Chapter 28

26_th._--We left Affonsos by times this morning, and shortly afterwards met an original-looking group of travellers. First came rather a handsome woman, in a blue joseph and broad black hat, riding astride; then three gentlemen in Indian file, all natural Falstaffs, in enormous straw hats, and mounted on good well-groomed horses; next followed the lady's maid, also astride, with her mistress's portmanteau buckled behind her; and behind her the valet, with three leathern bags hanging to his saddle by long straps, so as to swing as low as the stirrups, and whose size and shape denoted the presence of at least a clean shirt; and, lastly, a bare-headed slave with two mules, one laden with baggage and provisions, and the other as a relay. They all saluted us gravely and courteously as they passed; and I thought I had gotten among some of Gil Blas' travellers in the neighbourhood of Oviedo or Astorga, so completely did they differ from any thing usual with us.

We stopped, of course, at Campinha, to call on our hospitable hostess, Senhora Maria Rosa, and found her at a neighbour's house; whither we followed her, and found her surrounded by four of the prettiest women I have seen in Brazil. From the veranda, where we sat talking with them for some time, we had leisure to admire the country about Campinha, which was totally obscured the first time we passed by rain. It is of the same beautiful character with the rest we have seen, being distinguished by a new mud fort, now building on a little insulated knoll, which commands the road through the hills, and by the plain to the capital. The want of some such point of defence was felt when Du Clerc landed in the bay of Angra dos Reyes, at the beginning of the last century, and marched without stop to the city.

After feeding our horses at the very pretty station of Rio Ferreira, we proceeded homewards; and arrived at Mr. May's in good time to dinner, having had a very pleasant excursion, and, on my part, seeing more of Brazil and Brazilians in these few days, passed entirely out of English reach, than in all the time I had been here before.

On my arrival at home I found news from Lord Cochrane of the 9th July, in latitude 6° S., longitude 32° W.; when half the army, colours, ammunition, and stores of Madeira had fallen into his hands, and he was in pursuit of the rest, intending afterwards to follow the Joaŏ VI. and frigates. Should he be able to separate them, no doubt he will capture them; but alone, under his circumstances, against them, so armed and manned, I fear it will be impossible.--He has already effected more than could have been expected, or perhaps than any commander besides himself could have done. He attributes much to the imprudence, or imbecility of the enemy, whose plan of saving an army he likens to Sterne's marble sheet. However, others are just enough to him, to feel that no faults of the enemy's commander lessen his merit, or obscure the courage necessary to follow up, attack, and take half at least of a fleet of seventy sail,[121] well found and provisioned, and full of veteran troops.

[Note 121: It is now certain that Joaŏ Felix had at least that number.]

There is a letter from Lord Cochrane to the magistrates of Pernambuco published in the gazette. His Lordship, after mentioning his success, and stating his want of seamen, says, "We must have sailors to end the war. If Your Excellencies will give 24 milrees bounty, as at Rio de Janeiro, drawing on government for the same, you will do a great service to the country. I do not say Portuguese sailors, who are enemies; but sailors of _any other nation_."

His Lordship mentions farther in his letters to Pernambuco, that his reasons for rather following up the transports at first, instead of the ships of war, which were the objects he had most at heart, were, lest the troops should land, as they had threatened, in some other port of Brazil, and commit new hostilities in the empire. And he concludes with announcing that he sends several flags taken from the enemy.

_August 29th._--To-day I received a visit from Dona Maria de Jesus, the young woman who has lately distinguished herself in the war of the Reconcave. Her dress is that of a soldier of one of the Emperor's battalions, with the addition of a tartan kilt, which she told me she had adopted from a picture representing a highlander, as the most feminine military dress. What would the Gordons and MacDonalds say to this? The "garb of old Gaul," chosen as a womanish attire!--Her father is a Portuguese, named Gonsalvez de Almeida, and possesses a farm on the Rio do Pex, in the parish of San José, in the Certaŏ, about forty leagues inland from Cachoeira. Her mother was also a Portuguese; yet the young woman's features, especially her eyes and forehead, have the strongest characteristics of the Indians. Her father has another daughter by the same wife; since whose death he has married again, and the new wife and the young children have made home not very comfortable to Dona Maria de Jesus. The farm of the Rio do Pex is chiefly a cattle farm, but the possessor seldom knows or counts his numbers. Senhor Gonsalvez, besides his cattle, raises some cotton; but as the Certaŏ is sometimes a whole year without rain, the quantity is uncertain. In wet years he may sell 400 arobas, at from four to five milrees; in dry seasons he can scarcely collect above sixty or seventy arobas, which may fetch from six to seven milrees. His farm employs twenty-six slaves.

The women of the interior spin and weave for their household, and they also embroider very beautifully. The young women learn the use of fire-arms, as their brothers do, either to shoot game or defend themselves from the wild Indians.

Dona Maria told me several particulars concerning the country, and more concerning her own adventures. It appears, that early in the late war of the Reconcave, emissaries had traversed the country in all directions, to raise patriot recruits; that one of these had arrived at her father's house one day about dinner time; that her father had invited him in, and that after their meal he began to talk on the subject of his visit. He represented the greatness and the riches of Brazil, and the happiness to which it might attain if independent. He set forth the long and oppressive tyranny of Portugal; and the meanness of submitting to be ruled by so poor and degraded a country. He talked long and eloquently of the services Don Pedro had rendered to Brazil; of his virtues, and those of the Empress: so that at the last, said the girl, "I felt my heart burning in my "breast." Her father, however, had none of her enthusiasm of character. He is old, and said he neither could join the army himself, nor had he a son to send thither; and as to giving a slave for the ranks, what interest had a slave to fight for the independence of Brazil? He should wait in patience the result of the war, and be a peaceable subject to the winner. Dona Maria stole from home to the house of her own sister, who was married, and lived at a little distance. She recapitulated the whole of the stranger's discourse, and said she wished she was a man, that she might join the patriots. "Nay," said the sister, "if I had not a husband and children, for one half of what you say I would join the ranks for the Emperor." This was enough. Maria received some clothes belonging to her sister's husband to equip her; and as her father was then about to go to Cachoeira to dispose of some cottons, she resolved to take the opportunity of riding after him, near enough for protection in case of accident on the road, and far enough off to escape detection. At length being in sight of Cachoeira, she stopped; and going off the road, equipped herself in male attire, and entered the town. This was on Friday. By Sunday she had managed matters so well, that she had entered the regiment of artillery, and had mounted guard. She was too slight, however, for that service, and exchanged into the infantry, where she now is. She was sent hither, I believe, with despatches, and to be presented to the Emperor, who has given her an ensign's commission and the order of the cross, the decoration of which he himself fixed on her jacket.

She is illiterate, but clever. Her understanding is quick, and her perceptions keen. I think, with education she might have been a remarkable person. She is not particularly masculine in her appearance, and her manners are gentle and cheerful. She has not contracted any thing coarse or vulgar in her camp life, and I believe that no imputation has ever been substantiated against her modesty. One thing is certain, that her sex never was known until her father applied to her commanding officer to seek her.

There is nothing very peculiar in her manners at table, excepting that she eats farinha with her eggs at breakfast and her fish at dinner, instead of bread, and smokes a segar after each meal; but she is very temperate.

Sept. 8_th_, 1823.--I went with Mr. Hoste and Mr. Hately, of His Majesty's ship Briton, to Praya Grande, to see a party of Botecudo Indians, who are now there on a visit. As it is desired to civilise these people by every possible means, whenever they manifest a wish to visit the neighbourhood of the city, they are always encouraged and received kindly, fed to their hearts' content, and given clothes, and such trinkets and ornaments as they value. We saw about six men, and ten women, with some young children. The faces are rather square, with very high cheek-bones, and low contracted foreheads. Some of the young women are really pretty, of a light copper-colour, which glows all over when they blush; and two of the young men were decidedly handsome, with very dark eyes, (the usual colour of the eyes is hazel,) and aquiline noses; the rest were so disfigured by the holes cut in their lower lips and their ears to receive their barbarous ornaments, that we could scarcely tell what they were like. I had understood that the privilege of thus beautifying the face was reserved for the men,[122] but the women of this party were equally disfigured. We purchased from one of the men a mouth-piece, measuring an inch and a half in diameter. The ornaments used by these people are pieces of wood perfectly circular, which are inserted into the slit of the lip or ear, like a button, and are extremely frightful, especially when they are eating. It gives the mouth the appearance of an ape's; and the peculiar mumping it occasions is so hideously unnatural, that it gives credit to, if it did not originally suggest, the stories of their cannibalism.[123] The mouth is still more ugly without the lip-piece, the teeth appearing, and saliva running through.

[Note 122: See Southy's Brazil, for the manners of the Tupayas. I am not sufficiently acquainted with the filiation of the Indian tribes, to know what relation the Botecudos bear to the Tupayas.]

[Note 123: Perhaps all the Indians may have been so far cannibals, as to taste of the flesh of prisoners taken in battle, or victims offered to the gods; but I cannot believe that any ever fed habitually on human flesh, for many reasons. But their traducers had their reasons for inventing and propagating the most atrocious falsehoods, as a sort of excuse for their own barbarity in hunting and making slaves of them. These practices, indeed, were so wicked, and so notorious, that in 1537, the Dominican Frey Domingos de Becançoo, provincial of the order in Mexico, sent Frey Domingos de Menaja to Rome to plead the cause of the Indians before Paul III.; who having heard _both sides_, pronounced that "The Indians of America are men of rational soul, of the same nature and species as all others, capable of the sacraments of the holy church, and consequently free by nature, and lords of their own actions."]

When we entered the room where the savages are lodged, most of them were lying in mats on the floor; some on their faces, and some on their backs. Three of the women were suckling their infants, and these were dressed only in coarse cotton petticoats; the rest of the females had cotton frocks, the men shirts and trousers, given them on their arrival here. As they are usually naked in the woods, their garments seemed to sit uneasily on them: their usual motions seemed slow and lazy; but when roused, there was a springy activity hardly fitting a human being, in all they did. They begged for money; and when we took out a few vintems, the women crowded round me, and pinched me gently to attract my attention. They had learned a few words of Portuguese, which they addressed to us, but discoursed together in their own tongue, which seemed like a series of half-articulate sounds.

They had brought some of their bows and arrows with them of the rudest construction. The bow is of hard wood, with only two notches for the string. The arrows are of cane; some are pointed only with hard wood, others with a flat bit of cane tied with bark to the end of the hard wood: these arrows are five feet long; and I saw one of them penetrate several inches into the trunk of a tree, when shot by an Indian from his bow. I purchased one bow and two arrows. Most of these people had their hair closely clipped, excepting a tuft on the fore part of the head; and the men, who had slit their lips, had also pulled out their beards. The two handsome lads had cut their hair; but they had neither cut their lips nor pulled their beards. I tried to learn if this was a step towards civilisation, or if it was only that they had not reached the age when the ceremony of lip-slitting, &c. is practised, the interpreter attending them not being able to explain any thing but what concerns their commonest wants and actions.

_September 9th._--I took two very fine Brazilian boys, who are about to enter the Imperial naval service, to spend the day at the botanical garden, which appears in much better order than when I saw it two years ago. The hedge-rows of the Bencoolen nut (_Vernilzia Montana_) are prodigiously grown: the Norfolk Island pine has shot up like a young giant, and I was glad to find many of the indigenous trees had been placed here; such as the _Andraguoa_, the nut of which is the strongest known purge; the _Cambucá_, whose fruit, as large as a russet apple, has the sub-acid taste of the gooseberry, to which its pulp bears a strong resemblance; the _Japatec-caba_, whose fruit is scarcely inferior to the damascene; and the _Grumachama_, whence a liquor, as good as that from cherries, is made: these three last are like laurels, and as beautiful as they are useful. I took my young friends to see the powder-mills, which are not now at work, being under repair; but they learned the manner of making powder, from the first weighing of the ingredients to the filling cartridges: and then we had our table spread in a pleasant part of the garden, under the shade of a jumbu tree, and made the head gardener, a very ingenious Dutchman, partake of our luncheon; which being over, he showed us the cinnamon they have barked here, and the other specimens of spice: the cloves are very fine, and the cinnamon might be so; but the wood they have barked is generally too old, and they have not yet the method of stripping the twigs: this I endeavoured to explain, as I had seen it practised in Ceylon. The camphor tree grows very well here, but I do not know if the gum has ever been collected. The two boys were highly delighted with their jaunt, and I not less so. Poor things! they are entering on a hard service; and God knows whether the two cousins da Costa may not hereafter look back to this day passed with a stranger, as a bright "spot of azure in a stormy sky."

_Sept. 13th_.--I rode again to the botanic gardens with Mr. Hoste and Mr. Hately. Our chief object this time was the powder-mills. After walking round the garden, we proceeded along the valley of the mills; and so beautiful and sequestered a place, in the bosom of the mountains, was surely never before chosen as a manufactory for so destructive an article: I suppose the great command of water for the machinery is the chief inducement to fix it here. The powder is mixed by pounding, the mortars being of rosewood, and the pestles of the same shod with copper; yet the mortar-hoops are iron, which seems to me to be a strange oversight. I do not understand these things, however; but the machinery interested me: it is extremely simple, and the timber used in the construction very beautiful. The principal mill blew up a few months since, and is now under repair; so that we had an opportunity of seeing the watercourses, dams, wheels, &c., which we could not otherwise have enjoyed. We could not learn the relative strength of the powder. I have heard, however, that it is good. What I have seen is about as fine in grain as what we call priming powder in the navy. While we were walking about we were invited into several houses, by the overseers and other persons employed in the works, and pressed to eat and drink with great hospitality. The greatest liberality to strangers, indeed, exists in all public establishments here. For instance, at the botanic garden there is a constant nursery of the rare and the useful plants, which are given away, on application, to strangers and natives alike; so that not only the gardens of Brazil are stocked with the rarer productions of the East, but they are carried to different countries in Europe, prepared by this cooler climate for their farther transplantation.

_14th_.--I observed on the beach to-day a line of red sandy-looking matter, extending all along the shore, and tinging the sea for several feet from the edge. At night this red edge became luminous; and I now recollect when on the passage to India in 1809, that on observing a peculiar luminous appearance of the sea, we took up a bucket of water, and on examining it next morning, we observed a similar red grainy substance floating in it. It is the first time I have seen it here, and I cannot find that any body has paid any attention to it. Perhaps it is not worth noticing; but I am so much alone, that I have grown more and more alive to all the appearances of inanimate nature. Besides, I must make much of the country, as in a few days I have to take up my abode in one of the narrow close streets of Rio; and this not from choice. It is the custom here, and a very natural and pleasant one it is, for every family that can, to live in the country all the summer: so that the houses of every kind, in the country, are in great request. The term for which that I live in was hired is expired, and I am therefore obliged to leave it. My going to town, perhaps, might be avoided, but there are some things I shall probably learn more perfectly by living there; and, besides, does not Lord Bacon advise that in order to profit much from travel, one should not only move from city to city, "but change his lodgings from one end and part of the city to another?"

The last fortnight has been extremely foggy, and rather cold; and we have had some fierce thunder-storms, that seem almost to rock the mountains, and threaten to bring them down upon us.

_16th_.--At length I am fixed in No. 79., Rua dos Pescadores, in the first floor of an excellent house, belonging to my kind friend Dr. Dickson, who himself inhabits a villa out of town; where he has a farm, a garden, a collection of minerals and insects, and all sorts of agreeable and profitable things, which he dispenses to others with the greatest good-nature. I am obliged to Sir Thomas Hardy for a pleasant passage to town from Botafogo, his carriage conveying me, and his boats my goods: so in a few hours I have changed my home, and have probably taken my leave of all English society, every body has such a dread of the heat of the town. However, as I look forward to going to England in a few months, perhaps in a few weeks, the more time I have for Brazil the better. My private affairs have so occupied me that I have scarcely had time to think of the public. Yet in the course of the last week the project of the constitution for Brazil, framed by the committee appointed, was sent from the Assembly to the Emperor; and yesterday the discussion of it, article by article, began in the full assembly.

_17th_.--One advantage has already arisen from my removal into town. I have received the very first news of the arrival of a ship from Lisbon with commissioners on the part of the King to the Emperor. I find, too, that at Lisbon they can publish false news, as well as in some other countries in Europe. That city had illuminated in consequence of news that Lord Cochrane had been beaten, and the Imperial navy destroyed by the Bahia squadron; and this illumination must have taken place just about the time that Madeira was evacuating the city, and flying before the Imperial Admiral's flag. As to the reception the commissioners are to meet with, it is doubtful. Some days since the brig 3° de Maio arrived here, having on board Luiz Paolino as successor to Madeira; who, finding he could not get into Bahia, came hither, to present, it is said, his commission as governor of Bahia to His Imperial Majesty as Prince Regent; and it is also said that he was the bearer of some letters. But as none of these acknowledged the title, or independence of the empire of Brazil, they were not received; and the vessel has already sailed on her return to Lisbon. It is believed that the same fate will attend the present commissioners, Vieira and his colleague, if indeed the ship should not be condemned as a prize. But hitherto of course nothing is known.

Another vessel also arrived with intelligence of some moment from Buenos Ayres. It appears that the captain of His Majesty's ship Brazen has been at variance with the authorities there concerning the old subject of the right of boarding vessels, the priority of which the Buenos Ayrians claim for their own health-boat. The Commodore means to go thither himself on the business, and I have no doubt all will be well and reasonably settled.

_18th_.--I went to-day to the public library to ask about some books, and am invited to go and use what I like there: the librarians are all extremely polite, and the library is open to all persons for six hours daily.