The Botanical Gardens of Rio are famous the world over. The astounding forms of foliage, the bold growth of ancient tree and young shoot, the illimitably dense profusion of every form of vegetable life, recalling what must have been the earliest stage of the life of our planet, reduced me to a state of speechless surprise. I promised myself a second visit to its marvels, but never accomplished this, for spectacles of even greater magic detained me elsewhere.
"Bon Vista," the Emperor's country house in a suburb of Rio, is surrounded by a fine park which is going to be turned into a public garden. The Flumineuses make frequent pilgrimages thither, with their families, to spend a day in the shade of its trees during the hot season. But, to tell the truth, while they in this way enjoy Europeanising themselves in artificially made gardens, I took a delight in drinking in the Americanisation that awaits you in the outposts of the young Corcovado forest, which seems to be advancing to the attack of urban civilisation and pursues man even in the very streets of Rio.
This urban forest is one of the charms of the Brazilian capital. It clasps the city in its powerful embrace and seems determined to drive back the population into the sea, whence it sprang, creeping insidiously into every open space, blending with the avenues, spreading over squares and parks, and everywhere declaring the triumph and victory of the first force of Nature over the belated but redoubtable energy of humanity. Trees, creepers, ferns, shrubs—all these forms seem to be mounting to the heights that crown the bay in order to draw from the sunshine a renewal of their vigour. The high peak of the Corcovado (over 2000 feet) that broods over the city, looms large on the horizon, and one can readily believe that the first thought of the invader was to climb that height and survey the marvellous panorama before him. Unlike the Galilean, he needed no tempter to sow in his mind the desire of possession. But, alas! the task of appropriation is not accomplished without encountering some obstacles, and the would-be mountain climber is forced to concentrate his attention on one spot of the planet that holds him in the grip of an irresistible attraction. A funicular railway performs this office for him; and with no more trouble than that of letting yourself be drawn up under the branches, you suddenly emerge on a height whence you get a magic vision of Rio, with her bay, her islets, and a mass of mountains heaped one upon the other, until they are finally swallowed up in the sea. A new world is here revealed to your gaze—a world in which the whole miracle of the earth's multiple aspects is epitomised, where the eternal play of light and shade constitutes an ever-changing picture that creates a world-drama in inanimate Nature. Are you surprised to meet some Parisians up here? No, not much. The first result of our industrial equipment is to diminish the proportions of the globe. It is easier to-day to go from one continent to another than it used to be to go from one village to the next. I am personally glad of this, for nothing could be better for us French people than to travel in foreign countries, since in this way we get a standard of comparison that we badly need.
Coming down from the Corcovado, you must stop at "Silvestre," whence a shady path cut in the mountainside will bring you back to the city, through a wilderness of wood where a profusion of parasitic growth covers the boughs, tying them up in a mad confusion of tendrils.
Next after the Corcovado the Tijuca will attract you, and, like the former, it ends in wondrous points of view. In this case the pleasure is in getting there. You pass now through lines of tall bamboos, whose light foliage meets overhead; now you follow the course of a noisy waterfall that seethes amid the verdure of the forest; anon you descend into a valley that is shaded by the fresh and delicate foliage of the banana-trees, or rise to the top of a hill from which all the indentations of the great bay are plainly visible, and a small gulf hidden in an avalanche of rocks and boulders lies revealed, where the mysterious waters sob and vanish on a bed of flowers. Ever onward, the motor-car pursues its headlong way at a speed one longs to check. Often we stop to prolong the pleasure of a moment, but if one did not take care one might stop for ever. The pen is powerless to convey what, perhaps, the brush might reveal—the joy of life that swells to bursting the sap of every twig and leaf, every flower and fruit, from the humblest blade of grass to the loftiest extremity of the tallest trees, and renders so impressively active every organ of the vegetable world. I remember pausing before a simple creeper which had produced some billions of blossoms, and had imprisoned a whole tree in a kind of tent of blue flames. This example alone will serve to give the measure of the tropical fecundity. The object of our drive was the "Emperor's Table" and "China Street." After the view from the Corcovado this seemed less grandiose, but in any other country of the world it would arouse a rapture of admiration. We returned to the city by another route, traversing a part of the mountain where rows of villas embowered in flowers seemed hung up half-way between sky and sea. You are back in Rio before you realise that you have left the forest.
It is impossible to speak of Rio without mentioning Petropolis, which owes its success to the yellow-fever mosquito. The Flumineuses formed the habit of migrating to this mountain station in order to escape from the attacks of the plague-carrying mosquito, which is so active after sunset. A well-founded fear of the scourge drove all those who could afford it out of Rio, and at their head were the Emperor—later the President of the Republic, the Ministers, and diplomatists, with their families. Thus Petropolis, an hour's journey from Rio, became in some sort a fashionable watering-place, whose charming villas stand in a forest of tropical gardens. It is a delightful spot for all who can turn their back on the business of the outside world, which seems, indeed, far enough away. For this reason the European diplomatists spend long days here, filled with visiting, excursions (there are many charming ones to be made from this centre), or the idle gossip that constitutes that work is lacking; but we know that everywhere custom is stronger than utility, and custom is very exacting. Now that the mosquito has deserted Rio the Government has settled in the capital, leaving the mountain station to the diplomats and their papers. How can diplomacy exist without a Government round which to "circumlocutionise"? For the smallest formality one must take the train. Coming back in the evening is fatiguing. One goes to the hotel for the night. Your friends take possession of you, and while you are dawdling in Rio all your correspondence is lying unanswered at Petropolis. There is, in consequence, a strong feeling now that "the diplomats ought to settle at Rio," near to the Baron de Rio Branco, who somehow invariably manages to be at Rio when they are at Petropolis and vice versa, just to upset our worthy "plenipotentiaries." All this is not done without a certain expenditure of money. Budget commissioners, beware!
Theresopolis is another mountain station, three hours from Rio. On the opposite shore of the bay a railway climbs or winds round the lower slopes, cutting its way through the forest as far as a vast plateau, whence radiates a number of paths that invite you to wander amongst the astonishing phenomena of this fiercely abundant vegetation. A "circus" of bare rocks bristles with pointed peaks, one of which, bearing some resemblance to the forefinger of a human hand, is known as "the Finger of God." Whichever way you bend your steps this formidable and imperious finger lifts itself against the horizon, as if tracing the path of the planets through the heavens. The beauty of Theresopolis lies in its madly bounding torrents, which leap the giant boulders heaped up in its course, ruthlessly destroying the green growths that make a daily struggle for life. For me this giant strife provides an incomparable spectacle. I confess that the series of forest panoramas that open out on either side of the railway, from Rio Bay to Theresopolis, give a magic charm to the day's excursion. Tall ferns raised against the sky the transparent lacework of a light parasol, monstrous bamboos threw into the mêlée their long shoots, shaped like green javelins; shrubs, both slender and stout, and of every kind of leafy growth, encroach upon the heavy branches, worn out with the weight of parasites; the creepers twined like boas round their supports, flinging back from the crest of the highest trees a wealth of fine tendrils that, on reaching once again their native earth, will there take fresh root and draw renewed force for the future fight with fresh resistances, a single one of the family, with leaves like a young bamboo, so fine that the stalk is well-nigh invisible, entirely shrouding a whole tree in its frail yet stubborn network, transforming it into a green arbour that would put to shame any to be found in our ancient and classic gardens—all these and many other aspects of the marvellous forest arouse an unwearying and never-ending admiration, mingled with wonder at the blows dealt on a battlefield of opposing forces where the weapons are none the less deadly for being immovable.
There is no forest to be seen on the road from Rio to Saint Paul. Here man has passed. On all sides are visible the signs of destruction wrought by systematic fires. Thanks to Señor Paul de Frontin, the Company's manager, and two friends of whom I shall have occasion to speak again later—Señores Teixera Soarès and Augusto Ramos—I made the journey under the best possible conditions. The great point was to see the country as we passed. Could any better way be imagined than that of placing the locomotive behind the coach, which was arranged like a salon, its front wall being taken away and replaced by a simple balcony? With rugs to guard against the freshness of the breeze, you find yourself comfortably installed in the very centre of a landscape whence you may see mountains, rivers, valleys, fleeing before you in the course of a run of five hundred kilometres. For the whole of the day I was able to drink in the fresh air and strong lights, as I looked out eagerly to discover new beauties. As a matter of fact, I saw nothing but mountains and hillsides that had been wantonly despoiled of their native vegetation. Here and there a small banana-wood growing in a crevice showed the proximity of the cabins of negro colonists and their offspring, who displayed in the sunlight the unashamed bronze nakedness for which none could blush. They were leading the nonchalant life of the farmer who expects to draw from the earth the maximum of harvest for the minimum of trouble. Whether under cultivation or lying waste, at this time of the year the land presented the same appearance of bare wildness. Sometimes on the top of a hill there would be seen one of the old plantations surrounded by walls built to imprison the slaves, or coffee-gardens, now abandoned because the soil was worn out for want of dressing, or long stretches of pale green denoting young rice crops, watercourses dashing over rocks and gliding through brushwood—the last resort of the birds,—vestiges of calcined forests where the new growth of vegetation eager to reach the sun was ever cut back and repressed; and everywhere flashes of red light that resolve themselves into birds, shuddering palpitations of blue flames that become butterflies, or the bronzed reflections of phosphorescent light that reveals a dancing cloud of hummingbirds. On the horizon spots of black smoke, betokening forests that are blazing in all parts to make way for future harvests—a melancholy spectacle of a wanton destruction of natural beauties that has not even the excuse of necessity, since the splendid forests are only attacked to save the trouble of fertilising the land exhausted by cultivation. I was told that at the first outbreak of fire the great birds of carrion come up in flocks to cut off the retreat of the monkeys and serpents that flee in terror. I did not witness this part of the tragedy, but I was near enough to see all the horror of the fearful flare. In the crackling of the burning palms, in the whirling clouds of blinding smoke furrowed with a sinister glow, boughs and branches lay heaped up on the ground in immense flaming piles, through which the charred stumps of boles, brought low by fire, crashed noisily to earth, where their corpses lay and slowly smouldered to ashes on the morrow's coffee plantation in accordance with the law of Nature, which builds fresh forms of life out of the decomposed elements of death.
At nightfall, we entered the station of Saint Paul, where the cheers of the students, loudly acclaiming the French Republic, made us a joyous welcome. A few minutes later we found ourselves at a banquet attended apparently by representatives of every country of the world, and Brazilians and Frenchmen here united to express their brotherly aspirations in words of lofty idealism.
The city of Saint Paul (350,000 inhabitants) is so curiously French in some of its aspects and customs that for a whole week I had not once the feeling of being abroad. The feature of Saint Paul is that French is the universal language. Saint Paul's society is supposed to be more markedly individual than any other community in the Republic, and it offers this double phenomenon of being strongly imbued with the French spirit, and, at the same time, of having developed those personal traits that go to make up its determining characteristics. You may take it for granted that the Paulist is Paulist to the very marrow of his bones—Paulist in Brazil as well as in France or any other land; and then tell me if there was ever a man more French in courtesy, more nimble in conversation in his aristocratic guise, or more amiable in common intercourse, than this Paulist business man, at once so prudent and so daring, who has given to coffee a new valuation. Talk a little while with Señor Antonio Prado, Prefect of Saint Paul, and one of the leading citizens, whose mansion, set in the frame of a marvellous park of tropical vegetation, would be a thing of beauty in any country, and tell me whether such elegant simplicity of speech could imaginably express any but a French soul. The same might be said of his nephew, Señor Arinos de Mello, of whom I have already spoken, a clever man of letters who divides his life between the virgin forest and the boulevard, and who might easily be taken for a Parisian but for a soft Creole accent. Frenchmen basking in Brazilian suns, or Brazilians drinking deep of Latin springs—what matter by which name we know them, so that their pulses beat with the same fraternal blood!