Part 43

There are several institutions for higher education, several schools of medicine, of law, civil engineering, and mining; a normal school for the education of teachers, a conservatory of music, a school of fine arts, an institute for the blind, and another for the deaf and dumb, several reformatory schools, and an Imperial Industrial School founded by Dom Pedro upon the plan of the Cooper Institute of New York, the suggestion for it having been derived from his visit to that place while in the United States. There is also a bureau of colonization and immigration in the Department of Agriculture, and as an inducement to settlers, the Government offers them free subsistence and shelter at the boarding-house in Rio de Janeiro during the time that it is necessary for them to wait, as well as free transportation for themselves and baggage from Rio to any part of the country. They can purchase land on credit, the first payment to be made at the end of the second year, and four payments during the succeeding four years, and for cash they receive a discount of twenty per cent. For the first season the Agricultural Department gives them a donation of necessary implements and seeds, and an allowance of twenty-five cents a day for each adult, and ten cents for each child, during the first six months after settlement, until the land they occupy can be made to produce. The cost of the land is now from eight to sixteen dollars an acre. There are under the care of the Department of Agriculture twelve colonies, comprising a population of sixty-two thousand people, mostly German. The number of immigrants arriving in the country amounts to from forty to fifty thousand a year.

The immense area of Brazil, stretching as it does from 4° 30´ north to 33° south latitude, and from the thirty-fifth to the seventy-third degree of west longitude, affords almost as great a variety of climate and soil as can be found in the United States, and the two countries are of very nearly the same area. A glance at the map will show the extensive fluvial system of Brazil. The many large rivers that traverse the interior in all directions are navigable, and afford unequalled facilities for commerce.

Independent of the agricultural resources which the climate, situation, and productiveness of the soil afford, the mineral treasures which nature has stored in the interior are very abundant. Gold, together with diamonds and various other precious stones, is found in many localities, and the resources of the interior of the country, which has never been explored, are only a subject of speculation. The population now consists of about twelve million people; and it has not increased any during the last twenty-five years. Of this population there are about two million slaves and five hundred thousand Indians; but neither the moral character, social habits, nor intellectual attainments of this class afford material of value wherewith to build up an enlightened and progressive government. The natives are neither enterprising, thrifty, nor industrious. The system of slavery has taught them idleness, and the fact that they have gained their living without work has taught them habits of extravagance. There are a few men of wealth among them who have earned by their own efforts the money which they have, but nearly all have either inherited it or secured it as the result of slave labor. Brazil will never be a great or prosperous country until its population is increased by immigration.

Considerable progress has been made, and great interest taken, in railroad development. There are now about 2500 miles in operation, 800 of which are owned and operated by the Government, and 1700 by private corporations. In addition to this, about 1400 miles are under construction, and there are many prospective enterprises. The Government guarantees an annual income of seven per cent. upon the construction bonds of all railroads, and has so far paid this guarantee promptly. Recently a loan of thirty-four million dollars has been made in London for the construction of additional railways, and this is also secured by the Government. The rails are all imported from England, but a part of the rolling stock is brought from the United States. The roads are surveyed

and built by Brazilian engineers, but the principal machinists and locomotive drivers are Scotchmen. The principal railroad in Brazil is the one named in honor of the present Emperor, Dom Pedro II., and it is familiarly known as the “Pedro Segundo” road. This line runs from Rio Janeiro to the most important towns, and through a country which produces coffee, corn, and cattle. There are now about 500 miles of track in operation. It is a favorite route for tourists, and affords a view of the finest mountain scenery in the empire.

The prevailing opinion among the practical men of Brazil is that Dom Pedro II. is a lovable old humbug. Everybody regards the Emperor with a feeling of reverence, and his character and motives are universally respected; but he leaves the cares of State entirely to the direction of his ministers and his half-brother, the Baron de Capanema, who has more influence with the Cabinet than the Emperor himself. The old man is wrapped up in philanthropic movements, and is

constantly engaged in doing something for the amelioration of his fellow-men; but he is so easily imposed upon, and his ideas are so impracticable, that not only are his efforts wasted, but a large amount of money with which a great deal of good might be accomplished is expended upon chimerical projects; and the only result is the gratification that the Emperor enjoys in performing what he considers to be a duty. He is credulous, ingenuous, and trustful, and no matter what the reputation of the men who come to him with schemes is, he never fails to be interested in anything that will tend to the improvement or welfare of his people. He devotes almost his entire time to entertaining impostors and developing schemes that are suggested to him by the people who take advantage of his philanthropic disposition to accomplish their own ends.

A little beyond the city of Petropolis is the imperial hacienda, which is known as Santa Cruz. Here Dom Pedro II. used to live, but his first-born and only son died in the palace, and since that time, which was many years ago, neither he nor the Empress has ever entered its walls. Some twenty years ago he devoted this hacienda, as he does almost everything else, to philanthropy, and attempted a grand philanthropic experiment which has demonstrated nothing but the Emperor’s own lack of ability as a manager.

The Princess of Brazil has three children, two sons and a daughter; and besides these the Emperor has three other grandchildren, orphans of a deceased daughter, who live with their grandparents and are a great source of comfort to the Emperor, who is very fond of children.

The Empress is a woman of rare traits, being noted for her womanliness, her charity, and her lovely character; and those who became acquainted with her while she was in the United States will remember her with the greatest affection. There is nowhere in the world a couple more devoted to each other, or with a kindlier disposition towards their fellow-creatures, or having a more earnest desire to accomplish something for the good of mankind, than Dom Pedro and the Empress. She is much more practical in her charity than he, and it is said that she frequently chides the Emperor for being so easily humbugged. The Empress is a fine-looking old lady, with white hair and a kindly face. She has not the force

and energy of her daughter, but is of a more retiring disposition, and prefers to interest herself in the affairs of the household rather than in matters of State. Every week or so the Emperor gives a reception, which is attended by all the nobility and by such strangers of sufficient dignity to receive royal attention as happen to be in the country. The Emperor is particularly fond of Americans, and he considers the United States the model country of the world. He has introduced into Brazil a great many ideas that he received during his visit to this country, and has organized an Agricultural Department and a Geological Survey, and several other branches of the Government, in imitation of what he found in the United States.

The Emperor had a great friend in Dr. Gunning, who left a high place in the medical college in Edinburgh about twenty years ago, and came to Brazil for his health. He had an ample fortune, and determined to devote his time and money to the abolition of slavery. With this object in view he bought thirty-five or forty slaves and a tract of land. The negroes for miles around him were earning large wages for their owners, but the doctor had a theory that they would pay for themselves, and buy their own emancipation, if they had an opportunity. So he commenced a system of bookkeeping, charging each slave with his original cost and the expense of his maintenance, and crediting him with the amount of labor he performed. When the accounts balanced, the slave was to be set free. But they never balanced.

Dr. Gunning impressed the Emperor with the great benefits of this system, and succeeded in inducing him to adopt it on his plantation. But the negroes are not fools. They understand very well that they are better off with such masters as Dr. Gunning and the Emperor than they would be in the condition of freedom, and they work so unprofitably, and make the expenses of their maintenance so great, that they never yet made enough in any one year to pay for their keeping.

The Emperor spends most of his time at Petropolis, and the only thing that can induce him to visit the city of Rio is a debate in Congress on the slavery question. It is nearly four centuries since Brazil was discovered, and it has always been governed by the same family. This part of the continent was given to the Portuguese by the Pope. When they began to quarrel with the Spaniards over the possession of the discoveries in America, the Pope drew a line along the sixty-fifth parallel of longitude and decided that the Portuguese should have all that part of the world lying east, and the Spaniards all that part lying west of it. Therefore Brazil became a viceroyalty of Portugal, and remained so until 1807, when the two countries changed relations, Brazil becoming the seat of government and Portugal becoming a colony. Portugal temporized with Napoleon, and when he made a raid upon that nation the royal family of Briganza took a step which astonished all Europe. In order to save the nation from the bloodshed and devastation that followed Napoleon’s avarice, Dom Joao fled from Lisbon to Rio, and left Napoleon in peaceable possession of Portugal.

For many years Joao preferred to remain in Rio de Janeiro, and govern his subjects with delegated power. Finally, Napoleon having vanished from the face of Europe, the Emperor returned to Lisbon, leaving his son, Dom Pedro I., upon the throne of Brazil; but the people were ill satisfied with this, and a bloodless revolution soon after occurred, in which Dom Pedro I. was compelled to abdicate, and in 1831 he fled to Portugal, leaving his son, Dom Pedro II., then a boy of fifteen, as Emperor, who governed through a regency until he became of age. His authority has been recognized in Brazil ever since, and he is loved by the people as few monarchs have ever been.

The Emperor’s power is limited, and is infinitely less than that of any of the Presidents of the South American republics. He has the right to veto acts of the national legislature, but it requires only a majority vote to override it, so that it practically amounts to nothing. The senators are elected for life, are endowed with titles, and their duties are similar to those of the peers of Great Britain. The Emperor receives from the State an income of four hundred thousand dollars per annum, but he is a poor economist, and spends it all, the greater part in mistaken charity.

There is a small party called Republican, which proposes to unseat the Emperor, do away with all the titles and all insignia of royalty and nobility, and to take, as the rest of the South Americans have done, “the great republic of the north” for its example. In theory they are for upsetting the throne and tumbling the Emperor off, but they recognize his goodness and benevolence, and have the wisdom to see that they are a great deal better off under the administration of such a man than under a President who would be an autocrat. When the Emperor dies Brazil will become a republic. The Liberal party believe in republican principles; and the ideas of civil and religious liberty have so permeated the people, from the nobles to the slaves, that it will be impossible to continue the empire under the daughter of Dom Pedro when she comes to inherit the throne.

The Emperor had but one son, and his only living child is the Princess Isabella, wife of the Count D’Eu, a grandson of Louis Philippe, a cousin of the Count of Paris, and a Prince of the House of Orleans. This French husband of the Brazilian princess is said to be an uncommonly good fellow, and a man of considerable ability. He holds the rank of major-general in the army, and is an aide-de-camp, or grand marshall, under the Emperor. The princess and her husband live in the city of Rio de Janeiro in a very ordinary way, the palace they occupy and their style of living being a great deal inferior to that of many merchants and foreign residents of the country. They have a plantation near Petropolis, and spend the unhealthy seasons of the year at that place.

The princess is now about thirty-five or forty years of age, and takes a great deal more interest in the affairs of State than her distinguished father. She is far from being good-looking, and is rather masculine in disposition. She has intelligence and firmness, and is often compared to Queen Elizabeth. During the absence of the Emperor in the United States and Europe in 1876 and 1877, she assumed his authority, and upset matters so generally that she brought on a revolution that would have overturned the empire entirely had it not been suppressed in time.

In dealing with this outbreak she showed an ability and determination that gave her a great reputation among political leaders; but the condition of Brazil is changing so rapidly that by the time the princess comes to the throne by the death of her father, the Liberal element will be so large and powerful that they will prevent her from assuming authority. If her character and disposition were other than they are she might be tolerated on the throne; but their experience with her during her father’s absence has taught the people that she is not such a ruler as they want, and the contrast between her rigorous rule and the political indifference of the Emperor is so great as to aggravate the dislike of the people for her. In addition to this, the princess is a great Church-woman, and attends mass every morning in her house, spends a great deal of time in religious devotion, supports a large retinue of priests and friars, who are said to be the only people who have any influence with her, and does a great deal to strengthen the Catholic Church in Brazil.

The Emperor does not seem to know of the unpopularity of his daughter. He does not seem to be aware that she possesses traits and a disposition in striking contrast with his own. With that generous charity with which he regards all human beings, he believes that she is as liberal-minded and as philanthropic as himself, and his dreams are never disturbed by any thought of what may occur after his death.

As everywhere else in South America, the Liberal element in Brazil has been making an active war against the Roman Catholic Church, and as long ago as 1870 a law was passed abolishing monastic institutions in the empire; but that legislation was more liberal than that passed and carried out in other South American countries, for it gave the religious orders ten years in which to dispose of their property and close up their affairs. This period expired in 1880, and very little has been done by the monks and nuns towards complying with the law. In 1881 an attempt was made to forcibly close their institutions, but an appeal was made to the courts, and it was only recently that a decision was rendered sustaining the constitutionality of the act of Congress and imposing a tax upon all real estate owned by the religious orders, and proceedings were commenced to confiscate and sell their property for the non-payment of taxes.

The religious orders refused to recognize the right of the civil power to dispose of their property. They claim that the Pope alone has authority over it; and their writers fill the papers with thrilling accounts of what terrible visitations have fallen upon all those who have taken the property of the Church, or in any way acquired real estate which once belonged to it, in other lands.

It may be said, however, that the general public takes very little interest in the dispute. There is no affection or respect felt for the monastic orders, which are in a condition of

decay, and their approaching extinction by the death of the few monks and nuns remaining is viewed with indifference; but the clergy take a different view of the case. They expect to inherit the revenues derived from the Church property, and they do not want to see it pass into the hands of private parties. Until ten or twelve years ago the political leaders encouraged the superstitious observances of the Church in order to secure the loyalty of the priesthood, but the growth of Liberal sentiment has been so great that the Church has been robbed of the terror it formerly inspired and of the influence which it possessed, and there has been much encouragement given to Protestants who have come into the country and engaged in missionary work.

One of the great holidays in Brazil is the feast of St. George, the patron of the empire. Each city and province has a sort of deputy patron, whose worship is duly celebrated on a particular day. Saint Sebastian has charge of the city of Rio de Janeiro, and in his honor a celebration is held once a year; but when the annual feast of St. George returns, every town and village from the northern to the southern boundary of the country has the grandest procession and demonstration of the season. This is not the same St. George who is supposed to have formerly had England under his protection, but an entirely different individual. Formerly this saint held the rank of colonel in the army, and was entitled to a yearly pay of thirty-five thousand dollars, which the priests drew for him and pretended to invest in jewels and dresses. A few years ago he used to be taken through the streets on horseback on his anniversary day, surrounded by a bodyguard--a regiment composed of the greatest swells of Rio de Janeiro, who acknowledged him as their commander, and were known as the “Imperial Order of St. George.” An old resident told me about an instance that occurred some years ago, when the attendant who had charge of the image buckled Colonel St. George’s sword on so carelessly that it dropped from his belt and wounded a priest. The aide-de-camp and the saint were both tried for the offence, and both found guilty. The officer was punished with imprisonment, and the saint fined a large portion of his salary.

The anniversary of Corpus Christi is always celebrated with great pomp in Rio, and with a procession which marches through the principal streets. At its head is usually carried an effigy of the Saviour, preceded by bands of singing priests and bearers of incense, and covered with a canopy carried by the Emperor and the Count D’Eu, his son-in-law, and the principal ministers of state. The participation of the

Emperor in this ceremony has existed from time immemorial, and is supposed to illustrate the obedience of the civil to the ecclesiastical power; but Dom Pedro hates the nonsense, and last year he declined to participate.

The money used in Brazil is liable to give a stranger the nightmare. Imagine yourself presented with a bill for thirty thousand reis after eating a dinner and drinking a bottle of wine at a café. One is apt to indulge in some expressions of astonishment, even if he is too honest to attempt an escape by the back door. But composure is restored when it is discovered that a “reis” is worth only the twentieth part of a cent, and at the present discount of Brazilian money such a bill amounts only to about seven dollars.

The book-keepers of Brazil have a hard time of it, however, as the reis is the standard value, and the long lines of figures which represent the commercial transactions of the ordinary mercantile or banking house each day are a severe tax upon the mathematical accuracy and ability of the people. For example, $1,000,000 equals about 4,000,000,000 reis, and the paper currency of Brazil represents 488,000,000,000 reis. The commercial statistics of Brazil look very formidable; but the people simplify matters somewhat by using the term millreis, which means a thousand reis.

The currency of the country consists of irredeemable paper shinplasters, the smallest denomination being five hundred reis, which is equal to about thirteen cents in gold. Nickel and copper coins are used for change below that sum, the reis being a very minute disk of copper. There is no gold or silver in circulation; and as the balance of trade has been largely against Brazil of recent years, there is not coin enough in the country to pay the interest on the public debt, and the bondholders are given bills on London.

There is no wharfage at any of the Brazilian ports; vessels are compelled to anchor out in the harbors, which are usually good, and be loaded and unloaded by means of lighters. Passengers are carried to and fro in _bongoes_, managed by a noisy and naked boatman, who inspires alarm in the breast of the nervous passenger, who imagines this gang of savage-looking maniacs are cannibals howling for his blood. The wardrobe of a bongo usually consists of a dilapidated straw hat and a pair of cotton drawers amputated at the thighs. These drawers are a degree farther from decency than the bathing-trunks small boys wear at the sea-side. The bongoes are shrewd fellows, and make bargains easily, but are hard to settle with when the work is done. They agree to take you and your trunk ashore for a dollar, but when you reach the custom-house they demand twice as much, with an additional dollar for Pippo, who helped carry the trunk down the gangway. People who remain on the vessel amuse themselves by throwing small coins into the water for the boatmen to dive after. If you toss a silver quarter overboard, a dozen or more will plunge after it, and one of them will have it in his mouth before it reaches the bottom.