Brazil and La Plata: The personal record of a cruise

by C. S. Stewart

Rio de Janeiro.

December 30th.—It was quite a trial to bid adieu to the charms of San Aliexo. My kind host and hostess were earnest in their persuasions to detain me through the holidays; and I would most readily have yielded, but for an engagement to officiate, on Christmas morning, at the marriage of Miss K——, the daughter of the American consul, to Mr. R—— of the family of that name, already so often mentioned. The groom, though a native of Brazil, claims, through his father, the rights of a British subject; and the civil contract took place, in conformity with an act of parliament, in the presence of the British consul, at his office, at an early hour of the day. The marriage was afterwards solemnized by me, according to the Protestant service, in the drawing-room of the American consulate; and, Mr. R—— being a Romanist, a third ceremony occurred, as at the wedding of Miss R——, his sister, last August, in the private chapel of the country house of Mr. M——, his maternal grandfather.

The company assembled at the consulate was large, and the retinue of carriages by which it was conveyed the long drive to Mr. M——’s, quite imposing. Four-in-hand is the usual turn-out here, for such a distance, and Mr. Schenck, the American minister, led the way, next after the bride and groom, in an elegant chariot drawn by four beautiful white horses. Commodore McKeever’s carriage had four fine mules. I was of his party. The sky was slightly overcast with fleecy clouds, and the coachman’s box being so lofty as to overlook the walls and hedges, which screen so much of the taste and beauty of the suburbs from view on the level of the street, in defiance of every Brazilian idea of dignity, I perched myself upon it, for the greater enjoyment of the drive. The day being a general festival, the whole population of the city was in the streets in holiday dress; and in the extended suburbs through which we skirted our way, the inhabitants—by whole families—were everywhere seen in the verandahs and lawns and door-yards of the houses, in the cheerful and quiet enjoyment of the fiesta. A fondness for splendor and display of every kind—in dress, furniture and equipage—is strikingly a characteristic of the people here; and the showy procession, recognized as a bridal cortège, created quite a sensation as it dashed onward—manifestly exciting the admiration and lively sympathies of the observers.

From my elevated and unconfined position, I enjoyed the whole much; and feasted, the entire distance, on the gorgeous display of flowers, exhibited in the succession of tasteful gardens and pleasure-grounds which I overlooked.

The mansion and grounds of Mr. M—— I described to you in connection with the previous wedding. The religious ceremony now, was the same in every particular, from the scattering of the rose leaves and orange buds before the bride in the procession from the drawing-room to the chapel, to the showering of the same over her and the whole company, with the closing benedictions at the altar. A concert in the music-room immediately succeeded the ceremony, and continued till the banquet was served at six o’clock. This was more luxurious, if possible, in the variety and costliness of its delicacies, native and foreign, in season and out of season, than on the former occasion; and superb in its table-service and plate. The decorations in flowers alone, would, in a less favored climate, have formed no inconsiderable item of expense; while the fruits, in the perfection of their kinds—all freshly gathered—pines, figs, oranges, sweet-lemons, grapes in clusters like those of Eshcol, bananas, mangoes, and melons, were most artistically arranged. After coffee in the drawing-room, dancing was commenced; and, taking our leave, we were safely on board ship shortly after ten o’clock.

Thus passed my Christmas, and thus is our compatriot, Miss K——, married; and, in the language of the world, “well married.” But alas! married in Brazil: away from an American home; away from the intelligence and high cultivation of American life; away from the pure morals, spiritual aspirations, and religious privileges of American Christianity; away from almost every thing that I would wish an American girl to hold most dear!

January 7th, 1852.—This festive period of the year presents constant opportunities of witnessing the slave and negro population in holiday aspects. For many nights past, Gloria Hill, at which the Commodore’s barge usually lands in our evening visits to the shore, has echoed till a late hour with the songs, the wild music, and the tread of the dance in their favorite amusements; and yesterday afternoon, I accidentally became a spectator of a grand gathering of the kind. It was “Twelfth” or “King’s day,” as sometimes called,—being that commemorative of the adoration of the Magi in the stable of Bethlehem; and is a chief festival with the negroes.

I left the ship with the intention of taking, once more, the long walk through the valley of the Larangeiras to the aqueduct, and thence to the city by the hill of Santa Theresa. When about half way up the Larangeiras, however, my attention was arrested by a large gathering of negroes within an enclosure by the wayside, engaged in their native, heathen dances, accompanied by the wild and rude music brought with them from Africa. I stopped to witness the scene: a counterpart, in most respects, to those which, during the first period of my residence at the Sandwich Islands, attended the orgies of pagan revelry there. Many of the principal performers, both among the dancers and musicians, were dressed in the most wild and grotesque manner—some, as if in impersonation of the Prince of Evil himself, as pictured with hoof and horns and demoniac mien. Many of the dances surpassed in revolting licentiousness, any thing I recollect to have witnessed in the South Seas; and filled my mind with melancholy disgust: the more so, from the fact, that a majority, if not all the performers, as was manifest from the crosses and amulets they wore, were baptized members of the Romish Church—Christians in name, but in habits and in heart heathens still. Exhibitions of this kind are far from being limited here to extraordinary holidays, or to the seclusion of by-places. I have seen them in open daylight, in the most public corners of the city, while young females even, of apparent respectability and modesty, hung over the surrounding balconies as spectators.

I know not how long the revelry had now been going on; but either from the free use of cacha, the vile rum of the country, or from nervous excitement, many seemed fairly beside themselves. These danced till ready to drop from exhaustion; while shouts of encouragement and applause followed the persevering efforts of those who were most enduring and most frantic in muscular exertion. The performers on the African drums and other rude instruments, who accompanied the monotonous beating and thrumming upon these with loud songs, in solo and chorus, of similar character, seemed especially to enter into the spirit of the revelry, and labored with hands and voice and a vehemence of action in their whole bodies, that caused the sweat to roll down their naked limbs as if they had just stepped from a bath of oil.

By the time I had finished these observations, the evening was too far advanced for the walk upon which I had started, and I retraced my steps to the Catete, the principal street, connecting the city with the bay and suburbs of Botefogo. In it, toward evening, the wealth and fashion of the city, especially in the diplomatic and foreign circles, is generally met in carriages and on horseback for the daily afternoon drive. Many of the equipages equal in elegance those in New York and other of our chief cities; while well-mounted riders, liveried coachmen, footmen, and grooms, give to the whole quite the air of a metropolis. That, however, which most struck me on the present occasion, was an amusing side-scene. Though less generally the custom than formerly, it is still the habit of some of the bourgeoisie of Rio, at least on Sundays and great holidays, to promenade to and from church, by whole families, parents and children, from adults to infants, with a retinue of servants—in their best dresses, and in formal procession of two and two. The sight thus presented is interesting, and often amusing, from the formality and stately solemnity with which they move along. The servants bring up the rear, and, whether male or female, are usually as elaborately, if not as expensively dressed as the rest of the family: and often, in the case of the women, with an equal display of laces, muslins, and showy jewelry. Apparently in imitation of this usage of the white population—or rather of the Portuguese and Brazilian, for there are no whites among the native born here—two jet black African women, richly and fashionably attired, came sauntering along with the most conscious air of high-bred self-possession. They were followed by a black female servant, also in full dress, carrying a black baby three or four months old, and decked out in all the finery of an aristocratic heir—an elaborately wrought, lace-frilled and rosetted cap, and long flowing robe of thin muslin beautifully embroidered, and ornamented with lace. Every one seemed struck with this display; and I was at a loss to determine whether it was a bona fide exhibition of the pride of life, or only in burlesque of it, with the design of “shooting folly as it flies.” The common blacks, crowding the doors and gateways, burst into shouts of laughter as they passed; while the nurse, at least, of the party showed evidence of a like disposition. Indeed, I think I did not mistake, while looking back upon the group, in seeing the fat sides and shoulders of the black ladies themselves, notwithstanding their lofty bearing and stately step, shake with merriment, under the slight drapery of their fashionable and elegantly finished mantillas.