Brazil and La Plata: The personal record of a cruise

by C. S. Stewart

We made our way into the open country, meeting, at one or two points, features in the scenery quite homelike: one—a meadow of coarse grass edged by a copse and thickets interspersed with single trees; and another, a large field on a hill-side having the earth freshly turned up, like newly ploughed ground with us, over which noble mango trees, with their thickly set leaves, and rounded tops, were scattered like oaks in an English park. On every hand there was a great variety of growth in shrub and tree, and it was with no slight degree of pleasure that I recognized among others, as old friends at the Sandwich Islands, not only the cocoa-nut, palm and banana, but also the bread-fruit, the tamarind, and alucrites triloba—or candle tree.

Not knowing how far the road we were following might lead, before it would again conduct towards the water, we were about to retrace our steps the same way, when, a question accidentally put to a negro passing, led to a return under his guidance over a hill, by a wild and romantic bridle-path. This was so overhung by densely interwoven growth, that the glare of midday soon became twilight to us, and the heat of a burning sun tempered to the coolness of a grotto. At many points of the entire walk, the views of the bay and city in the distance, and of the mountains overhanging them were of unsurpassed beauty. Indeed, there was no end to the forms of loveliness by which we were surrounded, and to the associations in memory and affection brought to my mind by them. With the expectation of spending many a tedious month of our long exile on the adjoining waters, it was a delight to know that walks of such freshness and beauty are so near and so accessible.

The row to the bay of St. Francis Xavier was made the succeeding afternoon. A bold and strongly defined promontory of granite, separates this sheet from the waters of the general harbor, and makes it so land-locked as to give to it the aspect of a secluded lake. Till we had doubled this, I had no idea of the depth to which the bay sweeps seaward behind the promontory, or of the feeling of remoteness from civilized life which its general features at once impart. The wild mountains, with a rude hut clinging here and there to their uncultivated sides; the primitive look of the lowly cottages of fishermen stretched along a distant beach; and the canoes drawn up on the sands, or resting lightly upon the water, again transported me to the South Seas, and I felt as if at the Marquesan or Society Islands, rather than within a half a dozen miles of the metropolis of a magnificent empire. Just so untamed, just so Indian-like, I am told, were the entire surroundings of the bay of Rio, till within the last thirty or forty years.

The eastern side of this inlet is formed by a long curving beach of sand, called the Praya Carahy. It fronts an extensive plain of low alluvial ground through which, at either end, two streams from the mountains make their way. Landing at the mouth of the most southern of these, with orders for the boat to meet us at that to the north, we walked upon the sands the intervening distance, in alternate admiration of the scenery inland, on the one side, and the sportings of a heavy surf on the other. This illumined by the rays of the declining sun, rose high in emerald masses, till, cresting into ten thousand diamonds, it thundered on the beach and came rushing to our feet in sheets of foam.

September 27th.—The fresh wind mentioned in my last date brought us, the next evening, on soundings off the Rio de la Plata. A change then suddenly occurred with every indication of heavy weather. The mercury in the barometer fell low; and during the night there was heavy rain, with a good deal of thunder and lightning, while meteors, called by seamen, compesant—a corruption of corpo santo or holy body—flitted about the yard-arms and mast-heads of the ship. All these were forerunners of weather more like a gale than any thing experienced since leaving Norfolk: indeed, a regular pampero, a storm of wind so called from the pampas or boundless plains between the Rio la Plata and Patagonia, over which the cold south and south-west winds from the polar regions sweep, corresponding in force and temperature to our fiercest north-west winds at home. The storm was not of long continuance, and yesterday afternoon we made the land near Cape St. Mary, the northern entrance to the river. We lay off shore for the night, and sighting the land again this morning, soon after made the little islet of Lobos, a chief landmark in entering the Plata from the north, seventy miles from Montevideo. It derives its name from the multitude of seal frequenting it. Many of these were seen, as we approached, basking on the rocky shores and swimming about in the water. A strong and offensive odor was also very perceptible. The island is a governmental possession of the Republic of Uruguay, but leased for a long term of years to a gentleman of Montevideo, and yields a handsome income in skins and oil.

The river is here one hundred and twenty miles wide. Its northern shore only, of course, is visible. This is low and sandy, marked here and there by a green hillock. With a glass, great numbers of horses, in vast droves as if wild, could be seen grazing in the distance; also the church towers of Maldonado, the town next in size in the Republic to Montevideo. From all we can learn, it is in such decay and depopulation at present, that the euphony of its name is its chief attraction.

Midway between the island of Lobos and Montevideo are the highlands of Monte Negro. The next landmark is the isle of Flores, surmounted by a light-house, fifteen miles distant from the anchorage. This light we are in momentary expectation of making.

Montevideo, October 1st.—On the night of the 29th ult., after having run a sufficient distance beyond the light of Flores to bring us abreast of Montevideo, we dropped anchor without having caught sight of any shipping in the roadstead, or discovering any signs of the town. On the lifting of a dense fog the next morning, the first objects discernible were the men-of-war of a French squadron about five miles in shore of us. Shortly after, the Mount—a conical hill situated on the western side of a circular indenture in the river, constituting the harbor—which gives name to the place, was disclosed; and lastly, the town itself on a point opposite, distant from it a mile or more, in a direct line across the water. The whole landscape is as different as possible from that at Rio de Janeiro. It is low and level, without rock or tree: a soft verdure covered the shore and gleamed in the sun, like so much velvet, as it came peering on the eye through the fog bank.

The Mount is an isolated hill rising gradually and regularly on all sides, at an angle of 45°, to a height of 480 or 90 feet. It is crowned by a small rectangular fortress, above which the lantern of a pharos rises some twenty or thirty feet. Being in possession of a besieging force, no light is shown from it, that additional embarrassment may be placed on the commerce of the port. Midway between the Mount on the west and the town on the east, a smaller hill rises two or three miles inland, in like manner in regular lines from the plain. This too is crowned by a little fort, which, like the other, is in possession of the besieging party. It is called the “Cerrito,” or little hill, in contradistinction to the other, known as the “Cerro,” or hill par excellence. The town is situated on a peninsula of tufa rock, a half mile in length by a quarter in width, rising gently from the water on three sides to an elevation of eighty or a hundred feet, much in the shape of a tortoise’s back. From a distance it presents a mass of compactly built, white, flat-topped houses, one and two stories high, of Spanish aspect, with multitudes of small, square turrets or miradors overtopping them, from the midst of which, on the central height, rise the lofty roofs, dome and double towers of a cathedral.

It was in vain we searched among the shipping of the outer roads, where alone there is sufficient depth of water for a frigate, for the broad pennant of Commodore Storer. The sloop-of-war St. Louis, however, was recognized in the inner harbor. On communicating with her, we learned that the Brandywine had sailed for Rio de Janeiro ten days ago, again leaving orders for the Congress to follow. Our trip has thus been for naught. We sail again for Brazil, with the first fair wind, and I shall defer all observation in the city to the more favorable opportunities of an after visit.