Brazil and La Plata: The personal record of a cruise

by C. S. Stewart

The row, at night, of two miles and more to the ship is of itself a pleasure: sometimes beneath a bright moon, with the palm-topped trees and convent towers of Santa Theresa on our left, marked in silver against the sky; sometimes amid a darkness which leaves nothing for our guide but the signal lanterns for the Commodore, at the peak of the far-off Congress; and sometimes again, amid a display of phosphorescence in the water, sufficient to excite both admiration and surprise. The regular dip of the oars, then, creates splendid coruscations: streams of apparent fire run from the uplifted blades, while the barge, under the impulse of fourteen stalwart oarsmen, rushes on through a wide trough seemingly of molten silver.

But I am forgetting the object for which I opened my journal—to say, that in despite of the heat, I have spent two mornings, within the past week, in a stroll along the shaded side of the Rua Ouvidor, in company with the Commodore, Captain and Mr. G——, on a visit of curiosity to the various shops with which it is lined. The show windows of these rival those of Broadway, in the display of rich fancy goods of English, French, and German manufacture, and of jewelry, articles of vertu, drawings, engravings, and bijouterie. Among the jewellers’ shops which we entered was one, having for its sign the imperial arms and crown in rich gilding—thus indicating the special patronage of their majesties and the court. The person in attendance received us most politely, and, though we at once apprised him that our object was not to purchase, exhibited his choicest caskets, from those valued at a few hundred dollars to those at as many tens of thousands. Most of the contents were native diamonds and other precious stones tastefully arranged and artistically set. The workmen here are celebrated for skill in this respect, and for the delicacy and finish of their filagree in silver, and chasings in gold. Rio is also celebrated for the manufacture of artificial flowers from feathers. Those most valued are of the choicest and rarest humming birds. The changing tints of some of these are more rich and varied than those of the opal. Such are much prized and are expensive. The counterpart of a set recently ordered by the Princess de Joinville was as costly as so much jewelry. The manufactories are in large shops open entirely in front to the street, and, the artisans being chiefly young girls, are favorite resorts and lounging places of shoppers and idlers.

It must not be inferred that in thus spending a morning in shopping, we were encroaching on the prerogatives of the ladies of Brazil. The usage of the country denies them this pastime. Portuguese and Spanish views of the liberty of outdoor locomotion to be allowed to females—traceable to the Moorish estimate of their trust worthiness and virtue—prohibit to them here in a great degree the privileges of the street. In the early morning they may be seen, dressed in black, and attended by a servant or child, walking to and from church; and on the Sabbath, likewise, in long family procession, in performance of a like duty; but, to take a promenade as such, for pleasure or display, or to pass from shop to shop looking at fine goods by the hour, without finding the article sought, or any thing to suit the fancy, would be regarded as an indecorum, and an unmistakable mark of vulgar boldness. Native prejudice on this point, has doubtless been modified by the example of numerous foreign residents and visitors; still, when a lady is met in the streets in promenade, it may be safely inferred that she is not a Brazilian: if wearing a bonnet, it may be deemed certain.

Aside from the light thrown upon the general estimate of female virtue, by this prohibition, from usage, there are habits of indecency among the people, witnessed even in the most public thoroughfares, sufficient to justify it, so long as the nuisance is permitted; moreover, a lady in walking is subjected to an impudent stare and look of libertinism from shopkeepers, and clerks, and passers-by, which is in itself an insult, without the addition of the remarks of levity which at times may be heard. There has been an advance in civilization of late in this respect; still, effrontery enough is left in connection with it to offend the delicacy of a woman in walking, and to excite the indignation of any male friend accompanying her.

The native female of the better classes is, therefore, still to be regarded as a kind of house prisoner; she may stand against or lean over the railing of an upper balcony by the hour—as is much the custom—gazing in listless silence upon whatever is taking place in the street; but a promenade below, with the chance of a flirtation, is denied her.

How then, you will ask, is the shopping of the ladies for fine dresses and fine feathers accomplished? I answer, either by husbands and fathers, who I am told are well versed by experience in the business, or by a running to and from shop to drawing-room of boys and porters with pattern-books and pieces. A lady from the country will drive to the house of some friend, or secure a hired room, and, sending forth a servant, will put the errand-boys of half the shops in the city, in motion for the day.

On one of these mornings, we entered a common auction-room for a moment, and accidentally stumbled on the humiliating and reproachful sight of a sale of men and women by a fellow man. Not the sale, as till within a few years past might here have been the case, of newly imported captives from Africa, but of natives of Rio, thus passing under the hammer from owner to owner like any article of merchandise. They were eight or ten in number of both sexes, varying in age from boyhood and girlhood to years of maturity and middle life. They stood meekly and submissively, though evidently anxious and sad, under the interrogations and examinations of the bidders, and a rehearsal and laudation by the auctioneer of their different available working qualities and dispositions: their health, strength and power of endurance. All, in their turn were made to mount an elevated platform, to display their limbs almost to nakedness, and exhibit their muscular powers by various gymnastics, like a horse his movements and action, before the bidders at Tattersall’s.

They were rapidly knocked down at prices varying from two hundred to a thousand and more milreis: that is, from one to five hundred and more dollars. As we turned away, the indignation of one of our party found vent in the exclamation: “Such a spectacle is a disgrace to human nature. It makes one sick at heart, and ready to fear that in the retributive justice of the Almighty the time may come, when the blacks here will put up the whites for sale in the same manner!” And why not? Why should the blood boil at the mere suggestion of the thought in the one case, and yet flow coolly and tranquilly on, in view of the other?

Happily Brazil has been aroused, through the influence of her Emperor and the wisest of her statesmen and legislators, to earnestness in that suppression of the traffic in slaves to which she has so long stood pledged by treaty. It is no longer in name only that the trade is a piracy. The landing of a cargo any where in the Empire subjects it to forfeiture. A high premium is given to an informer in a case of smuggling of the kind, and the law cuts off all recovery of payment for the proceeds of a sale that may have been effected. The consequence is, that the millionnaires of Rio, whose coffers have been filled to repletion with the price of blood, finding the government in earnest in the execution of the laws, are forsaking their gilded palaces here—some of them among the most luxurious and ornate residences of the city—for homes where they may pursue their nefarious business with less reproach to reputation, and less liability to the penalty of the laws. It is said that there are residents here, entitled by birth and citizenship to stand beneath the protecting folds of the stripes and stars of our country, who till now have been active agents in, and have shared largely in the emoluments of this wicked outrage on the rights of man.

December 10th.—The 2d inst. was the Emperor’s birth-day, a chief gala among the anniversaries of Rio. His Majesty then completed his twenty-fifth year. The day was fine, and the celebration consisted of a grand military procession of regular troops and national guards through the palace square; a Te Deum in the imperial chapel, at which the Emperor and Empress assisted, as the phraseology is; a review of the troops by their Majesties from a balcony of the palace; a levee for hand-kissing afterwards, for such as are entitled to the entrée; and at night a visit of the Court in state, to the opera. The whole accompanied by the firing, morning, noon and night, afloat and on shore, of unnumbered cannon.