sympathy,
and could he have dismissed this one source of repining, he too, would
have been compleatly happy at Cachoeira.
CHAP. VIII.
Time trod on down, for his step was unheard, and the months as they
stole by, glided away like so many hours: a new source of happiness was
given to Kara Aziek and to Sebastian; they became parents.
To those who know not the sacredness of such tender connexions, or who
feel not the delightful endearingness of children, the birth of an
infant seems an event of little interest; but O! who that loves to
contemplate the purest innocence under the purest and loveliest form,
the unconscious trust and dependance of infancy, the charm of its
smiles, its caresses and its slumbers, who that loves or possesses a
child can deem the mother’s and the father’s joy a trifling emotion?
As Kara Aziek wrapt her arms around her babe, she seemed to enfold it
with her whole heart; she felt as if she now possessed her Sebastian
more perfectly than before: she loved him still in his offspring, and
the idea of her own being never once mingled with this fond sentiment.
His emotion was as heart-penetrating: in one moment every regret, every
anxiety, every other thought fled from his mind; with his infant in his
arms, and his eyes alternately resting upon it and Aziek, he wanted
nothing more, here seemed the boundary of his views, here seemed the
completion of all his wishes!
When Gaspar first embraced the little Blanche, his heart overflowed at
his eyes: forgetting the prudential caution which his royal master had
long demanded of him, that of waving even in private, all forms of
peculiar respect, he dropt on his knees, and holding up the child,
exclaimed vehemently,
“Is this noble babe to grow up in obscurity?--O Sire, are we ever to
live thus, banished from our country?”
Sebastian understood the appeal which Gaspar’s agitation would not
permit him to finish; a sudden flush crimsoned his cheek, some of its
former fire kindled in his eye--he took Blanche from his friend, and
looking at her fixedly, remained for awhile in thought, then restoring
her to her mother, turned towards him:
“No Gaspar!” he said, “we shall not live ever thus; I hope to draw my
last breath in our native land, and leave there on its throne, and in
the hearts of its people, this smiling girl:--but once undone by
rashness, I will not a second time be the cause of my own ruin. The
favourable hour is not yet come; let us await it with confidence, let us
sow the seed that is to reward us in the time of harvest: my child’s
first years should pass in tranquillity and instruction.”
Gaspar grew pale; “Years!” he repeated, “What Sire, are years to pass?”
The King interrupted him: “I speak of what may, not absolutely what will
be; Providence perhaps destines otherwise, and by some fortunate change
in the politics of Europe, may open for me a path to Portugal. But
through blood, through horror, and desolation, over the breaking hearts
of thousands, never will I trample to my throne.--O Gaspar! there is a
wound in this heart of mine, not to be healed; a wound which makes me a
coward at encountering others!
“The memory of what I have brought on wretched Portugal, palsies
my arm, even as it rises to strike her oppressor; what a struggle!
what proscription! what misery would follow if prompted by
impatience,----no--speak of it no more; rely on my inextinguishable
love for the people I once protected; and be assured that _I feel the
rights of my child_.”
Gaspar recognised in the tone of Sebastian, his master and his King; he
bowed respectfully and stood silent.
Kara Aziek divining his fear of having offended, turned on him a look of
healing softness, and said kindly, “It is honourable for you both to
feel thus differently on the same subject: my Sebastian would have
spoken like Gaspar had he not been Sebastian.”
Gaspar’s crimsoned face was immediately bathed in tears, he rushed
forward, and joining the extended hands of Aziek and her lord within his
own, he kissed them vehemently and repeatedly.
From that moment the little Blanche became the object of universal
interest: De Castro contemplated her as the future sovereign of
Portugal, and every time his eye fell on her, he mused over times to
come, and lost himself in a labyrinth of anticipation and conjecture.
Gaspar spoke no more of her royal birth, but he nourished expectations
to which reason gave no sanction: his ardent fancy appointed certain
periods for the completion of certain events, and still as those periods
passed by without altering the destiny of his King, he only removed his
hopes a little further, and beguiled himself with a new delusion.
Sebastian alternately delivered up his soul to the full enjoyment of
wedded and parental love, (forgetting the world in their Elysium) or
pondered with deep solicitude on the future destiny of his child.
An adherence to our rights, is next to self-preservation the strongest
principle of our nature: this principle yet survived in the breast of
Sebastian, struggling against that excess of remorse for a past error,
which led him to acquiesce in his obscurity: to this was added the
notion of owing to his daughter the inheritance he had received from his
ancestors.
At each arrival of ships from Europe, the news they brought would render
him thoughtful and joyless, for no ray of light broke through the gloom
that enveloped Portugal. He heard fresh details of her suffering and her
abasement; he heard livelier descriptions of her tyrant’s giant power:
he learnt that France was consuming with intestine divisions in her
church and state, England waging a perpetual though vigorous contest
with jealousy abroad and malecontents at home, and Rome espousing the
cause of Philip in his war with the low countries, where the
assassination of the brave Prince of Orange, (a deed to which Philip’s
gold had bribed the murderer) left the states under the guardianship of
a youth, from whose tender years it was folly to expect wisdom.
Where then was the country that would receive, where was the potentate
that could succour a fugitive King?
These considerations frequently discussed with Don Emanuel, and
discoursed on in sweet confidence with Gaspar; were sufficient to
reconcile Sebastian to the privation of that rank and power which now he
coveted solely for his child: nay, sometimes he almost congratulated
himself on the leisure his retirement afforded for the culture of her
beautiful little body, and her inquiring mind.
With the sweetness and loveliness of her mother, Blanche inherited the
fine constitution of her father; and taught to share the sports of the
Indian children, became like them, light, agile, and healthful.
Crowned with the clustered roses of the Vruca, as she led the fairy
train of her companions, in self-invented dances under the shade of
cedars and ibiripitangas, or as sportively dragging the docile and
loving Barémel in flowery chains, she flew like a breeze over the
meadows, Sebastian joyed to trace the resemblance of his best beloved,
in that silken hair and those large dark eyes, which as yet knew but two
expressions, delight and compassion.
Kara Aziek would stand leaning on the shoulder of her husband, tenderly
noting the graceful varieties of Blanche’s infant figure, the glowing
transparency of her skin, (set off by contrast with her dusky
associates) the symmetry of her features, and those evanescent dimples
which now appeared, now vanished, about her smiling mouth. All these
were the characteristics of Sebastian; and a virtuous love was still the
first sentiment in the constant heart of Kara Aziek, her child became
dearer for resembling her husband.
It was her delight to observe in her childish mind and heart, the same
resemblance in properties and qualities: it was her aim to nourish, to
increase, to fix them.
Blanche was accustomed to hear from her infancy the eulogium of virtue,
she was accustomed to see the effects produced by goodness and kindness,
and she grew up therefore in such habits of active benevolence, that to
have seen any one live wholly for themselves, however innocently, would
have been in her eyes a sort of moral phenomenon.
The tenderness of her mother and the ardour of her father, were blended
in her character; but if either quality predominated, it was the
feminine one of tenderness.
Gaspar and Barémel were her dearest companions; at the voice of the
first she would at any time fly from her gayest pastime, to go with him
over the plantations he superintended, or to steal into some mountain
cleft, where he discoursed to her of the old world and its inhabitants.
Gaspar thought only of preparing her mind for the august station he
believed her born to occupy, and he became therefore a student for her
sake.
The history of his own country, and of all the other European kingdoms,
was now familiar to him; he collected the books which treated of their
political events, their laws and customs; he tasked his memory to
recollect whatever his grandfather and uncles had told him of the days
of Charles V. those days in which Europe was a scene of splendid but
fearful rivalry between two powerful Princes.