CHAPTER LVI.
A SHORE EMPEROR ON BOARD A MAN-OF-WAR.
While we lay in Rio, we sometimes had company from shore; but an unforeseen honour awaited us. One day, the young Emperor, Don Pedro II., and suite—making a circuit of the harbour, and visiting all the men-of-war in rotation—at last condescendingly visited the Neversink.
He came in a splendid barge, rowed by thirty African slaves, who, after the Brazilian manner, in concert rose upright to their oars at every stroke; then sank backward again to their seats with a simultaneous groan.
He reclined under a canopy of yellow silk, looped with tassels of green, the national colours. At the stern waved the Brazilian flag, bearing a large diamond figure in the centre, emblematical, perhaps, of the mines of precious stones in the interior; or, it may be, a magnified portrait of the famous “Portuguese diamond” itself, which was found in Brazil, in the district of Tejuco, on the banks of the Rio Belmonte.
We gave them a grand salute, which almost made the ship’s live-oak knees knock together with the tremendous concussions. We manned the yards, and went through a long ceremonial of paying the Emperor homage. Republicans are often more courteous to royalty than royalists themselves. But doubtless this springs from a noble magnanimity.
At the gangway, the Emperor was received by our Commodore in person, arrayed in his most resplendent coat and finest French epaulets. His servant had devoted himself to polishing every button that morning with rotten-stone and rags—your sea air is a sworn foe to metallic glosses; whence it comes that the swords of sea-officers have, of late, so rusted in their scabbards that they are with difficulty drawn.
It was a fine sight to see this Emperor and Commodore complimenting each other. Both were chapeaux-de-bras, and both continually waved them. By instinct, the Emperor knew that the venerable personage before him was as much a monarch afloat as he himself was ashore. Did not our Commodore carry the sword of state by his side? For though not borne before him, it must have been a sword of state, since it looked far to lustrous to have been his fighting sword. That was naught but a limber steel blade, with a plain, serviceable handle, like the handle of a slaughter-house knife.
Who ever saw a star when the noon sun was in sight? But you seldom see a king without satellites. In the suite of the youthful Emperor came a princely train; so brilliant with gems, that they seemed just emerged from the mines of the Rio Belmonte.
You have seen cones of crystallised salt? Just so flashed these Portuguese Barons, Marquises, Viscounts, and Counts. Were it not for their titles, and being seen in the train of their lord, you would have sworn they were eldest sons of jewelers all, who had run away with their fathers’ cases on their backs.
Contrasted with these lamp-lustres of Barons of Brazil, how waned the gold lace of our barons of the frigate, the officers of the gun-room! and compared with the long, jewel-hilted rapiers of the Marquises, the little dirks of our cadets of noble houses—the middies—looked like gilded tenpenny nails in their girdles.