Brazil and La Plata: The personal record of a cruise

by C. S. Stewart

Desterro.

May 22d.—The Congress is again at the island of St. Catherine. We came to anchor at Santa Cruz, on Saturday the 15th inst.; and on the following Monday morning, I came to this place in company with our Master S—— and Secretary G——. When here last, the principal hotel was admirably kept by an American. He has since died, and his place is well supplied by a Mahonese, named Salvador. After having engaged rooms for the night and ordered our dinner, we sallied forth for a walk in the suburbs of the town. It is so long since we have been within reach of any thing like rural beauty, that, surrounded by it here, we were like school-boys turned loose for play; and in the brilliancy of the morning and elasticity of a bracing air, felt, as one of us expressed it, ready to fly. The south wind blew freshly over the hills and through the trees, and, at one point in our walk, with novel and charming effect upon the widespread branches of a couple of Australian pines. Under its breathings these became perfect Eolian harps, sending forth as we stood beneath them, the most touching strains of melody; swelling at times into the fulness of the organ, and then dying away in cadences, so soft, as to make the

“Listener hold his breath to hear;”

while the nerves thrilled under the expiring tones. I never heard “a voice of nature” more charming.

We were again struck with the great civility of every one we met, from the well-dressed gentleman to the humblest slave. As we stood near the enclosure of a poor cabin, admiring the peculiar beauty of a rose in the perfection of its bloom, a negro came to the door, and with pleasant salutations, begged us to pull it, though it was the only one in flower; at the same time cutting a cluster of buds from the bush himself, and adding sprigs of geranium for a bouquet.

After an excellent dinner served by Salvador, we towards evening took a walk along the beach and the eastern shore of the bay, to one of the finest points of view. The picture presented in the glowing light of the setting sun was very fine. Our walk led us past the general hospital. It is finely situated on a commanding terrace, and has recently been enlarged and refitted, through the liberality of the Emperor and Empress, by donations made by them in their visit to St. Catherine’s in 1845: the one having given ten thousand dollars for this purpose, and the other two. It is a foundling hospital, as well as an infirmary. The window containing the roda or turning-box for the reception of the infants left, was open, though shaded by a screen of green cloth, embroidered in the centre with the Imperial arms, and with the motto in Portuguese—“Meus pais me desemparao a Divina Providencia me protege.” “My parent deserts me, but Divine Providence protects me.”

I rose early the next morning and took a stroll through the market. It is a new and neatly kept structure, immediately adjoining the beach. I say beach, for there are no wharves. This was now filled with canoes run up on the sand, and laden with vegetables, fruit, wood, and various articles of traffic, in which a brisk barter was going on. On the grass of the open square in front, groups of mules were clustered with pack-saddles and panniers burdened with similar articles, brought for a like purpose from the interior; and near by, negro women in all kinds of costume and of every color, were seated frying fish, and boiling black beans into a kind of soup, and preparing other edibles for the breakfast of the muleteers and passers by. Here, too, were collected, according to daily custom, two or three dozen boys, from eight to twelve years of age, each having a bamboo stick across the shoulder, from one end of which was suspended a tin can capable of containing three or four quarts, with a small tin cup attached as a measure. These are the milkmen of the place, belonging to the small farms in the adjoining valleys, to a distance of seven or eight miles.

Our breakfast at the hotel was a l’Americain: such an one as Salvador boastingly said “a Brazilian would not know how to get up.” Immediately after despatching it G——, S—— and I set off in a boat for the village of San José on the mainland, nine miles across the straits in a south-easterly direction from Desterro. This was in prosecution of a purpose we had formed of visiting the German colony of San Pedro d’Alcantara in the mountains, some twenty-five or thirty miles inland from San José; partly to observe the progress made by the immigrants after a settlement of twenty-five years; and partly for the effect upon our health and spirits of a ride for a couple of days on horseback. There was no wind, and we were rowed over by a Brazilian, the owner of the boat, and a young negro, his slave. The views from the water in every direction are beautifully lakelike. The points and bluff headlands projecting into the water, are in many instances peculiarly striking in their terminations: consisting of columnar shafts, piked splinters, and immense boulders of granite, so arranged as to have the appearance of the ruins of Cyclopean fortresses, even to the remains of seeming embrasures. In other instances they might pass for fragments of a Giant’s causeway.

We were an hour and a half in making the distance. We had been directed for information and aid in accomplishing our purpose to a German named Adams, residing at a beach called the Praya Compreda, in the immediate vicinity of San José. He is a kind of chieftain among his countrymen of the colony, and could be of more service to us than any other person. We landed near his house, a substantial and comfortable edifice of stone, appropriated in its lower apartments to the varied business of a commission merchant, grocer, and tavernkeeper. It was here we were to procure horses and a guide for the excursion. At first the prospect of success was rather unpromising. Though kindly received by Adams, he said it was impossible for him to furnish horses—that all his were entirely used up by a hard ride from which they had just returned, and he knew of no others that could be obtained: nor was there any one in the place who could act as a guide. However, upon setting forth our entire dependence upon him, at the recommendation of his friend; the anxiety we felt to make the trip; our nationality, and the ship at Santa Cruz to which we were attached, he so far relented in his first decision as to say he would see what could be done; and at the end of a few minutes it was determined, that after a good feed, his two horses, with the addition of a couple of mules, should be at our service, and that Adams himself should become our companion and guide.

Matters being thus satisfactorily arranged, we employed the time for the requisite preparations, in looking around us, and in learning a little of the character and history of our host. He is a stout, thickset, square, iron-framed man of forty-five, with a good-natured, but most determined and inflexible face. He has been twenty-four years in the country, having been one of the pioneer colonists of Alcantara, and resident in the mountains till within a few years past. He is now well to do in the world, and has a wife and family of six children. A daughter of eighteen soon became an object of unfeigned admiration to some of our party. She is very pretty in face, fresh and blooming in complexion, with a refined and intelligent expression, and perfect in the proportion and symmetry of her figure. There was a fitting of the head and neck to the bust, and an air and bearing in her walk, that would have become a princess. It is so long since we have seen in common life one who would be called at home a truly pretty girl, that we were quite charmed with the neat and modest air of this Christianlike and civilized beauty. A brother, too, some two years older, tall, stout, and well modelled, moved about with the straightness and the elastic step of an Indian.