After a delay of several days, I embarked at noon on the 19th of July, in the Maria Luiza, a schooner of about one hundred tons burden; she was deeply laden, the cabin and deck, as well as the entire hold, being crammed with goods. We had, altogether, seventeen passengers on board, besides an equal number of negro servants or slaves; all brought much luggage with them, so that the whole of the after-deck was completely covered with trunks and packages heaped on each other, the only clear space left being that requisite for the steersman; on each side were two kennel-like boxes, which served as the sleeping berths of the two Pintos, all the other passengers being obliged to make the best provision for themselves upon deck in the open air, for there was no accommodation whatever below, even for taking meals, every one, therefore, looked out for the most convenient corner to sit or lie down in. I could find no better quarters than those upon my own trunks, one of which being much higher than the other, offered a miserably hard couch, on which I was obliged to sleep at night. This was rendered still worse by the bad weather, for no sooner had we quitted the harbour than it began to rain heavily, from which no shelter could be obtained, except that afforded by my poncho and umbrella, which did not long prevent me from being completely drenched. The misery of my situation may therefore be well imagined, and if some of my previous voyages were disagreeable, this was wretched in the extreme. My suffering was much aggravated by sea-sickness, from which I had always been quite free, but I experienced much inconvenience from this cause during the first two days, arising principally from too close contiguity to my fellow-passengers; under any circumstances there is no malady that so entirely prostrates both mind and body, but in my present position, sometimes exposed to the burning rays of the sun, at others to heavy rains without the power or means of sheltering myself from their influence, this feeling was greatly aggravated. By the evening of the second day, I found myself so much recovered as to be able to sit up, and on the following morning to eat a little, my only food having been hitherto a few oranges, the most grateful of all things to a sick person. Many of my companions did not fare so well, as they continued to suffer till the end of the voyage.
For my passage and that of my black servant I paid twenty-six mil-reis, about three pounds five shillings sterling, which included provisions. These were regularly served out three times a day by the captain from the top of the companion, and on these occasions, I was always greatly amused at the scenes which took place; every one rushed forward for his portion, and sometimes groups of twos, threes, and fours were to be seen eating with their fingers out of the same dish. There were only a few knives and forks, not nearly sufficient for the number of passengers, and these fell always to the share of those first served. Our food consisted for the most part of minced dried beef boiled with rice, to which was added morning and evening a cup of tea, and at dinner a bottle or two of miserable red wine.
One of my fellow-passengers was too remarkable a person not to be made mention of; he was an active, slender little fellow, about thirty years of age, rather well dressed, his physiognomy denoting a remarkable development of the organ of language, a qualification which I found fully confirmed in him; he seemed to be well known to the other passengers, beguiled much of the tedium of the voyage by his amusing and extravagant stories, for which he possessed great talent, and seldom have I listened to one whose powers were greater in this respect. He was often called upon for a song, on which occasion he was accompanied by a young man who played well on the guitar. He told me that he was a native of Pernambuco and had visited Lisbon, and all the sea-ports between Buenos Ayres and Parà, and he described many of the adventures that befell him on several of these occasions. In recounting these tales he generally seated himself cross-legged on the companion, and as he proceeded, his listeners were kept in one continued roar of laughter. The adventures of Gil Blas were nothing compared with his, and it is not improbable that many were manufactured for the occasion.
About noon of the second day we passed Cape St. Roque, and in the evening came to anchor in a small bay inside the reef, within a short distance of a suspicious-looking schooner, which I have no doubt came in here to land a cargo of slaves, as there was no likelihood of her being in this solitary place for any other purpose. Early next morning we again got outside the reef, and continued our voyage, running before the S.E. trades which were blowing very freshly at the time. The weather now became much finer, and I could enjoy the cool fresh breeze, and observe the nature of the coast, to which we often approached so closely as to be within little more than gunshot of it; with the exception of a few white sand hills, destitute nearly of vegetation, it appeared extremely flat. About noon of the third day we made the bar of Aracaty, but as it was then low water, and too shallow to allow us to enter, we had to stand off till four P.M., when a pilot came on board who steered us into the smooth deep water in the mouth of the river inside the bar, where we came to anchor for the night, and were visited by a custom-house officer, who was more particular in examining my luggage than that of any other passenger. When this was finished, and I had exhibited my passport, I was allowed to hire a boat to convey me to the town, situated twelve miles farther up the river, as the vessel could not get up till the following day.
The river on which the town of Aracaty stands is called the Rio Jaguaribe, and a little above the bar it is about a mile broad. For a considerable distance the western bank is comparatively high, but the eastern side is flat all the way up to the town. The lower part of the western bank is rather thickly wooded with small trees, but on both sides the shores are covered with mangroves. About a league and a half below the town, great numbers of the Carnahuba palm (Corypha cerifera, Mart.) makes its appearance. This palm, of which I afterwards passed through immense forests, reaches to the height of from twenty to forty feet, and besides being the most abundant, is one of the most beautiful of its size. The stems of the younger plants are generally covered all over with leaves, but as they get older the lower ones drop off, leaving only a tuft at the top, which is so arranged as to form a perfect ball. The leaves are fan-shaped, and not at all unlike those of the fan palm of the south of Europe.
The town of Aracaty stands on the east side of the river, and consists principally of one long broad street. It contains four fine churches, and the houses are generally of two stories. The population amounts to about 5000, the mass of whom are very poor. A considerable quantity of dried beef was formerly prepared here for exportation to other parts of Brazil, but this trade has fallen off very much, cotton and hides being now the principal articles of export. Of the former about 5000 bags, or 25,000 arrobas of thirty-two pounds each, are exported annually, and of the latter about 2000. But little cotton is cultivated near the coast, the greater part of it, as well as the hides, being brought from the interior; the transport of these is effected at the end of the rainy season in large waggons, which are generally drawn by twelve oxen. During the time of the rains, the roads are impassable, and in the dry season, neither water nor grass can be procured for the cattle. The river runs close to the town, and at the end of the rainy season, when I was there, was somewhat less than a quarter of a mile broad; but during the height of the rains, it often rises twelve feet above its ordinary level, and then overflows the town. With the exception of a hill situated two and a half leagues to the S.W. of the town, and which rises six or eight hundred feet, and a few sand hills near the coast, the country all round is so flat, that the horizon is about as level as that of the sea. The houses are built of a frame-work made of the stems of the Carnahuba palm filled up with brick. The stem of this useful tree is used by the inhabitants for almost every purpose to which wood can be applied; it is so durable that the lower part, particularly of the full grown stems, lasts for many years, even when exposed to the weather; hence all the enclosures for cattle are made of them, for which purpose they are longitudinally split. The leaves are used for a variety of purposes, such as thatch, pack-saddles, hats, &c.; they also yield a kind of wax, obtained from the young leaves, which are covered with a glaucous bloom, by shaking them after they have been detached from the tree. Each yields about fifty grains of a whitish powder, and when a considerable quantity of it has been obtained, it is put into a pot and melted over the fire. Some years ago, a large quantity of this was sent to Lisbon, but was not found to answer any useful purpose; by the Brazilians it is sometimes used to adulterate common wax. In times of scarcity the young leaves are chopped up, and given to horses and cattle to eat, and the people prepare for themselves a kind of farinha from the inside of the young stems. The rains generally begin here in February, and end about the beginning of June. The whole province is sometimes liable to great droughts (seccas), the last of which occurred in the year 1825, during which no rain fell at all. The distress resulting from this calamity was very great, and the people still speak of it with the utmost horror; nearly all the horses and cattle were exterminated, and the loss of human life was very great, it being estimated that 30,000 of the inhabitants of the province perished. Great numbers of these died while attempting to reach the coast; wild as well as domestic animals fell victims to the want of water and food: these droughts have been observed to occur periodically. Aracaty was, during my visit, supplied with water of tolerable quality from a well near the town, but it was expected shortly to have an excellent supply from a spring about a league distant; the individual who undertook to procure this was Senhor Maya, a native of Gibraltar, who has been settled for many years at Aracaty; having received a privilege from government, he laid a brick channel for the water to run in, and as the spring is considerably lower than the town, he was erecting a force-pump for the purpose of raising it; the water from the well near the town, was sold through the streets in small barrels carried on low carts, which were often drawn by sheep. Senhor Maya expects to remunerate himself by the sale of the produce of his labour, which will certainly, from its superior quality, obtain preference.
As at Maceio, there is only one British merchant resident at Aracaty, Mr. Miller, to whom I had letters from Pernambuco, and in whose house I was hospitably entertained during the fortnight I remained here. I had also letters to several respectable Brazilians, from whom I likewise received many kind attentions, not the least of which were letters to their friends in the interior. Besides making the necessary preparations for my journey, I made a few excursions in the neighbourhood, and thereby obtained specimens of most of the plants which were then in flower, among these was a very pretty species of Angelonia (A. arguta, Benth.). As the Senhores Pinto were sending their goods to Icó in waggons, they obligingly allowed me to despatch, by this opportunity, all the heaviest portions of my luggage. I thus only required to purchase two horses at Aracaty, and these, two of the best travelling ones that were to be had, cost only four guineas each. Having agreed to accompany the Pintos to Icó, we started on horseback from Aracaty, on the morning of the 3rd of August, in the midst of a heavy shower of rain, which, however, soon ceased. After riding through a dense forest of Carnahuba palms on a perfectly level sandy road, we crossed the river at the distance of about two leagues and a half from the town. The ford is called the Passagem das Pedras, from the rocky nature of the bed of the river. These rocks I found belonged to the gneiss series, with the strata nearly vertical, the little inclination which they had, being towards the west in the direction of the hill already alluded to, called the Serra d’Areré, about half a mile distant. At nine o’clock we halted to breakfast in a large shed (rancho) by the road-side, and there we remained till the afternoon, for in travelling in the north of Brazil, where the heat is very great, the animals are always allowed to rest during the middle of the day, which is not the case in the south, where the whole day’s journey is made at one stretch. The country during our morning’s ride still continued flat, but in many places instead of being sandy, is covered with gravel and boulders of various sizes, the largest of the latter being about four feet in diameter, all more or less rounded, and consisting of granite, gneiss, and quartz. The great mass of the vegetation consisted of Carnahuba palms and a few small trees which grew among them, the most common of which is a species of Patagonula, called by the Brazilians Pao branco, from the white nature of its wood, which is chiefly employed as fuel. As we passed along, we raised numerous flocks of pigeons, some of which were not larger than sparrows, while others were the size of our domestic ones; and sporting among the leaves of the palms we observed several species of parrots and paroquets, besides a variety of beautiful small birds, one species being very numerous much resembling the common canary. The notes of these birds were of course as varied as their kinds, that of the parrot tribe being particularly disagreeable, not unlike that of the English rook, but the sound which most particularly caught my ear, was the monotonous and distinct cry of the Bem-te-ve, a bird about the size, shape, and colour of the thrush. This name has been given to it from the resemblance of its note to the Portuguese signifying “I see you well,” which it repeats in quick succession. Resuming our journey at three o’clock in the afternoon, and travelling through the same sort of country, we passed a small town towards dusk, called Villa de San Bernardo, which is ten leagues from Aracaty. It is built in the form of a square, the west side of which is principally occupied with a handsome church; and as it stands in the open plain (vargem) which is studded with occasional wide-spreading Zizyphus trees and Carnahuba palms, and as all the houses are white-washed, it offers an imposing appearance when seen at a distance. About half a league beyond this town, we stopped for the night at a small house by the road-side; all the houses in this part of the country, which are not actually in towns, have a large veranda (copial) in front, and it is under this that travellers generally ask leave to rest for the night, there being hooks fixed from which hammocks can be suspended. As soon as the loads were taken off the cargo horses, and the saddles from those we had ridden, they were sent to graze in the neighbourhood, where they were left with their fore-feet strapped pretty closely together, in order to prevent them from straying.
Early next morning by the light of a beautiful and clear moon we resumed our journey, but had not gone more than two leagues when I was prevented from accompanying my companions further by an awkward mistake made by my servant. In the hurry of departure, in the place of one of my horses, he had caught another of the same size and colour, belonging to some one else, and it was not till daylight had fairly set in that the mistake was discovered. I had now to call a halt, and getting my trunks, &c. put under the veranda of an old house, I despatched Pedro in search of my own animal. About two o’clock he returned bringing it with him, but as I found myself somewhat indisposed I determined not to proceed further that night. As there was no inhabited house near, we remained at the ruined dwelling, which my health did not allow us to leave for two days. As the road on which we proceeded is the highway to the interior of the province of Ceará, as also to the middle parts of the province of Piauhy, many travellers passed our encampment. Waggons loaded with cotton and hides were going downwards, while others, as well as troops of horses, were passing upwards loaded with European goods and salt, the latter being a scarce and dear article in the interior. When afterwards I travelled through some of the most desert and least inhabited parts of the inland provinces, there were two articles which were always asked for on my arrival at any habitation, first, gunpowder, and then salt; some of the poor beings scarcely taste the latter from one year’s end to the other, their animal food being preserved by simply drying it in the sun, after it has been cut into thin slices. I had always to carry a stock of salt with me, and not unfrequently it has cost me as much as three shillings a pound, at the same time that I could purchase an entire fat ox for about ten shillings. To the European who is accustomed to travel without need of arms, and in comparative security, the appearance of the swarthy and brigand-like travellers here met with, each armed with horse pistols, sword, dagger, knife, and gun, afford no favourable idea of the morals of these people. Murders and robberies are frequent among them, it being seldom that the one is committed without the other, when they always occur by treachery. From all I have seen and heard, I do not believe that one instance can be recorded of a Brazilian boldly facing another and asking him for his purse; one reason for this may be that each is aware that the other is armed with a knife, and hence he avoids coming within reach of it. Most of the very many murders which are committed in Brazil, are the result either of jealousy or of political hatred.
It was not till the afternoon of the 6th that I found myself sufficiently recovered to leave our solitary encampment, when we resumed our journey at a slow pace till after eleven at night. The moon had risen about six, and shone with a brilliancy such as I have seldom witnessed; this together with the coolness of the evening, renders travelling after sunset very agreeable, although to the naturalist it is not the most profitable. During the whole of my extensive journies I made it a rule never to travel at night, unless through a decidedly desert country, in order that nothing of interest should be overlooked. The seven leagues which we accomplished this evening was through a country of much the same barren nature as that we had already gone over, with the exception of one low range of hills covered with small trees and shrubs; on the level portion scarcely anything was to be seen but Carnahuba palms, Pao Branco, a Zizyphus, and a species of Aspidospermum, a small tree that grows gregariously and to which the inhabitants give the name of Pereira; the bark of it is very bitter, and its infusion is used to destroy lice, and other vermin infecting cattle. We passed through several large open gravelly spaces (vargems), nearly destitute of trees, and the herbaceous vegetation that had sprung up during the rains was now nearly parched up. The stillness of the night was only broken by the cries of a small species of goatsucker (Caprimulgus), that was flying about in great numbers. We rested for the night under the veranda of a house close to the road-side, in approaching which we passed through a flock of several hundred sheep, being the greatest number I have seen collected together in any part of the country, but the excessive heat of the climate had wrought a remarkable change in their appearance, their skin being wholly destitute of wool and replaced by a short hair, not unlike that of a cow. In the same manner goats lose the long hair natural to them in cold countries, which proves how much the economy of animals can suit itself to change of circumstances. On the following morning we traversed a country still abounding with the elegant Carnahuba palm, and numerous small fresh-water lakes, teeming with wild ducks and other kinds of water-fowl, and arrived at a place where there are several houses near to the Rio Jaguaribe, in the neighbourhood of which some small trees of Cochlospermum serratifolium, DC., were beautifully in flower, their large golden blossoms gleaming in the sun like oranges; here I found that in consequence of the pack-saddles being too narrow, the back of the cargo horse was so much galled, that it could no longer carry its load, in consequence I was obliged to hire another from a person whom I met going up to Icó with loads of salt, and who had some spare animals with him. The weather being fine, I preferred taking up my quarters under the shade of a broad-spreading wild fig tree standing some distance from any habitation, although I was invited by the owner of one of the houses to accept the accommodation it afforded.
As the person whose horse I had hired could not leave till the following day, I was obliged, against my will, to await his convenience. Soon after my arrival I sent Pedro to purchase some milk for breakfast, and he returned with a large basinful, for which he said the people would not take money; and in the course of the forenoon I had similar presents sent to me from two other persons. During the season of the rains, and for a few months afterwards, milk is very abundant, and of excellent quality, but it is nowhere to be procured except in large towns, during the last four or five months of the dry season. The inhabitants prepare a little cheese, but have no idea of making butter; the milk remaining after breakfast, for they milk their cows only in the morning, is allowed to stand till night, when from the heat of the day it becomes curdled; this dish, of which they are very fond, is generally sweetened with a kind of unclarified sugar, to which they give the name of Rapadura, and which is brought from the country above Icó; it is formed into cakes about six inches long, three broad, and two thick; during a long time I was obliged to use this as a substitute for sugar, but although at first not very agreeable, I at length became so fond of it as to prefer it to sugar itself, and such I found to be the case with the people in this part of the country; I have repeatedly seen them make a meal of a lump of this with a little farinha. The greater part of the inhabitants of the district through which we were journeying, are rearers of cattle (criadores de gado), but none of them possess such immense herds as I afterwards found to exist in the provinces of Piauhy and Goyaz. Provisions were here very cheap, in consequence of the small demand for them; an ox could be purchased for about twenty-five shillings, and a sheep or a goat for four or five; Pedro bought a fowl in fine condition for about twopence halfpenny, and eight eggs for a penny. I observed very few cotton plantations, as these people grow it only for their own use; they also cultivate a little mandiocca, the root of which produces a kind of cassava, well-known all over Brazil under the name of farinha; this, together with dried beef (carne secca), forms their chief food; the farinha is either used in its dry state, when it is much of the consistence of saw dust, or is made up into a kind of pudding called Pirão, by mixing it with boiling water, or with milk when that article is abundant.