Principal Summer Resort of the English Residents—Journey from Piedade to Magé and Frechal—Ascent of the Mountains—Description of Virgin Forests—Mr. March’s Plantation in the Serra—Treatment of his Slaves—Case of One bitten by a venomous Snake—Limb amputated by the Author—Mode of Treatment in such Cases among the Natives—Charms—Tapir-Hunting in the Mountains—Beasts, Birds, and Reptiles found there—Visit to a Brazilian Fazendeiro—To Constantia—Ascent of the loftiest Peaks—Vegetable Productions in those elevated regions—Pleasant Sojourn on the Estate.
The collections which had accumulated during the period of my residence in the vicinity of Rio de Janeiro, having been put into a proper state and sent to England, I made arrangements for visiting the Organ Mountains. The peaks which receive this appellation form part of a mountain range, situated about sixty miles to the north of Rio, which, branching out in various directions, stretches from about Bahia, in lat. 12° S., to S. Catharina, in lat. 29° S. The name (Serra dos Orgãos) bestowed on them by the Portuguese, originated in a fancied resemblance which the peaks, rising gradually one above the other, bear to the pipes of an organ. About ten years before my visit a Sanatorium, or health station, had been established on this range, at about 3,000 feet above the level of the sea, in a beautiful valley behind the higher peaks. A large tract of country there belongs to Mr. March, an English gentleman, on which he has a farm for the breeding of horses and mules, and a large garden, from which the Rio market is regularly supplied with European vegetables. On this property a number of cottages have been erected, which are resorted to by the families of the English residents at Rio during the hot months. He also receives boarders into his own house, and it rarely happens that the place is without visitors. About one-third of the journey has to be performed by water, the other is accomplished on mules, which are sent down from Mr. March’s farm (Fazenda).
As Mr. March happened to be in Rio at the time I purposed visiting the mountains, we started together, on the 24th of Dec., along with two or three English merchants, who were going up to spend the Christmas holidays with their families. It was mid-day before we could leave the city, and, under the influence of a strong sea-breeze, we reached Piedade, the landing-place, at half-past three o’clock, the distance being about twenty miles. The boat in which we embarked belongs to a class which is very common in the harbour, and much employed in conveying goods to the head of the bay, and produce from the interior, from thence to Rio. They are also much made use of by pleasure parties frequenting the islands and opposite shores of the bay. They are called Faluas, and are manned by six rowers, and a steersman who is called the Patrão. The latter is very frequently the owner, and most of them are natives of Portugal. They have two masts, each of which carries a large sail; the stern part is covered over and enclosed with curtains. The negroes who man these boats are generally strong muscular men. Seated on one thwart, they place their feet against another, and rise up at each stroke of the oar, keeping time to a melancholy chant all the while they are pulling. These boats can be hired for an entire day at about eighteen shillings.
The day was a most delightful one, the sun shining out brightly from a clear sky, and the air cooled by the fresh sea-breeze. We passed close to the Ilha do Governador, which is the largest island in the bay. It is about eight miles in length, but narrow in proportion, and thinly inhabited. Shortly before my arrival in the country, an Englishman commenced a soap and candle manufactory on it, both of which articles bring the same price in Rio as those imported from Europe. The muddy shores of this island, as well as those of the whole bay, abound with crabs of all sizes, and every variety of colour, from nearly black to a bright scarlet. On one occasion when I visited the island, I observed within a very short space about eight species. They are gregarious, and each kind inhabits a distinct colony; they burrow in the mud, under the shade and among the roots of the mangrove and other shore-loving trees. It was here that I first saw the apparent anomaly of trees bearing crops of oysters. These animals, when young, attach themselves to the lower part of the trunks, and long pendulous roots, of the mangrove and other trees, which grow in the sea even to low-water mark. The oysters are small and not well-flavoured. Others are found in the bay of enormous size, some of their shells, which I collected as specimens, measuring upwards of a foot in length. Near the head of the bay there are many little islands, some of which are inhabited, and present the agreeable prospect of cultivation, while others are little more than masses of rock, among the clefts of which grow a few stunted shrubs, and grotesque prickly pears.
At Piedade, mules from Mr. March’s Fazenda were waiting for us and our luggage, and, after a short stay for the arrangement of the latter, we began the land part of our journey. At Piedade, which only consists of a few scattered houses, a large hotel was being erected by Col. Leite, a Brazilian gentleman, who, at his own expense, was then making a new road across the Organ Mountains, to join the one which leads to the mining districts from Porto de Estrella, another landing place at the head of the bay. The latter place has hitherto been the common harbour between Rio and the interior. The Colonel, however, expects that his new road will ultimately be preferred, as it is much shorter. Four years after when I again visited this part of the country, I found that this road was still in an unfinished state. To save the expense of an engineer he had traced the road himself, and the consequence was, that it afterwards required many alterations. The road from Piedade to Magé, a small town about four miles distant, leads through a flat, sandy, and, in several places, marshy plain, abounding with low trees and beautiful flowering shrubs. The hedges were covered with numerous climbers, one of them a small sweet-flowered kind of Jasmine, the only one which has hitherto been found in a wild state on the continent of America. In moist places, Dichorizandra thyrsiflora, with its spikes of azure blossoms, was not uncommon, while the sandy fields were covered with a large kind of Cactus, among which many plants of the aloe-like Fourcroya gigantea were to be seen throwing up their flowering stems to a height of thirty and forty feet.
The town of Magé is rather prettily situated on the banks of the Magé-assú, one of the many small rivers which take their rise in the Organ Mountains, and fall into the head of the bay. It contains a neat church, and a number of well-furnished shops. The river is navigable, for craft of a small size, about eight miles from its mouth. A considerable quantity of Farinha de Mandiocca (Cassava) is exported from this place to Rio. Its low situation, and the surrounding swamps, render it unhealthy at particular seasons; intermittent fevers are here common, and they frequently terminate in others of a more malignant nature. From Magé to Frechal, the place where we slept for the night, the distance is about fourteen miles. The road still continued flat, but wound round many low hills, the sides of which are covered with plantations of Mandiocca. We met several troops of mules coming down from the interior, loaded with produce. Unaccustomed to such a mode of transport, the European looks with astonishment at the great number of animals which are here required to carry what, in his own country, would scarcely form a load for one. Loaded mules start daily from Rio, Piedade, and Porto d’Estrella, to make journeys into the interior of from five hundred to two thousand miles and upwards. They seldom travel above twelve or sixteen miles a day, and the load allowed to each varies from six to eight arrobas of thirty-two pounds each. The loads are protected from the weather by dried ox-hides, which are strapped lightly over them. Frechal is a small village, consisting of a few scattered houses, and situated about two miles from the foot of the mountains. The place at which we put up for the night is a large kind of public house (Venda), where there is an open room for the accommodation of travellers; around this room a number of beds are arranged, which gives it very much the appearance of a hospital ward. Here, unlike most other places of the same kind between Rio and the mining districts, a very comfortable meal may always be obtained.
Next morning by break of day we again continued our journey. At about two miles from Frechal the ascent of the mountains begins. From thence to Mr. March’s Fazenda, which stands at an elevation of upwards of 3,000 feet above the level of the sea, is twelve miles. During the whole way the road is very bad, and in many places so steep, that it is with considerable difficulty the mules make their way up it. Indeed, to one unused to travel on such paths, which have more the appearance of the bed of a mountain torrent than a road for beasts of burden, many parts of it appear impassable; but he is soon undeceived by the slow yet sure manner in which the mules pass along the worst portion of it, especially if left entirely to themselves. The whole length of the road is through one dense forest, the magnificence of which cannot be imagined by those who have never seen it, or penetrated into its recesses. Those remnants of the virgin forest which still stand in the vicinity of the capital, although they appear grand to the eye of a newly-arrived European, become insignificant when compared with the mass of giant vegetation which clothes the sides of the Organ Mountains. So far as I have been able to determine, the large forest trees consist of various species of Palms, Laurus, Ficus, Cassia, Bignonia, Solanum, Myrtaceæ, and Melastomaceæ. In temperate climates natural forests are mostly composed of trees which grow gregariously. In those of tropical countries it is seldom that two trees of a kind are to be seen growing together, the variety of different species is so great. Many of the trees are of immense size, and have their trunks and branches covered with myriads of those plants which are usually called parasites, but are not so in reality, consisting of Orchideæ, Bromeliaceæ, Ferns, Peperomiæ, &c., which derive their nourishment from the moisture of their bark, and the earthy matter which has been formed from the decay of mosses, &c. Many of the trees have their trunks encircled by twiners, the stems of which are often thicker than those they surround. This is particularly the case with a kind of wild fig, called by the Brazilians, Cipo Matador. It runs up the tree to which it has attached itself, and at the distance of about every ten feet throws out from each side a thick clasper, which curves round, and closely entwines the other stem. As both the trees increase in size, the pressure ultimately becomes so great, that the supporting one dies from the embrace of the parasite.
There is another kind of wild fig-tree, with an enormous height and thickness of stem, to which the English residents give the name of Buttress-tree, from several large thin plates which stand out from the bottom of the trunk. They begin to jut out from the stem at the height of ten or twelve feet from the bottom, and gradually increase in breadth till they reach the ground, where they are connected with the large roots of the tree. At the surface of the ground these plates are often five feet broad, and throughout not more than a few inches thick. The various species of Laurus form fine trees; they flower in the months of April and May, at which season the atmosphere is loaded with the rich perfume of their small white blossoms. When their fruit is ripe, it forms the principal food of the Jacutinga (Penelope Jacutinga, Spix), a fine large game bird. The large Cassiæ have a striking appearance when in flower; and, as an almost equal number of large trees of Lasiandra Fontanesiana, and others of the Melastoma tribe, are in bloom at the same time, the forests are then almost one mass of yellow and purple from the abundance of these flowers. Rising amid these, the pink-coloured flowers of the Chorisia speciosa—a kind of silk cotton-tree—can be easily distinguished. It is also a large tree, with a stem, covered with strong prickles, from five to eight feet in circumference unbranched to the height of thirty or forty feet. The branches then form a nearly hemispherical top, which, when covered with its thousands of beautiful large rose-coloured blossoms, has a striking effect when contrasted with the masses of green, yellow, and purple of the surrounding trees.
Many of these large trunks afford support to various species of climbing and twining shrubs, belonging to the natural orders Bignoniaceæ, Compositæ, Apocyneæ, and Leguminosæ, the stems of which frequently assume a very remarkable appearance. Several of them are often twisted together and dangle from the branches of the trees, like large ropes, while others are flat and compressed, like belts: of the latter description I have met with some six inches broad, and not more than an inch thick. Two of the finest climbers are the beautiful large trumpet-flowered Solandra grandiflora, which, diffusing itself among the largest trees of the forest, gives them a magnificence not their own; and a showy species of Fuchsia (F. integrifolia, Cambess.),[3] which is very common, attaching itself to all kinds of trees, often reaching to the height of from sixty to one hundred feet, and then falling down in the most beautiful festoons.
At the foot of the mountains the underwood principally consists of shrubs belonging to the natural orders Melastomaceæ, Myrtaceæ, Compositæ, Solanaceæ, and Rubiaceæ, among which are many large species of herbaceous ferns, and a few palms. About the middle, palms and tree ferns abound, some of the latter reaching to the height of not less than forty feet. These trees are so unlike every other denizen of the forest, so strange in appearance, yet so graceful, that they have always attracted my attention more than any other, not even excepting the palms. At an elevation of about 2,000 feet, a large species of bamboo (Bambusa Togoara, Mart.) makes its appearance. The stems of this gigantic grass are often eighteen inches in circumference, and attain a height of from fifty to one hundred feet. They do not, however, grow perfectly upright, their tops forming a graceful curve downwards. Throughout the whole distance, the path was lined on each side with the most beautiful herbaceous plants and delicate ferns.