Part 27

[Note 119: This is brought to the Engenhos of the district from the lake of Jacarepagua. I had no opportunity of seeing the whole plant.]

By the time we had examined the sugar-work, and seen the garden, it was two o'clock, and we were summoned to dinner. Every thing was excellent in its kind, with only a little more garlic than is used in English cookery. On the side-table there was a large dish of dry farinha, which the elder part of the family called for and used instead of bread. I preferred the dish of farinha moistened with broth, not unlike brose, which was presented along with the bouillie and sliced saussage after the soup. The mutton was from the estate, small and very sweet. Every thing was served up on English blue and white ware. The table-cloths and napkins were of cotton diaper, and there was a good deal of plate used, but not displayed. After dinner some of the family retired to the siesta; others occupied themselves in embroidery, which is very beautiful, and the rest in the business of the house, and governing the female in-door slaves, who have been mostly born on the estate, and brought up in their mistress's house. I saw children of all ages and colours running about, who seemed to be as tenderly treated as if they had been of the family. Slavery under these circumstances is much alleviated, and more like that of the patriarchal times, where the purchased servant became to all intents one of the family. The great evil is, that though perhaps masters may not treat their slaves ill, they have the power of doing so; and the slave is subject to the worst of contingent evils, namely, the caprice of a half-educated, or it may be an ill-educated master. Were all slaves as well off as the house slaves of Affonsos, where the family is constantly resident, and nothing trusted to others, the state of the individuals might be compared with advantage to that of free servants. But the best is impossible, and the worst but too probable; since the unchecked power of a fallible being may exercise itself without censure on its slaves.

One of the dumb ladies made tea, and afterwards we passed a couple of hours at a round game of cards, where the sisters felt themselves quite on an equality with the speakers, and enjoyed themselves accordingly. I remember an account given by Bishop Burnet in his Travels, of a dumb lady who had invented a way of communicating with her sister, even in the dark, before the instruction of such unfortunate persons had become an object of public attention. Some such method these ladies possess of discoursing together, and of making themselves understood by their young cousin, an intelligent girl, who is always at hand to interpret for them. They have also invented arbitrary signs for the names of the flowers and plants in their garden, which signs all the family know; and I was delighted with the quickness and precision with which they conversed on every subject within their knowledge.

The cards made way for the supper, a meal almost as ceremonious, and quite as constant, as the dinner. After it, toasted cheese was introduced, with girdle cakes of farinha freshly toasted, and spread with a very little Irish butter; they are the same as the Casava bread of the West Indies, but prepared here are more like Scotch oat-cakes. On retiring to my room at night, a handsome young slave entered, with a large brass pan of tepid water, and a fringed towel over her arm, and offered to wash my feet. She seemed disappointed when I told her I never suffered any body to do that for me, or to assist me in undressing at any time. In the morning she returned, and removing the foot bath, brought fresh towels, and a large embossed silver basin and ewer, with plenty of tepid water; which she left without saying a word, and told her mistress I was a very quiet person, and, she supposed, liked nobody but my own people, so she would not disturb me.

_Friday, August 22d_.--The day as fine as possible; and after breakfast we pursued our journey to Santa Cruz, the road improving in beauty as we proceeded.

"Here lofty trees to ancient song unknown, The noble sons of potent heat, and floods Prone rushing from the clouds, rear'd high to heav'n Their thorny stems, and broad around them threw Meridian gloom."

And above all these the mountains rose in the distance, and lower hills more near, between which, long valleys stretched themselves till the eye could follow them no farther; and the foregrounds were filled up with gigantic aloes, streams, and pools, and groups of passing cattle and their picturesquely clad conductors. Near Campo Grande, the scenery is diversified by several little green plains, with only an insulated tree here and there, decorated with air plants in bloom, and scarlet creepers. Beyond this lies one of the most beautiful spots I ever saw, namely, Viaga; where the rocks, trees, plains, and buildings, seem all placed on purpose to be admired. Having loitered a little to admire it, we rode on to the New Freguezia of Sant Antonio, where we stopped at a very neat venda to rest and feed our horses. The church is on a little hill, overlooking a very pretty country and a neat village, but the greater part of the parish is very distant. While the horses were eating their maize, we procured for ourselves some rusk, cheese from the province of Minas exactly like Scotch kebbuck, and port wine from the cask of excellent quality. These provisions are always to be had, with beans, bacon, and dried beef. But the hospitality of a Brazilian inn does not extend to cooking food for travellers, who generally carry the utensils for that purpose with them, and who in some shed attached to the inn cook for themselves, and generally sleep in the same shed. At Sant Antonio there are decent sleeping-rooms provided with benches and mats, to which the guests add what bedding they please; but travellers commonly wrap themselves in their cloaks, and so rest. As soon as our horses were ready, we rode on to Mata Paciencia, the engenho of Dona Mariana, the eldest daughter of the Baroness de Campos, and to whom we had a letter of introduction. Here we met with a most polite reception from a handsome ladylike woman, whom we found attending to her engenho, which is indeed an interesting one. We were received at first by the chaplain, a polite and well-informed person; and with him was the chaplain of Santa Cruz, who having been formerly a professor in the college at Rio, is commonly known by the name of the Padre Mestre.

Dona Mariana led us into the engenho, where we had seats placed near the rollers, which are worked by an eight-horse power steam-engine, one of the first, if not the very first, erected in Brazil. There are here 200 slaves, and as many oxen, in constant employ. The steam-engine, besides the rollers in the sugar-house, moves several saws; so that she has the advantage of having her timber prepared almost without expense. While we were sitting by the machine, Dona Mariana desired the women, who were supplying the canes, to sing, and they began at first with some of their own wild African airs, with words adopted at the moment to suit the occasion. She then told them to sing their hymns to the Virgin; when, regularly in tune and time, and with some sweet voices, the evening and other hymns were sung; and we accompanied Dona Mariana into the house, where we found that while we had been occupied in looking at the machinery, the boilers, and the distillery, dinner had been prepared for us, though it was long after the family hour. On our departure, we were hospitably pressed to return on our way back to Rio, which we, "nothing loath," promised to do.

It was quite dark long before we reached Santa Cruz, and exceedingly cold: when there, we easily found the house of the gentleman to whom we had a letter of introduction, the Capitaŏ de Fragata Joam da Cruz de Reis, who is the superintendant of the palace and estate. The Visconde do Rio Seco had kindly furnished us with this letter, and mentioned that the object of the journey was mere curiosity, so that the Capitaŏ told us that he would next day do all he could to satisfy us. Soon after our arrival, several persons dropped in to converse half an hour; among the rest, a surgeon, who comes from Rio once a year to vaccinate the children born in the twelve-months on the estate. The Padre Mestre and another friar also came in; and I soon found that Santa Cruz has its politics and gossip as well as the city, all the difference being in a little more or less refinement. Nothing can exceed the good-humoured hospitality of our host and hostess, who soon made us feel quite at home; and by the time tea was over, we were quite initiated into all the ways of the house and the village.

_Saturday, 23d_.--The morning was excessively cold but clear, and the view of the extensive plains of Santa Cruz, with the herds of cattle upon it, most magnificent. The pasture, which extends many leagues on each side of the little hill on which the palace and village are situated, is here and there varied by clumps of natural wood; the horizon extends to the sea in one direction, and every where else the view is bounded by mountains or woody hills. The palace itself occupies the site of the old Jesuits' college. Three sides are modern: the fourth contains the handsome chapel of the very reverend fathers, and a few tolerable apartments. The new part was built for King John VI., but the works were stopped on his departure. The apartments are handsome, and comfortably furnished. In this climate hangings, whether of paper or silk, are liable to speedy decay from damp and insects. The walls are therefore washed with a rich creamy white clay, called Taboa Tinga[120], and cornices and borders painted on them in distemper. Some of these are exceedingly beautiful in design, and generally very well executed, the arabesques of the friezes being composed of the fruits, flowers, birds, and insects of the country. One of the rooms represents a pavilion; and between the open pilasters, the scenery round Santa Cruz is painted, not well indeed, but the room is pleasant and cheerful. The artists employed were chiefly mulattoes and creole negroes.

[Note 120: Taboa tinga, a very fine white clay, proper for making porcelain, very abundant in Brazil, and, as far as I can judge, the same as is found in the valleys of Chile.]

After breakfast, we rode along the causeway that crosses the plain of Santa Cruz, to the Indian aldea of San Francisco Xavier de Itaguahy, commonly called Taguahy, formed by the Jesuits not very long before their expulsion. The situation of the aldea and church is extremely fine; on the summit of a hill overlooking a rich plain, watered by a navigable river, and surrounded by mountains. We entered several of the huts of the Indians, whom I had understood to be of the Guaranee nation. I enquired of one of the women, in whose hut I sat down, if she knew whence her tribe came: she said no; she had been brought, when a mere child, from a great distance to Taguahy, by the fathers of the company; that her husband had died when she was young; that she and her daughters had always lived there; but her sons and grandsons, after the fathers of the company went, had returned to their fathers, by which she meant that they had resumed their savage life. This is not surprising. The Indians here must work for others, and become servants; a state they hardly distinguish from slavery. Besides, slaves are plentiful; and as the negro is hardier than the Indian, his labour is more profitable; therefore, a willing Indian does not always find a master. The produce of his little garden, or his fishing, is rarely sufficient for his family; and without the protection of the priest, whose chief favour was procuring constant occupation, the half-reclaimed savage droops, and flies again to the liberty of his forest, to his unrestrained hunting and fishing. The Chilian Indians rarely or never return to their forests when their villages are once formed; but that depends on circumstances, which have nothing in common with the state of Brazil. Many of the Indian women have married the creole Portuguese; intermarriages between creole women and Indian men are more rare. The children of such couples are prettier, and appear to me to be more intelligent, than the pure race of either. The Indian huts at Taguahy are very poor; barely sufficient in walls and roof to keep out the weather, and furnished with little besides hammocks and cooking utensils; yet we were every where asked to go in and sit down: all the floors were cleanly swept, and a log of wood or a rude stool was generally to be found for a seat for the stranger, the people themselves squatting on the ground.

At the foot of the hill of Taguahy there is a very fine ingenho, sold by King Joam VI. to one de Barros; the rollers are worked by a horizontal water-wheel about twenty-two feet in diameter, turned by the little stream Taguahy. The quantity of sugar made in a given time is something more than that produced by the steam-engine at Mata Paciencia, the number of slaves employed being the same.

After we had admired the neatness of the engenho and the beauty of the situation sufficiently, we left Taguahy to return to Santa Cruz, and re-crossed the river Guandu, where there is a guard-house by the bridge, where passes from the police are required from ordinary travellers; but as we had a servant from Santa Cruz with us, we were not questioned. The Guandu rises in the mountain of Marapicu, in the barony of Itanhae; and having received the Tingui, it passes to the engenho of Palmares, occupied by the Visconde de Merendal; where there is a wharf where the produce of the neighbouring estates is embarked, and conveyed to Sepetiva, a little port in the bay of Angra dos Reyes, where it is shipped for Rio, the passage thither being generally of twenty-four hours.

In 1810 there was an intention of uniting the Guandu with the Itaipu by a short canal; by which means the produce, not only of this district, but of the Ilha Grande, would have been conveyed directly to Rio, without the risk of the navigation outside of the harbour: I know not why the project was abandoned.

Every time I pass through a grove in Brazil, I see new flowers and plants, and a richness of vegetation that seems inexhaustible. To-day I saw passion-flowers of colours I never observed before; green, pink, scarlet, and blue: wild pine apples, of beautiful crimson and purple: wild tea, even more beautiful than the elegant Chinese shrub: marsh-palms, and innumerable aquatic plants, new to me: and in every little pool, wild-ducks, water-hens, and varieties of storks, were wading about in graceful pride. At every step I am inclined to exclaim with the minstrel--

"Oh nature, how in every charm supreme! Whose votaries feast on raptures ever new: Oh, for the voice and fire of seraphim To paint thy glories with devotion due!"

After dinner I walked about a little in the village of the negroes. There are, I believe, about fifteen hundred on the estate, the greater part of whom belong to the outlying farms or feitorias, of which there are, I believe, three; Bom Jardin, Piperi, and Serra: these yield coffee, feijoă, and maize. The immediate neighbourhood of Santa Cruz is appropriated to the rearing of cattle, of which there are this year about four thousand head; and a good deal of pasture land is annually let. The negroes of Santa Cruz are not fed and clothed by the Emperor, but they have their little portions of land; and they have half of Friday, all Saturday and Sunday, and every holiday, to labour for themselves; so that they at most work for their master four days, in return for their house and land; and some even of the external marks of slavery are removed, as the families feed and clothe themselves without the master's interference. The Emperor has appropriated great part of a very commodious building, erected by his father for the royal stud, to the purpose of an hospital. I visited it, and found a white surgeon and black assistant; decent beds, and well-ventilated apartments: the kitchen was clean, and the broth, which was all I found cooked at the time of night when I was there, good: there were about sixty patients, most of them merely for sores in their feet, some from giggers, others a sort of leprosy from working in damp grounds, and a few with elephantiases; fevers are very rare; pulmonary complaints not uncommon. Several of the inmates of the hospital were there merely from old age; one was insane; and there was a large ward of women, with young children: so that, on the whole, I consider the hospital as affording a proof of the healthiness of the negroes of Santa Cruz.

_Sunday, 24th_, presented a very respectable congregation on its way to the chapel of Santa Cruz. There were all the officers belonging to the palace, with their wives and families; also the shopkeepers of the village and neighbourhood, besides a good many of the negro people; all of them, I think, better dressed than persons of the same class elsewhere in this part of Brazil.

I walked up to the tea-gardens, which occupy many acres of a rocky hill, such as I suppose may be the favourite _habitat_ of the plant in China. The introduction of the culture of tea into Brazil was a favourite project of the King Joam VI., who brought the plants and cultivators at great expense from China. The tea produced both here and at the botanic gardens is said to be of superior quality; but the quantity is so small, as never yet to have afforded the slightest promise of paying the expense of culture. Yet the plants are so thriving, that I have no doubt they will soon spread of themselves, and probably become as natives. His Majesty built Chinese gates and summer-houses to correspond with the destination of these gardens; and, placed where they are, among the beautiful tea-shrubs, whose dark shining leaves and myrtle-like flowers fit them for a parterre, they have no unpleasing effect. The walks are bordered on either hand with orange trees and roses, and the garden hedge is of a beautiful kind of mimosa; so that the China of Santa Cruz forms really a delightful walk. The Emperor, however, who perceives that it is more advantageous to sell coffee and buy tea, than to grow it at such expense, has discontinued the cultivation.

Our hospitable friends the Capitaŏ and his lady would not allow us to leave them till after dinner, having invited several persons to do honour to us, and to a sumptuous feast they had prepared, where every good thing that can be named was present. However, due honour having been done to the table, we took our leave; and at about four o'clock or a little earlier set off for Mata Paciencia, where we arrived a little before sunset.

On our arrival we went with Dona Mariana and the chaplain into the garden, which unites the flower, kitchen-garden, and orchard in one. Oranges and roses, cabbage and tobacco, melons and leeks, neighboured each other, as if they belonged to the same climate; and all were thriving among numbers of weeds, of which the wholesome calliloo and the splendid balsam attracted my eye most. A side-door in the garden let us into a beautiful field, whither chairs were brought, that we might sit and enjoy the freshness of the evening. Overhanging that field there is a steep hill, on whose side a great deal of wood has been cleared away, and the gardens and coffee plots of the negroes occupy the ground. This day--and blessed be the Sabbath!--is the negroes' own: after morning Mass they are free to do their own will; and then most of them run to the hill to gather their coffee or maize, or prepare the ground for these or other vegetables. They were just beginning to return from the wood, each with his little basket laden with something of his own, something in which the master had no share; and again and again as they passed me, and displayed with glistening eye the little treasure, I blessed the Sabbath, the day of freedom to the slave. Presently the last few stragglers dropped in. The sun by this time was only the tops of the hills. The cattle flocked in from the pasture, and lowed impatiently at the gate of the corral: we opened it, and passed in with them, and crossed the court where the negroes live. All was bustle there: they were bargaining with a huckster, who, knowing the proper hour, had arrived to buy the fresh-picked coffee. Some sold it thus; others chose to keep it and dry it, and then to take the opportunity of one of the lady's messengers to town and send it thither, where it sells at a higher price. I do not know when I have passed so pleasant an evening.

After supper I had a great deal of conversation with Dona Mariana concerning the sugar-work, the cultivation of the cane, and the slaves, confirming what I had learnt at Affonsos. She also tells me, as I had heard before, that the Creole negroes are less docile and less active than the new negroes. I think both facts may be accounted for without having recourse to the influence of climate. The new negro has the education of the slave-ship and the market, the lash being administered to drill him; so that when bought he is docile from fear, active from habit. The creole negro is a spoiled child, till he is strong enough to work; then, without previous habits of industry, he is expected to be industrious, and having eaten, drunk, and run about on terms of familiar equality, he is expected to be obedient; and where no moral feelings have been cultivated, he is expected to show his gratitude for early indulgence by future fidelity. Dona Mariana tells me, that not half the negroes born on her estate live to be ten years old. It would be worth while to enquire into the cause of this evil, and whether it is general.

I conversed also a good while with the chaplain on the general state of the country. He is a native of Pernambuco; of course a staunch independent. * * * It is needless to say that every thing in the manner of living at Mata Paciencia is not only agreeable but elegant. And if the stories of older travellers concerning the country life of the Brazilians be true, the change has been most rapid and complete.

_25th August_.--- I was very sorry to leave Mata Paciencia this morning when it was time to return; however, the hour came, and we departed for Affonsos.

On the road we stopped to make some sketches, and at Campo Grande to refresh our horses; and were glad ourselves, as the day was pretty cool, to partake of a beef-steak which the good woman of the house cooked according to our directions, the first she had ever seen, regretting all the time that their own dinner was over, and that there was not time to boil or roast for us. But hospitality seems the temper of the country.

On our arrival at Affonsos we were received as old friends, and much pressed to stay a couple of days, in order to make excursions to some picturesque spots in the neighbourhood, which I would fain have done, but my young friend, Mr. Dampier, could not spare the time; so I was obliged to content myself with only hearing of the beauties of the lake of Jacarepagua, and N.S. da Pena, &c.