Brazil and La Plata: The personal record of a cruise

by C. S. Stewart

After the sermon the young Emperor and Empress, attended by the sacred banner, the noisy musicians, and the usual cortège of dignitaries, proceeded to their stations in the auction-room, where the sales, we were told, continued with increased animation and mirthfulness till 10 o’clock at night.

To-day is a fête also, and an auction day. During it we made a call at the residence of the Captain of the Port, in acknowledgment of the civility of the supper-party to which we had been invited. This dignitary was at the church. He was sent for, and apologized when we took our leave, for not joining us in a walk, by saying that duty required his attendance upon the Emperor.

The variety and the quantity of the confectionery made, presented, and sold at these festivals is surprising. Every device of ingenuity is put in requisition for the production of it in new forms. The lady of the Captain of the Port showed us a very large tray of work in sugar and flour, most elaborately wrought in its forms, and tastefully finished in coloring and gilding. It had been purchased at the auction for forty-two dollars, and presented to her by a friend. The whole was the workmanship of an old lady of more than three-score years and ten, who had given four months’ time to its manufacture. The chief object seemed to have been to furnish the greatest variety in man, beast and bird. Every article was true to nature in figure and coloring; cottages and groves, fruits, flowers, and vegetables, specimens in conchology, entomology, and the whole range of natural history, with a wide margin in the catalogue for what was purely imaginative. The whole presented a striking evidence of the ingenuity, taste, and unwearying industry of the aged devotee.

And now, you will say, “Why give so much time to the observation and to the description of such puerilities, to say the least of them, as constituted the chief services of the church here on Sunday?” I answer, that I may certainly know by the “seeing of the eye,” as well as by the “hearing of the ear,” the distance to which this people are removed from the simplicity and purity of the Gospel; and that you may judge of the causes of their ignorance and superstition. These plays are acted, and these festivals prolonged and varied for the amusement of the populace, and to keep the masses content under the control of their spiritual guides. Lights and music, dress and flowers, form and ceremonies, the waving of banners and swinging of censers—the glare and glitter of the stage, are thus made to excite the imagination, and satisfy the thoughtless and ignorant mind with fleeting shadows, in place of enduring good. The whole system of Romanism as exhibited here, is little else than Paganism in disguise; a system in which old idols are presented under new names, and heathen processions and ceremonies substituted for that worship which is “in spirit and in truth.”

June 18th.—We took leave of Mr. Wells and of Desterro the day following my last date; and two days ago made an attempt to get to sea; but a head wind set in, and still prevents our departure. All hands are pleased with the delay; we cannot soon weary of such a place, the scenery is so beautiful, the climate so fine, the walks and rides so picturesque and rural, and the supplies for the refreshment of all hands are so abundant and so cheap. In addition to the fresh beef furnished to the ship’s company, any quantity of pigs, turkeys, chickens, eggs, vegetables, and fruit is offered alongside in canoes, for private trade with the different messes and with individuals of the crew.

In the attempt to get to sea, we changed our anchorage two or three miles northward from the forts, and were brought into the immediate neighborhood of two beautiful little bays, encircled by gracefully curving beaches of white sand. Both abound in picturesque and wild scenery; and are in many places filled with orange groves overburdened with fruit, now in full season. Far from any grog-shop or means of dissipation to the crews, the boats ply backwards and forwards from the ship to the shore at all hours of the day, filled with officers and men in the enjoyment of a kind of saturnalia, in search of fruits, and flowers, and every thing rare and curious in nature. Some of the cacti, air plants, and parasites now in full bloom, are superb in their beauty. A hundred delicious oranges can be purchased for a penny; and, but for the presence of our ship, would not be worth to their owners the shaking from the trees. It is, too, the season of sugar-making. The apparatus and entire process are most rude and simple: each small plantation being furnished with a primitive mill of two rollers of timber to extract the juice, and a rough trough or two to conduct it to a boiler. The eating of the cane, and an occasional dip into the troughs and into the half crystallized contents of the cooling-pans, offer to all quite a tempting pastime. St. Catherine seems to be a province of small proprietors, whose productions, derived from their own labors, exceed but little the supply of their private wants. Each carries to the market a few hundred pounds only of coffee and of sugar annually—brought to the purchaser in small quantities, at different times, when some foreign article is needed.

The coffee of the island is of a superior quality, and the chief of its products: as it also is of the whole empire, though introduced into the country by the Franciscan Friar Villaso so recently as the year 1774. The first bush was planted by him in that year in the garden of the convent of San Antonio, at Rio de Janiero. It was not till the revolt of St. Domingo that its price became such as to lead to its general culture here. In 1809, when coffee was first imported into the United States from Brazil, the whole produce of the empire amounted only to 30,000 bags; this year it is estimated that it will amount to 2,000,000, or a value of more than $16,000,000. The plants blossom in August, September, and October; and the crops are gathered in March, April, and May.

My last ride at Santa Cruz was with Captain Cathcart, in a visit to an estate called “Las Palmas,” or the palms, recently purchased by him. It lies on the coast, ten miles north of his present residence. Mr. W——, Captain Pearson’s clerk, accompanied us, for the purpose of making some correction in the “plot” of the plantation, drawn by a surveyor. We were to have started at an early hour of the day, but a pouring rain prevented. This state of the weather, however, changed afterwards into occasional heavy showers; and, at the risk of being drenched by these, we ventured to set off at eleven o’clock. The road is a mule-track, and at places, for long distances, consists of the hard sand of the beach. The frequent streams flowing into the sea from the interior are so swollen by late rains, that we found difficulty in fording them in safety. A second heavy shower after we started, came hastening upon us just as we were entering upon the longest stretch of beach on the route. This was smooth and hard, and afforded us a good opportunity of trying to outstrip the storm, till we could reach some place of shelter. Captain Cathcart is an exceedingly stout and heavy man—fairly stuffed into his clothes, and weighing 250 or 280 pounds. Mr. W—— is very long and very lean, with legs and neck like a crane, and arms to correspond. My own physique is familiar to you; and you would have been amused at the sight, could you have witnessed the manner in which we three scampered over this part of the road, with the pelting rain and rushing wind in full pursuit. A cotton umbrella and an overcoat kept me from the wet: but it was the last of the old umbrella—before the wind had well reached us, the outside had become the in, the top the bottom, and the whole structure of whalebone, steel, and muslin, an irremediable ruin.

About midway of the distance we came to a hamlet of two or three miserable huts, the remains of a settlement of poor Germans, who had been tempted from their distant homes by the flattering inducements to immigration held out by the government of Brazil, but to whom, on their arrival, the poorest sections of land in the region had been allotted as the promised gratuity. These, the settlers had no means of making profitable; and they are now left to disappointment and neglect. They are wretchedly poor; and those of them whom we saw looked pale and thin, careworn and ill. Immediately beside the steep and worn-out lands assigned to them, there is a wide tract of level country belonging to the government, upon which these poor foreigners, had it been appropriated to them, would not only have gained a living, but in all probability acquired an independence.

On leaving these cabins, at which we halted a moment for a cup of water, we began to ascend the spur of a mountain which forms a headland on the coast, separating the bay along the beach of which we had come, from that on the opposite side, where the estate we were to visit is situated. The hill is unwooded and steep, the path was very slippery, and the ascent difficult; but we accomplished it slowly, with fine views on our right over a widespread alluvial plain covered with thick set forests: