Bahia is the centre for a considerable commerce in sugar and cotton, cocoa and tobacco. These are brought to the port by land and water, but chiefly by the railroads that go north to the great river San Francisco and west into the heart of the state. There are many evidences of wealth in the city, and there is certainly an excellent opportunity for developing foreign trade. One looks in vain, however, for great American commercial houses like those which mark the presence of English, French, and German enterprise. Nevertheless the electric car line, with its American equipment, gives a promise of things hoped for. And there is a decided air of friendliness toward Americans on the part of the Brazilians whom one meets on the streets and in the shops. There is none of that “chip on the shoulder” attitude which the Argentino likes to exhibit toward the citizens of the “United States of North America.” The Brazilian appears to realize that Americans are his best customers, and he is desirous of maintaining the most friendly relations with us.
CHAPTER II
RIO, SANTOS, AND BRAZILIAN TRADE
Two days’ sail from Bahia brought us within sight of the wonderful mountains that mark the entrance to the Bay of Rio de Janeiro. As one approaches land, the first thing that catches the eye is the far-famed Sugar Loaf Mountain which seems to guard the southern side of the entrance. Back of it is a region even more romantic, a cluster of higher mountains, green to their tops, yet with sides so precipitous and pinnacles so sharp one wonders how anything can grow on them. The region presents, in fact, such a prodigious variety of crags and precipices, peaks and summits, that the separate forms are lost in a chaos of beautiful hills.
The great granite rocks that guard the entrance to the harbor leave a passage scarcely a mile in width. At the base of the Sugar Loaf we saw a fairy white city romantically nestling in the shadow of the gigantic crag. It is the new National Exposition of Brazil.
Once safely inside the granite barriers, the bay opens out and becomes an inland sea, dotted with hundreds of islands, a landlocked basin with fifty square miles of deep water.
On the northern shores of the bay lies the town of Nictheroy, the capital of the state. Its name perpetuates the old Indian title of the bay, “hidden water.” The name of the capital of the Republic, on the south side of the bay, carries with it a remembrance of the fact that when first discovered, the bay was mistaken for the mouth of a great river, the River of January.
Since the early years of the sixteenth century, Rio has been conspicuous in the annals of discovery and conquest. Magellan touched here on his famous voyage round the world. The spot where he landed is now the site of a large hospital and medical school. French Huguenots attempted to find here a refuge in the time of the great Admiral Coligny. As one steams slowly into the harbor, one passes close to the historic island of Villegagnon, whose romantic story has been so graphically told by Parkman.
Hither came the King of Portugal, flying from the wrath of Napoleon. Here lived the good Emperor Don Pedro II, one of the most beneficent monarchs the world has ever seen. And into these waters are soon to come Brazil’s new Dreadnoughts, about which all the world has been speculating, and which have made Argentina almost forget the necessities of economic development in her anxiety to keep up with Brazil in the way of armament.
An elaborate system of new docks, that has been in the course of construction for a long time, has not been completed yet; so we anchor a mile or more from the shore, not far from a score of ocean steamers and half a hundred sailing vessels. Before the anchor falls we are surrounded by a noisy fleet of steam launches, whose whistles keep up a most infernal tooting. A score of these insistent screamers attempt to get alongside of our companion-way at the same time. In addition, half a hundred row-boats attack the ladder where some of the steerage passengers are trying to disembark.
We had heard, before entering the port, that there were several hundred cases of smallpox here, besides other infectious diseases. Yet this did not prevent everybody that wanted to, and could afford the slight cost of transportation, from coming out from the shore and boarding our vessel. Such a chattering, such a rustling of silk skirts and a fluttering of feathers on enormous hats, such ecstatic greetings given to returning citizens! Such ultra-Parisian fashions!