Small, impatient horses were waiting for us at the station, and seated in "boggies" that bounded over the deep ruts of the road, we passed through woods where large-leaved creepers made a magnificent stage-setting which only ended in the acropolis of Santa Alda. This rustic baronial hall, that belongs to days of slavery, is set on the summit of an eminence which commands a tangle of valleys, and it offers a comfortable simplicity of arrangement clothed in an avalanche of flowers. Wide verandas, colonnades, arches, are all overgrown with multi-coloured bouquets that are perpetually in flower, and under the rays of the sun distil a delicate ambiance of scented prisms. The impression is one of charm as well as of force, and when the young planter, accompanied by the pleasant queen of the domain with her group of small children, is seen in this background of rustic nobility, you are conscious of a fine harmony between man and Nature. The strains of the Marseillaise burst out, as we crossed the threshold, from instruments concealed in the plantation. It was a greeting to France that was touching enough from these Africans, but yesterday ground down in an odious slavery and to-day the free and light-hearted comrades of a man who by his kindly ways has retained the little colony in a place where the associations must be painful enough.
The attraction of the gardens is too strong to be resisted, and we wander out, strolling amidst the clumps of tall, brilliantly coloured plants, anon gazing in rapt admiration at the warm line of the distant hills which hold up against the gorgeous crimson of the sunset a delicate fringe of palm foliage, or watching the hummingbirds which chase each other in the branches and form a dancing cohort of glowing brands. When night fell a golden light pervaded the atmosphere. We did not go in until we had taken a look at the stud, which boasts some of the finest English sires, and we wound up the evening by an amusing performance by an agreeable African conjurer, who gave an explanation in French of all his tricks and was clad in gentlemanly attire—frock-coat, white tie, tan shoes, all the latest style of the Floresta.
To-morrow, a good hour before sunrise, we are to start for a last visit to the Brazilian forest, and although a heartless doctor has forbidden me riding exercise, I have not the strength of mind to refuse the expedition. They set me accordingly upon a plank, having a high wheel on either side, and soon I taste the joys of football, not as player, but as ball, leaping with its round elasticity heavenwards after a vigorous kick. And the pleasure of bounding upwards is as nothing to the austere sensation of falling back again on the implacable boot sole. In this fashion I was rolled through a series of black holes which I was told would appear in the sunlight to be valleys. As luck would have it, we presently came upon a hill that had to be climbed, and my courser dropped to a footpace. The violent shocks of the earlier part of the journey now gave place to a comparatively simple sensation that suggested an anvil beneath the blows of a hammer. Then the day broke. Señor Soarès, junior, who watched my progress from the back of a tall steed, pointed out his first experiments with rubber-plants and with cocoa, and described his coffee-gardens, of which I had already seen some specimens. The sufferings of the lower part of my person now gave way to the admiration of the higher as I mentally compared the wretched, stunted lives in our cities with the wide freedom of existence led by this high-spirited youth who was wrestling out here in the glorious sunshine with the exuberant forces of a fruitful Nature which he is certain to master in time. O you, my French brethren who in alpaca coats sit eternally on your stools, bent over useless documents, know that the earth has not yet exhausted her gifts, learn that there is another life, free from the anæmic, cramping condition which you know! This thought was still in my mind when we turned our reins across the moors that led to the coffee plantations, where dried palm-leaves protect the young shoots from the heat of the sun, and where the new species derived from a plant grown on the sacred hill of Montmartre-en-Paris is being carefully cultivated. Come out here, young men in shiny threadbare sleeves who make your way homewards nightly to the close dens around the Sacré Cœur; come and see these black coffee-planters—men, women, and children—living close to Nature on the outskirts of civilisation, and compare your own wretched quarters furnished by Dufayel on the "hire" system, that has cost you such anxious moments, with the blissful nudity of these cabins, and tell me where you see the worst form of slavery, here amongst the newly emancipated Africans or at home under your own roofs.
The forest! the forest! I have seen it once and again, but I could never tire of it, and my great regret is that I cannot come back again to it. The sun has made its sudden appearance on the scene, glowing like a violent conflagration, and a thousand voices from the winged population of the woods have greeted him, singing the joy of light returned. Everywhere is the same eternal hymn to life. I was shown a small bird whose female dances round her spouse as soon as he begins to pour forth his love serenade in joyous notes. Blue and yellow toucans dazzle us with their splendour. Valleys filled with colossal ferns open out in the daylight their unexpected vistas of a delirious vegetation. I ask after the monkeys. Alas! they do not leave their retreats before two o'clock in the afternoon. They only arrive for five o'clock tea! But for no inducement would they leave their dressing-rooms until the sun has gone down to the horizon. When you have once seen the heart of the forest wilderness, where the same luxuriant life in manifold manifestations is to be seen at your feet and in the high tree and hilltops, where profusely flowering creepers wind themselves around every twig and bough, placing these forest kings in tender bondage, you will not blame the monkeys for being content to remain in their sumptuous domain. I was shown fruit half eaten, the refuse of a monkeys' restaurant. I can well believe it. A wood-cutter told me he was attacked yesterday by a dozen, who were so pertinacious that he had to defend himself with his stick. Thus, though I never saw a monkey, I did see a man who had seen one.
At last we reached a waterfall which was, it appears, the limit of our excursion. On our way back we came to a difficult crossing, and as my horse was even more exhausted than myself by the rough treatment he had given me, he was taken out of the shafts, and a swarm of some eleven negroes pulled and pushed me along, with bursts of laughter at their performance. But for their chuckles, I might have fancied myself some Roman victor arriving in triumph. It lasted only ten minutes, but I should have been covered with confusion had some chance cinematograph been on the spot to reproduce the scene. This misfortune was spared me. Thanks to the fact, I take the pleasure of holding myself up to ridicule.
The ceremony of inaugurating the Montmartre coffee-plant took place half-way. The operation is less difficult than might be thought. I climbed up a slope from whose top I could see rows of holes, with heaps of coffee-plants, their roots carefully wrapped up, and each in a small basket by itself, lying at intervals over the prepared ground. One of these baskets with its young green stem was offered to me, I stuck it in the first hole that came handy, and thus the glory of Montmartre, like that of Brazil, reached its apogee.
I do not know what will become of my coffee enterprise at Santa Alda. It is more certain that Señor Soarès has begun to manure his land instead of merely scattering the shells of the berries over it. It is possible that the Brazilian fazenderos will be a little worried by this example, seeing in it only a way of increasing expenses. But the established fact that Señor Soarès's coffees are in great demand seems a curious coincidence, for no one can suppose he amuses himself in this way for the fun of losing his money. When I left Santa Alda, I carried with me a pretty collection of canes made from the finest woods produced on the fazenda, and on board the Principe Umberto, which brought me back to Europe, I discovered a chest of coffee, which enabled me to give my kind hosts the authentic testimony of a consumer.
The Principe Umberto is in every way like the Regina Elena, as indeed she ought to be considering her origin. There are the same comfortable arrangements, the same excellent service, the same Latin courtesy from the officers. We had two adventures on the voyage. A madman threw himself into the sea one night. The siren shrieked the alarm. A boat put off but returned after a fruitless search. I was told that this was a typical "return" case. On the way out Hope holds us by the hand. To make one's way back, after disappointments, is for human weakness perhaps a sore trial. We do not all get to Corinth. Let us pity those who make this an excuse for never setting out. The commissary told me the story of one third-class passenger, all in rags, who deposited with him when he came on board the sum of 150,000 francs. There are evidently compensations.
The second adventure was more general in interest. It took the form of a strike among the coal-heavers of St. Vincent. The harbour, with its border of bare rock, lay still and deserted. A few saucy niggers dived for our edification after coins flung from the ship. But that was all, neither white nor black man appeared, for the order had been given that no one should come off to meet us and we on our side were forbidden to land. We need not be astonished if the first lesson learnt by the blacks from their white "superiors" is that of violence preached by grandiloquent politicians, trembling inwardly with fear, but, none the less, tenacious in their inglorious arguments. The negroes have the excuse of having reached our civilisation late in the day. Are we too exigent when we implore the whites to preach by example?
We coal at Las Palmas, the capital of the Grand Canary. As other boats are there ahead of us, we are obliged to spend an entire day in harbour. We land, therefore. The "Happy Isles" have inherited from the ancients such a reputation that some disappointment is inevitable. Seen from the sea, the Canaries show only a cluster of arid rocks devoid of vegetation. Las Palmas is a picturesque town whose palms can but inspire an amiable benevolence in people who have seen Brazil. The country is purely African in character. Square white houses without windows, banana-groves down in the valleys, hills of calcined stones. After an hour or two along a road that is thick with dust, you reach a pretty restaurant standing in a garden whose exotic vegetation would be charming if one had never seen the Riviera. The canary of the islands that is said to abound revealed itself to me in the guise of a vulgar chattering sparrow. Yet the boatmen who boarded our ship offered authentic canaries in cages hung from a long rod, but I was told they had been procured from Holland. These birds have a particularly sweet song, and they sing to order, oddly enough. It is enough to shout to the seller, "Your canary does not sing," for the birds to burst into a flood of trills and turns. It is the triumph of a songster with the imitative faculty. Buyer and seller both are taken in and the greatest serin (canary, also used to mean "duffer") is not the one you might think.