RIO DE JANEIRO.
_November 26th._—The heat of the mornings on shore is becoming so
intense as to make walking oppressive. Till the setting in of the
sea-breeze about mid-day, the ship is altogether more desirable than any
other place accessible to us. Moored in the direct line of the winds
from the sea, her decks with awnings spread fore and aft, form a
delightful lounging-place; one never without attractions, in the
constant movements on the bay, and the varying and beautiful effects
produced upon its imagery, by hourly atmospheric changes. This you can
readily understand from daily experience at Riverside. Like the verandah
there, the poop of the Congress here commands a wide-spread panorama of
water, mountain, and valley, ever varying in its aspects of lights and
shade, sunshine and clouds, tints and coloring, and tempting one to give
too much time to mere admiration of the changing picture.
When the atmosphere is peculiarly brilliant, the mountains stand out
with a nearness and strength of light that exposes to clear view the
chisellings of their minutest features. With a good glass, every rock
and tree, and almost every shrub, of the nearer ranges is then brought,
seemingly, within touch; while the sublime chain, forty and fifty miles
distant in the north, exhibits, through the same medium, not only the
fantastic spikes and fingers from which it derives its name, but the
minuter formations of the wooded sides also, furrowed by water-courses,
and streaked here and there with the silver line of a cataract in a deep
glen. Then again, the whole stand, with undistinguishable features, like
massive walls of purple and blue, the upper profile only of their jagged
outlines being marked boldly against the sky.
In the morning, the whole bay is smooth and glassy as a lake, one vast
mirror, along whose edges are repictured in strong and unbroken
reflection, mountain and city, church-tower, fortress, and convent, in
minute fidelity, while all the men-of-war, and the little craft floating
by with useless sails, lie in duplicate around. The sun glares hotly—not
a breath of air is stirring, and every one is oppressed. But watching
seaward, the topsails of the inward-bound in the far offing are seen, by
and by, to be gently filling with a breeze; presently, ‘cats-paw’ after
‘cats-paw’ comes creeping through the channel and up the bay; till soon,
in place of a glaring and oppressive calm, its surface is dancing with
‘white-caps;’ the lateen sail boats, careening to the wind and dashing
the spray from their bows, rush past and around us like “playful things
of life;” the inward-bound with wide-spread wings come hastening to the
anchorage; every one drinks in with delight the welcome draught; and for
the rest of the day, new aspects and new life are imparted to every
thing and every body. At times, this sea-breeze is supplanted by a half
gale from the same direction, causing so much of a swell as to raise
breakers between us and the landing, and partially to interrupt
communication with the shore. This was the case a day or two since, when
the surf rolled along nearly the whole length of the city. The change in
the temperature too, is frequently so great as to lead to the
substitution of cloth clothing for that of light summer wear, and to the
buttoning closely of the coat to avoid a sense of chilliness.
Towards evening the sea-breeze ordinarily dies away; and, by sunset, a
glassy surface again reflects the gorgeous coloring which now mantles
the mountains, and gilds with brightness the prominent architecture of
the city. As the short twilight settles into darkness, regular lines of
brilliant lamps gleam for miles along the shores on either side of the
bay, and up the ridges and over the tops of the hills in the city; the
bright radiance of unnumbered stars falls from above; and the
land-breeze, gently fanning down the mountain sides, brings with it the
freshness and fragrance of their woods and flowers.
Often a thunder-storm of thick blackness, with forked lightning, is seen
raging among the mountain peaks without approaching nearer; and oftener
still, magnificently culminating summer clouds, heaped pile upon pile
above them, exhibit a play of electric light, of a beauty and splendor
sufficient for the pastime of the evening. We had a remarkable display
of this kind a night or two ago; the flashes were more vivid and more
incessant than I recollect ever before to have witnessed. Masses of
black clouds, towering to the zenith on every side, made the night
exceedingly dark. In the momentary intervals between the flashes there
was a darkness that might almost be felt—utterly impenetrable even at
the shortest distance—and making inexpressibly grand and beautiful the
more than mid-day brightness which instantly followed, disclosing to
microscopic view every object far and near.
From the cause named at the beginning of this date—the heat of the
mornings—my visits on shore, for the long walk which you know to be an
essential daily enjoyment to me, are chiefly in the later hours of the
afternoon and evening. As the last regular boat of the ship leaves the
shore punctually at sunset, this necessity of choosing so late a period
of the day would subject me to the inconvenience of coming off in a
shore boat, and the disgust of breathing the atmosphere by which the
vicinity of the common landing is nightly polluted, were it not for the
social arrangements of the Commodore. Intimacy with the Ambassador and
his family, and other American friends in the same neighborhood, leads
him with Mr. G—— to pass most of his evenings at the Praya Flamengo. His
barge awaits him regularly, at nine o’clock, at a sheltered and pleasant
landing near the Gloria Hill. A seat in this is always in reserve for
me; and, whether visiting with him or not, I am sure of a passage in
good season to the ship. I am thus left at liberty to range the hills
and valleys at my pleasure towards the close of day, and to take my fill
of such delights as nature, in her exuberance and ever-varying beauty in
ten thousand forms, here affords. A chief drawback to the pleasure is
the want of a companion in my rambles. Such of my messmates as have a
round of ship’s duty in their order, find sufficient exercise in pacing
the decks in its discharge, and are often too much fatigued to start in
search of the picturesque; others, though at leisure, less inured to
fatigue than I am, think the beauty of the upland haunts I most
frequent, scarcely worth the effort required at all points, in the first
sharp ascent of a half mile, by which only they are attained. Hence my
evening strolls of this kind are solitary: still—
“My steps are not alone
In these bright walks; the sweet southwest, at play,
Flies, rustling, where the tropic leaves are strown
Along the winding way.
And far in heaven the while,
The sun that sends the gale to wander here,
Pours out on the fair earth the quiet smile—
That sweetens all the year.”
The row, at night, of two miles and more to the ship is of itself a
pleasure: sometimes beneath a bright moon, with the palm-topped trees
and convent towers of Santa Theresa on our left, marked in silver
against the sky; sometimes amid a darkness which leaves nothing for our
guide but the signal lanterns for the Commodore, at the peak of the
far-off Congress; and sometimes again, amid a display of phosphorescence
in the water, sufficient to excite both admiration and surprise. The
regular dip of the oars, then, creates splendid coruscations: streams of
apparent fire run from the uplifted blades, while the barge, under the
impulse of fourteen stalwart oarsmen, rushes on through a wide trough
seemingly of molten silver.
But I am forgetting the object for which I opened my journal—to say,
that in despite of the heat, I have spent two mornings, within the past
week, in a stroll along the shaded side of the Rua Ouvidor, in company
with the Commodore, Captain and Mr. G——, on a visit of curiosity to the
various shops with which it is lined. The show windows of these rival
those of Broadway, in the display of rich fancy goods of English,
French, and German manufacture, and of jewelry, articles of vertu,
drawings, engravings, and bijouterie. Among the jewellers’ shops which
we entered was one, having for its sign the imperial arms and crown in
rich gilding—thus indicating the special patronage of their majesties
and the court. The person in attendance received us most politely, and,
though we at once apprised him that our object was not to purchase,
exhibited his choicest caskets, from those valued at a few hundred
dollars to those at as many tens of thousands. Most of the contents were
native diamonds and other precious stones tastefully arranged and
artistically set. The workmen here are celebrated for skill in this
respect, and for the delicacy and finish of their filagree in silver,
and chasings in gold. Rio is also celebrated for the manufacture of
artificial flowers from feathers. Those most valued are of the choicest
and rarest humming birds. The changing tints of some of these are more
rich and varied than those of the opal. Such are much prized and are
expensive. The counterpart of a set recently ordered by the Princess de
Joinville was as costly as so much jewelry. The manufactories are in
large shops open entirely in front to the street, and, the artisans
being chiefly young girls, are favorite resorts and lounging places of
shoppers and idlers.
It must not be inferred that in thus spending a morning in shopping, we
were encroaching on the prerogatives of the ladies of Brazil. The usage
of the country denies them this pastime. Portuguese and Spanish views of
the liberty of outdoor locomotion to be allowed to females—traceable to
the Moorish estimate of their trust worthiness and virtue—prohibit to
them here in a great degree the privileges of the street. In the early
morning they may be seen, dressed in black, and attended by a servant or
child, walking to and from church; and on the Sabbath, likewise, in long
family procession, in performance of a like duty; but, to take a
promenade as such, for pleasure or display, or to pass from shop to shop
looking at fine goods by the hour, without finding the article sought,
or any thing to suit the fancy, would be regarded as an indecorum, and
an unmistakable mark of vulgar boldness. Native prejudice on this point,
has doubtless been modified by the example of numerous foreign residents
and visitors; still, when a lady is met in the streets in promenade, it
may be safely inferred that she is not a Brazilian: if wearing a bonnet,
it may be deemed certain.
Aside from the light thrown upon the general estimate of female virtue,
by this prohibition, from usage, there are habits of indecency among the
people, witnessed even in the most public thoroughfares, sufficient to
justify it, so long as the nuisance is permitted; moreover, a lady in
walking is subjected to an impudent stare and look of libertinism from
shopkeepers, and clerks, and passers-by, which is in itself an insult,
without the addition of the remarks of levity which at times may be
heard. There has been an advance in civilization of late in this
respect; still, effrontery enough is left in connection with it to
offend the delicacy of a woman in walking, and to excite the indignation
of any male friend accompanying her.
The native female of the better classes is, therefore, still to be
regarded as a kind of house prisoner; she may stand against or lean over
the railing of an upper balcony by the hour—as is much the custom—gazing
in listless silence upon whatever is taking place in the street; but a
promenade below, with the chance of a flirtation, is denied her.
How then, you will ask, is the shopping of the ladies for fine dresses
and fine feathers accomplished? I answer, either by husbands and
fathers, who I am told are well versed by experience in the business, or
by a running to and from shop to drawing-room of boys and porters with
pattern-books and pieces. A lady from the country will drive to the
house of some friend, or secure a hired room, and, sending forth a
servant, will put the errand-boys of half the shops in the city, in
motion for the day.
On one of these mornings, we entered a common auction-room for a moment,
and accidentally stumbled on the humiliating and reproachful sight of a
sale of men and women by a fellow man. Not the sale, as till within a
few years past might here have been the case, of newly imported captives
from Africa, but of natives of Rio, thus passing under the hammer from
owner to owner like any article of merchandise. They were eight or ten
in number of both sexes, varying in age from boyhood and girlhood to
years of maturity and middle life. They stood meekly and submissively,
though evidently anxious and sad, under the interrogations and
examinations of the bidders, and a rehearsal and laudation by the
auctioneer of their different available working qualities and
dispositions: their health, strength and power of endurance. All, in
their turn were made to mount an elevated platform, to display their
limbs almost to nakedness, and exhibit their muscular powers by various
gymnastics, like a horse his movements and action, before the bidders at
Tattersall’s.
They were rapidly knocked down at prices varying from two hundred to a
thousand and more milreis: that is, from one to five hundred and more
dollars. As we turned away, the indignation of one of our party found
vent in the exclamation: “Such a spectacle is a disgrace to human
nature. It makes one sick at heart, and ready to fear that in the
retributive justice of the Almighty the time may come, when the blacks
here will put up the whites for sale in the same manner!” And why not?
Why should the blood boil at the mere suggestion of the thought in the
one case, and yet flow coolly and tranquilly on, in view of the other?
Happily Brazil has been aroused, through the influence of her Emperor
and the wisest of her statesmen and legislators, to earnestness in that
suppression of the traffic in slaves to which she has so long stood
pledged by treaty. It is no longer in name only that the trade is a
piracy. The landing of a cargo any where in the Empire subjects it to
forfeiture. A high premium is given to an informer in a case of
smuggling of the kind, and the law cuts off all recovery of payment for
the proceeds of a sale that may have been effected. The consequence is,
that the millionnaires of Rio, whose coffers have been filled to
repletion with the price of blood, finding the government in earnest in
the execution of the laws, are forsaking their gilded palaces here—some
of them among the most luxurious and ornate residences of the city—for
homes where they may pursue their nefarious business with less reproach
to reputation, and less liability to the penalty of the laws. It is said
that there are residents here, entitled by birth and citizenship to
stand beneath the protecting folds of the stripes and stars of our
country, who till now have been active agents in, and have shared
largely in the emoluments of this wicked outrage on the rights of man.
_December 10th._—The 2d inst. was the Emperor’s birth-day, a chief gala
among the anniversaries of Rio. His Majesty then completed his
twenty-fifth year. The day was fine, and the celebration consisted of a
grand military procession of regular troops and national guards through
the palace square; a Te Deum in the imperial chapel, at which the
Emperor and Empress assisted, as the phraseology is; a review of the
troops by their Majesties from a balcony of the palace; a levee for
hand-kissing afterwards, for such as are entitled to the entrée; and at
night a visit of the Court in state, to the opera. The whole accompanied
by the firing, morning, noon and night, afloat and on shore, of
unnumbered cannon.
I was in Captain McIntosh’s party in going on shore. He has a horror of
crowds, which to me afford some of the best opportunities of judging of
the character of a people, and after seeing him comfortably seated in a
balcony commanding the square, Lieut. T—— and I sallied forth “among the
horses,” as he expressed it, to be in closer proximity to the populace.
The Brazilians are manifestly an orderly, civil, good-natured, timid,
and temperate people; contrasting favorably in their manners, language,
indulgences and general deportment, on similar occasions, with the
masses in large cities, in the United States. I saw nothing rude or
coarse in any one, nothing offensive or insulting: no profanity, no
intoxication, no quarrelling, no call for the interference of the
police.
In the course of the morning, among various other experiences, we
elbowed his Majesty and the ministers of the household, the metropolitan
and his chapter of the priesthood, and the great officers of state in
the Imperial chapel; scrutinized the Empress and her ladies in their
tribune; listened to the effective music of the Te Deum, performed by
the chief singers of the opera company; witnessed the return of the
court in procession from the chapel to the throne room; and gained a
point of observation for the review, so near Don Pedro and Doña Theresa
as to have been able readily to have carried on a conversation with
them, had it been according to rule.
The regular army of Brazil consists of some twenty thousand troops. Very
few of these are at present here. The great mass of those under arms on
the present occasion, amounting to some five thousand, was of municipal
guards, corresponding to the volunteer companies of New York. They were
in neat and handsome uniforms, are well appointed, and well drilled; but
are small and light in figure, without an appearance of much physical
force, and most motley in complexion and the mixture of blood. An
abundant supply of fine bands was in attendance. Negroes and mulattoes
predominated in these, testifying to the gift of musical taste in the
race here, as with us in the United States.
There was a partial illumination in the evening, but to no striking
effect, except in the streets leading from the palace to the
opera-house. The progress of the court in state through these was a
showy spectacle. The glaring flambeaux of liveried outriders, preceding
and flanking the open carriages, themselves brilliantly lighted, and the
illuminated houses, exhibited the diamonds of the Empress and her
attendants to great advantage. The left breast of the Emperor’s coat,
too, flashed with the brilliants of the many orders with which it was
decorated. The vivas of the multitudes were tolerably loyal, and the
spirited strains of the national air, caught, as the cortège approached,
from band to band, stationed at various points on the route, quite
spirit-stirring. The music of this air is a composition of Don Pedro I.,
who was a master in the science. It is one of the most animated,
spirit-moving national airs I know—equal almost in this respect to the
Marseillaise. The words of the anthem to which it is set are said to be
also from the pen of his late Majesty; and, in the native language, are
scarce less incitive than the tune, to emotions of patriotism and valor—
Iá podeis, filhos da patria,
Ver contente a mai gentil,
Iá raiou a liberdade,
No horizonte do Brazil.
Brava gente Braziliera
Longe vai temor servil!
Ou ficar a patria livre,
Ou mourer pelo Brazil.
I could not be otherwise than amused by an incident, characteristic of
the too widely spread spirit of my countrymen, which came under my
observation just after reaching the shore. The court were alighting at
the palace, on their arrival in state from San Christovao: the turn-out,
in equipages and their appointments, the same as described at the
prorogation of the legislature in September. The hurried rush across the
square of the mounted guard in advance; the flourish of trumpets and
striking up of the bands; the glitter of postillions and coachmen in
livery, stiff with lacings of silver; the tossings of the plumed heads
of the long lines of richly caparisoned horses; and the ceremonies of
the vestibule, in the salutations and kissing of hands at alighting,
were just occurring, as a rough specimen of our compatriots, in the
character of a Yankee sea-captain happened by. He stood near me for a
moment gazing at the pageant, evidently with less of admiration than of
contempt, and, as he passed on with a significant “Humph!” I heard him
add in half soliloquy—“I tell you what, there is a little too much
nonsense here; it is time this people were annexed!”
To-day the weather has been wet and stormy. Notwithstanding, a Brazilian
naval officer came on board the Congress before breakfast, to say that
the Emperor would be afloat in an excursion on the bay. It is customary
on such occasions for the national vessels in the harbor to fire a royal
salute. That they may be in readiness for this, on the appearance of the
imperial standard, the official notice mentioned is given. The Brazilian
men-of-war man their yards also, and nine cheers are given for their
sovereign as he passes. At 11 o’clock the firing was commenced by the
Brazilian flag-ship; and, on going on deck I found myself surrounded by
a blaze from guns on every quarter. At the same time, a procession of
state barges was seen moving from the naval arsenal near the convent of
San Bento, to a steamer not far from us. The barge of his Majesty, of
white and green, was magnificently gilded, and furnished with a standing
canopy of green and gold over the stern sheets, surmounted by the
imperial crown. A naval officer in epaulettes and chapeau acted as
coxswain, the boat being handsomely pulled by twenty-four fine-looking
oarsmen in a uniform of white. The object of the excursion was a visit
in the steamer to a foundry and steam-engine manufactory at Praya
Grande, on the opposite side of the bay; where, in proof of the rapid
advancement of the empire in scientific works and national power, native
talent and enterprise is successfully competing with foreign skill, in
the construction and equipment of men-of-war and other steamers.
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