The city of Bahia, sometimes called San Salvador, is situated in the bay which is known by the name of “Todos os Santos.” It is divided into an upper and a lower town; the lower is built on the narrow slip of land that lies between the sea and the rising ground on which the upper town stands. It consists chiefly of one long street, which is both narrow, badly paved, and dirty. The houses are mostly high, and those adjoining the shore project considerably into the sea. After viewing this commercial portion of the city, we proceeded to the upper town. As the streets which form the communication between them are too perpendicular to allow the use of carriages, those who do not choose to walk are carried in a kind of covered chair slung on a pole, which is borne on the shoulders of two negroes. These “Cadeiras” are commonly used both by ladies and gentlemen, and can always be hired in the streets. We, however, preferred walking, and after passing through some of the principal streets, and visiting the inside of one of the large churches we strayed out a little way into the country, delighted with the rich and pleasing aspect which it afforded. In the evening we visited the reading room of the Literary Society, where we found a few of the newspapers, and many of the literary and scientific journals of France, England, and the United States. After a short stay, we went to a large hotel opposite the theatre, where we took up our quarters for the night; but, what with the uncomfortable beds, the rattling of dice, and the still louder clink of dollars, in an apartment immediately below us, which continued till nearly four o’clock in the morning, our night’s rest was not of the most refreshing nature.
On the forenoon of the following day, we visited a convent towards the west end of the city, where the nuns make artificial flowers for sale, from the feathers of birds. We were shown into a small room, separated from the body of the building by a thick wall, through which the traffic takes place by means of a large grated window. We were soon surrounded by wreaths of all kinds and colours suited for head dresses, either sent round to us in baskets, or pushed, one by one, through the grating on a stick. It is the duty of each nun in her turn to officiate as sales-woman, whenever purchasers visit the convent, the flowers being brought to her by the servants of the establishment, who are either black or brown girls; the one upon whom this duty fell at the period of our visit was neither young nor beautiful, and destroyed all my romantic notions regarding nuns and nunneries. Several purchases were made by my companions with a view of taking them as presents to England.
After leaving the convent, I hired a boat in order to proceed a few miles further up the bay, and landed on a peninsula called Bomfim, across which I walked, accompanied by one of the two blacks belonging to the boat, the distance being rather less than two miles. After leaving the shore, on which grew Sophora tomentosa and Eugenia Michelii, two shrubs common all along the coast of Brazil, I passed through a marsh containing several species of plants that were new to me. Beyond this, the road passed through a dry sandy hollow, in which not a breath of air was to be felt, and the rays of the mid-day sun, reflected from the white sand, had so heated the atmosphere, that I was almost suffocated before I could reach a little eminence at the other end of it. Here, also, I enriched my collections, and still further on I found the thistle-like Ampherephis aristata growing commonly by the road-sides; and some large pools in a marsh, under the shade of a thicket of giant palms, were quite covered over with Pistia stratiotes, a plant nearly related to the Duck-weeds of England, but of a much larger size; other pools were gay with the yellow flowers of Limnanthemum Humboldtianum. After reaching the shore I walked along it a little way, and then returned to the boat by a different route. In passing through a swampy place at the foot of a hill, on which a large church stands, I found a few specimens of the beautiful Angelonia hirsuta, with its long spikes of large blue flowers. I afterwards met with several new species of this fine genus, some of which, raised from seeds sent home by me, are now common in hot-houses.
During this walk I observed some very large mango trees, many of them twice the size of those growing about Rio. These trees have a handsome appearance when seen at a distance, surrounding the numerous white-washed country houses; the trunk, which is often of great thickness, seldom rises above eight or ten feet above the ground, when it branches into many widely-spreading ramifications, which rise to a great height, and are so densely covered with leaves as to be impenetrable to the burning rays of the sun, thus forming a most agreeable and luxuriant shade. At three o’clock we returned to the boat, well loaded with my day’s spoil. In the evening I dined with a gentleman to whom I brought letters from Rio, and there met a young Scotchman, who invited me to sleep at his house. Next morning he accompanied me a short way into the country; we started a little before six o’clock, walked to the distance of about six miles, and reached the city again by a different route before ten. The country inland, so far as I could observe, forms a sort of elevated table-land of a gently undulating nature, and the appearance of the vegetation bespeaks great richness of soil. Besides great plenty of large mango trees, I observed many jacks (Artocarpus integrifolius) of almost equal size, the trunks and large branches of which were loaded with their large yellow-coloured fruit. This tree is very much cultivated in this part of Brazil, and, I was told, that a few years before my visit, during a scarcity of provisions in the province, its fruit, which is yielded in the greatest abundance, was the means of preventing a famine among the black population. On our return to the city, we passed a small village close by the sea, the inhabitants of which, principally blacks, are mostly occupied in whale fishing, the sperm whale being rather plentiful on this part of the coast. On entering the bay, we observed a number of whale boats going out, manned by negroes. On visiting Bahia, one circumstance which forcibly strikes the attention of a stranger, even coming from the other provinces of Brazil, is the appearance of the blacks met with in the streets; they are the finest to be seen in the country, both men and women being tall and well-formed, and generally intelligent, some of them even, as I have elsewhere observed, being tolerable Arabic scholars. They have nearly all been imported from the Gold Coast, and, not only from their greater physical strength and intelligence, but from being united among themselves, they are more inclined to insurrectionary movements than the mixed races in the other provinces. Only a fortnight after I left Bahia a serious insurrection took place, headed, indeed, by white Brazilians, but supported by most of the black population; they kept possession of the city for many months, nor were they fully dispossessed of it till after the destruction of much life and property.
On the 31st, at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, we set sail for Pernambuco. On the second night after we left, while I was walking the quarter-deck with the captain, the watch forward reported a sail close on the weather-bow; the crew were immediately piped to quarters, and in less than five minutes were all on deck ready for action. Shortly afterwards we saw the vessel pass us at some distance and disappear. As these packets generally carry home a large amount of specie to England, it was not without reason that the captain prepared himself for what might happen, especially on a coast where suspicious craft are not unfrequently hovering about. There was something exciting in this little incident, and it afforded matter for conversation on the following day.
After a passage of nine days, land was descried early in the morning from the mast-head, and in the course of a few hours we could see it from the deck, rising above the horizon like a long black cloud. On nearing the coast, it presented a very flat and barren-like aspect, forming a great and unpromising contrast to the magnificent entry to the bay of Rio de Janeiro. The town being built nearly on a level with the sea, we could only obtain a view of that portion of it which immediately skirts the shore, the houses and the cocoa-nut trees appearing above the horizon. No part of the coast within many leagues of Pernambuco rises to any height, except that whereon the old town, called Olinda, stands, and which is situated about three miles north of Recife, the name of the seaport. While standing in for the harbour, we passed a number of fishing-boats, of a very peculiar construction; they are called Jangadas, and formed of four, or more, logs of wood lashed together, having a mast and a very large sail, a fixed stool-like seat, but no bulwarks, so that the waves constantly break over them; they sail with remarkable speed, and often venture to a great distance from land. A few of the same craft may be seen at Bahia, but none at Rio. The light wood of which they are formed is obtained from a species of Apeiba, a genus allied to our own Linden-tree. We anchored in the outer roads about 12 o’clock, and after the lapse of an hour and a half, a pilot came on board, and conducted us into the harbour, which is quite a natural one, being formed by a reef that runs along the coast, at a little distance from the shore; the entrance is through a breach, upon the south side of which is a light-house and a small fort. A very heavy swell runs outside the reef and breaks over it, but there is always calm water within; and at full tide it is sufficiently deep to float the largest merchant vessels that visit the port.
The town of Pernambuco has few recommendations to those who are not engaged in business. The houses are higher than those at Rio, the streets for the most part still more narrow, and certainly quite as dirty. In nearly all the towns and cities of Brazil, rain is the only scavenger, and by it the streets are kept tolerably clean in such of them as are built on declivities, but this, unfortunately, is not the case with Pernambuco; in the wet season, the streets are full of mud and water, and in the dry, the mud is converted into clouds of dust. It has always appeared extraordinary to me that epidemic diseases do not prevail to a much greater extent than they do under such circumstances. The town consists of three great divisions: that in which the principal trade is carried on, is situated on a narrow neck of land, which runs down between the sea and a river from Olinda, and is called Recife; another principally occupied with shops, and containing the palace of the President, is built on an island, and is known by the name of St. Antonio; the third, called Boa Vista, consisting principally of one long street, is constructed on the mainland, and is by far the finest part of the whole. These are all connected by means of two wooden bridges.
As Pernambuco is situated on the most eastern part of the American continent, it is fully exposed to the influence of the trade winds all the year round, and hence enjoys a cool climate; it is considered more healthy than either Rio or Bahia. Except two or three churches it contains but few public buildings, and, at the period of my visit, it had not a single hotel of any description. The Palace in which the affairs of the provincial government are now carried on, was in former times the Jesuits’ College, and stands on the banks of the river; it is a large building of gloomy appearance, with walls of enormous thickness. When it was erected by these enterprising and charitable men, they little dreamed that their career was to terminate at so early a period as it did. It is handed down from father to son, particularly among the middle and lower classes of Brazil, that the destruction of Jesuitical power was a severe loss to the well-being of the country. There are of course but few alive now who formed the Company of Jesus, but the memory of them will long remain; I have always heard them spoken of with respect and with regret. What different men they must have been from the degraded race who now undertake the spiritual welfare of this nation! It is a hard thing to say, but I do it not without well considering the nature of the assertion, that the present clergy of Brazil are more debased and immoral than any other class of men. However much the Jesuits were slandered and persecuted from the jealousy of those who envied the respect in which they were held by their flocks, and the confidence which they reposed in them, enough of the good still remains to shame those who have succeeded them. More than one nation of Indians in Brazil, which, in the time of the Jesuits, had renounced their savage life and become Christians, have, since their suppression, returned to the condition from which, at so much risk and with so much labour, they had been redeemed. Whatever were the motives of the Jesuits, they are judged of in Brazil, not by them, but by their good works.
The inhabitants of the town of Pernambuco resemble very much those of Rio, but there is a great difference in the appearance of the country people, which here, as elsewhere, are easily distinguished from the citizens. Those seen in the streets of Rio de Janeiro are a tall handsome race of men, mostly from the mining districts, or the more southerly province of San Paulo; their dress consists of a linen jacket and trowsers, generally of a blue colour, brown leather boots, which are firmly tied round the leg a little above the knee, and a very high crowned broad-brimmed white straw hat. Those, on the contrary, who frequent the city of Pernambuco, are a more swarthy and more diminutive race, but still far superior in appearance to the puny citizens. There are two classes of them, the Matúto and the Sertanejo: the Matútos inhabit the low flat country, which extends from the coast up to the high land of the interior, called the Sertão, or desert, which gives name to, and is inhabited by, the Sertanejos. The dress of both for the most part, but of the latter in particular, consists of a low round-crowned broad-brimmed hat, jacket, and trowsers, made of a yellowish brown-coloured leather, that manufactured from the skin of the different kinds of deer being preferred; in place of a waistcoat they very frequently wear a triangular piece of the same kind of leather, fastened round the neck and middle by cords of the same material. The boots in use in the province of Rio are unknown here, and either shoes or slippers, also of brown leather, are worn instead. The Matúto generally dispenses with the leather trowsers and shoes, using in place of them a pair of wide cotton drawers, which reach only a little below the knee, the legs remaining bare. Cotton and hides are the principal articles brought from the interior, and horses are the only beasts of burden, mules being as rarely used for that purpose here, as horses are in the southern provinces. Each horse carries two large bales of cotton as well as the driver, who places himself between them, stretching his legs forward on a level with his seat.