A history of the Brazil

by James Henderson

On descending a hill from the palace, we perceived Prince Don Miguel in a field below, dressed in a pair of great jack-boots, a cocked hat, and a star upon his breast, with a pole about 10 feet long in his hand, attending a plough with one handle, drawn by six bullocks, followed by five or six negro drivers and a feitor.[12] They executed their work very imperfectly, allowing the greatest portion of the turf to fall down again. From the superfluity of animal power employed in this defective specimen of agriculture, our attention was directed to the royal stables, which contained about three hundred mules and horses of a diminutive size, with double the number of persons to look after them that would have been deemed necessary in England.

Prince Don Pedro had been breaking horses into harness all that morning, and we met him with the fourth pair; he used a large unwieldy whip, which, however, he administered pretty freely, making as much noise as a French postilion would, on announcing his arrival at a town, by the cracking of his whip. On passing him we stood still and took off our hats, which was only returned by an ungracious look. We also met Prince Don Miguel, returning from his agricultural amusement, accompanied by his feitor. He is a spare and pale-looking person, about sixteen years of age. Passing close to his elbow, we paid him the most respectful obeisance, but we were not honoured even with the least inclination of his head.

I walked one evening to see the fire-works, which had been preparing for some time for the celebration of a saint’s day, in front of the palace, ranged along, and a few yards distant from the gates and palisades. The veranda was filled with a great many priests and friars, and others about the person of the King. His Majesty and the rest of the family took their station at the fifth window, on the right of the handsome flight of stairs erected by Mr. Johnson. The fire-works were ill executed, and could not be put in comparison with such exhibitions in Europe, which is much to be wondered at, considering the immense revenue here annually expended in this way, and the great number of persons that live by it and follow no other pursuit. Every evening at eight o’clock, excepting holidays and Sundays, the King receives the public, in a room appropriated for the purpose, at St. Christovao, to the honour of beija-māo;[13] and the roads of Cidade Nova, Catimby, and Matta Porcas are covered, on those occasions, with officers, and numerous persons in cabriolets, on horseback, and on foot, pressing towards the palace, consisting of those who have some object to carry with his Majesty. When the door is opened there is a promiscuous rushing forward, and a mulatto will be seen treading upon the heels of a general. They advance in single rank up one side of the room to the upper part, where his Majesty is seated, attended by his fidalgos in waiting, and, passing him in review, they countermarch in the same order. It is said that the King has an extraordinary memory, and recollects each individual as he passes, and the object of his visit; those who please speak to him, but a great proportion do not. It would appear that his Majesty is partial to seeing people in this way for a considerable period before he concedes what they want. A gentleman from Lisbon informed me that he had come to Rio expressly to gain some object with the government, and he anticipated a residence of twelve months there before he accomplished it. He purposed omitting none of those numerous attendances of beija-māo, unless his neglecting to do so might be observed by his Majesty; who, he observed was particularly desirous of detaining all Europeans there as long as possible. Senhor Thomas Antonio de Portugal, the minister of state, who has a shacara upon the left side of the road, already described, leading to Andrahi, holds a sort of public levee two days in each week, where crowds of officers and others attend, to submit their applications or to solicit his patronage, afterwards proceeding to perform the accustomed ceremony of beija-māo at the palace, during which period, from eight to nine o’clock, a band of music, in no very harmonious strains, is heard through a portion of the valley.

The fidalgos, and those who may be denominated the higher orders of society here, are infinitely behind corresponding classes in the leading states of Europe, both in the knowledge and practice of civilized life. The pleasures and refinements of social intercourse are alike unknown to them: jealous of foreigners, their conduct towards them is not marked by that attention or hospitality so conspicuous in other countries, where the cultivation of a liberal system of society prevails. Their main occupation consists in outward show, in the punctilious observance of court-etiquette, and a regular attendance upon the superstitious rites and festivals of the Catholic religion. Whatever little exists of pomp and splendour in this city is to be discovered in the temples, which are fitted up with rich profusion, more especially the parish churches, their altars and shrines exhibiting decorations of the most costly kind, in which respect St. Sebastian, or the Royal Chapel, stands pre-eminent; its richly-gilded walls, carved work, and splendidly-ornamented altars, glittering with a profusion of gold, silver, and precious stones, surpass in brilliancy any thing that could be imagined, by a plain Christian, as essential to the purposes of divine worship. The chapel has some paintings, and one large piece over the chief altar, into which the late Queen and the principal part of the royal family are introduced. The King has a large box, not unlike an opera-box, above the place where grand mass is performed; here his Majesty and the rest of the family take their seats on festival-days; the bishop, in white or yellow satin, richly embroidered with gold, his mitre of the same, sits in great state below, opposite to the King, when he is not engaged in any part of the ceremony, in which he is assisted by a prodigious number of padres, and the service is performed with vast magnificence. The organ, accompanied by a crowd of vocal performers, amongst whom are five or six eunuchs, gratify, with some of the finest music of the Brazil, the audience, consisting, on some occasions, of many fidalgos, judges, ministers, and various individuals, who, in their gaudy robes, sit upon benches along the body of the chapel. There are others also who are led there by curiosity.

Here the King will sometimes spend the whole day, and, upon the celebration of some favourite saint’s day, will remain till midnight. These holidays and festivities are usually attended by an immense consumption of gunpowder, in rockets, fire-works, &c. The days of some saints are remarkable for the right every man, bearing the same name, assumes of lighting up a great bonfire in front of his house; and I remember accompanying a friend in his chaise, on the evening of St. John’s day, when we had some difficulty in getting the horse through the flames and sky-rockets that illuminated and occupied the whole street fronting the dwellings of all the Senhor Joaos. The horses generally, however, do not regard it, being so accustomed to fire and gunpowder. During my stay at Rio, a bell was christened, and placed on the south side of the royal chapel with much ceremony. The King was godfather and the widow Princess godmother. The bell was named John the Sixth, in honour of his Majesty, who sprinkled it with salt and water, and at the period that it was hoisted to its ultimate position, the town resounded with fire-works and sky-rockets.

Religious exhibitions and feasts succeed each other with very little intermission; and the Brazilian calendars present an innumerable list of them. At Whitsuntide, three or four days are dedicated to the consecration of oxen, fowls, &c. and their consumption. The churches retail these articles at high prices, producing a considerable revenue. In some of the parishes, at this time, the inhabitants, by turns, are at the expense of a public feast, and it occasionally costs some individuals seven or eight hundred pounds. A boy, the son of the person giving this entertainment, sits upon a throne, attended by boys and girls of his own age; he is called the emperor, and, with a sceptre in his hand, presides over the feast. I saw two exhibitions of this sort on the 1st of June, one in the Campo St. Anna, and the other at the Lappa, accompanied with fire-works. They are extremely ludicrous. The festival of Corpus Christi, on the 10th of June, is one of their grandest processional displays. It is only upon these occasions that the ladies appear in public. Early in the day cabriolets, drawn by mules, are seen driving in every direction towards the Ruas Direita and d’Aquitanda, containing females in their gala dresses, while the military of every description are assembled in the streets to assist in the procession, which consists principally of priests and friars, whose prodigious numbers are calculated to swell out a cavalcade, together with numerous inhabitants of different parishes, wearing cloaks peculiar to the churches, which are various and showy. The whole form two lines, preceded with banners, each person, including the priests, carrying a preposterous-looking wax candle, about six feet high, one end of which is placed, at every step, upon the ground. The royal horses, sumptuously caparisoned, and decorated with ribands from their noses to the end of their long tails, are led by grooms dressed in the most tawdry style, the royal servants of every order following; then the judges, and all classes of people employed by the government. The fidalgos and ministers precede and follow the bishop, who carries the Host, under a superb canopy, attended by Princes Don Pedro and Don Miguel, the supporters of his train! The King usually follows the bishop as a train-bearer, but on this occasion he did not. The dresses of all were rich and costly; and the procession, amounting to some thousand persons, proceeded along the Rua Direita and returned, by the Rua d’Aquitanda, to the palace chapel; after which there was a grand display of fire-works. All the balconies were crowded with females, adorned with precious stones. The fronts of the houses were hung with silks and crimson velvet, gilded with ornaments; and the streets were strewed with green leaves. The general effect of the whole was very imposing.

There is rather a celebrated annual procession, on the 10th of October, in the Rua dos Ourives, having its foundation in some religious observance peculiar to the church of that street. All the houses are hung outside with tapestry and other stuffs, and ornamented with looking-glasses, and a great portion of the furniture which the house contains, not of the most elegant sort, and generally not over abundant. A procession of padres, and numerous others belonging to the parish, takes place during the evening, drawing together an immense concourse of people, while the females, who spend the last penny to procure a gay dress for these occasions, appear at the balconies in a profusion of finery. The houses are illuminated, not with any transparent or appropriate devices, but with wax and common tallow candles; some placed in the front of looking-glasses, in order to produce a double brilliancy at half price.

The funeral processions are rather singular; and the interment of a child particularly would appear to be the season of rejoicing rather than grief. On these occasions the musical performers are the most choice and costly. The corpse is never kept more than one day from the time of the demise, and the funeral rites are usually celebrated after dark; every one that chooses enlisting into the procession by the acceptance of a wax-light. At a funeral which I saw at the Carmo, a large and handsome church adjoining the royal chapel, two lines of persons were ranged along the body of the building, from the entrance towards the altar, facing each other, every one holding a wax-light, nearly six feet high, in the right hand, and projected rather forward. Some of the individuals of this assembly might be friends of the deceased, but the major part consisted of persons casually met with in the streets, or such as were led by curiosity into the church. The acceptance of a light is deemed an honour done to the friends of the dead, and the agents of the padres are not very scrupulous in forcing them, if possible, into the hands of every one they see; the motive for doing this is ascertained on knowing that the remainder of all candles which are used become the perquisite of those very worthy brethren. At the head of the two lines, amounting to perhaps from one hundred to one hundred and fifty persons, the corpse was placed upon a table or elevated platform, with the head exposed to view, while its last vestments displayed the ill-founded notion of importance which its survivors attach to outward and meretricious show. The ceremony of itself not being calculated to impress the mind with awe, none of those feelings of respectful gravity were visible, which so solemn an occasion ought to have produced. When it was finished, the body was conducted, with no regular procession, through some outer avenues of the church, to the catacombs, situated in a passage opposite to the jesuitical library. On arriving at an inner cemetery of the catacombs, the lights of those who followed were extinguished and taken from them by the persons whose duty it was to secure this perquisite; and every one retiring in consequence, the body disappeared by some other avenue, and I could not possibly discover how it was afterwards disposed of. Upon another occasion of the funeral obsequies of a general officer, I attempted to see their mode of executing this last office; but, from the quickness with which they slid away, and the extinguishing of the lights, I was again disappointed. A friend, however, gave me the following description of the interment of a girl, at which he was present. After the ceremony and the music had ceased, they proceeded from the said church of Our Lady of Carmo to the catacombs, where he arrived, with two or three others, at that point of the cemetery which was to receive the remains. The padres had disappeared, and no one was there but the father of the girl and a person who may be styled the sexton. The outer coverings had been taken off, and the girl appeared richly dressed in embroidered muslin, with silk stockings, and new shoes on, as if equipped for an assembly. The coffin had no bottom, but the body was supported upon a piece of satin, securely nailed around the upper part of it, when the nails being withdrawn from the sides, the father, who was not dressed in the sable vestments of a mourner but in those of a bridegroom, disgusted my friend by his wanton and unfeeling conduct, and at this moment threw a piece of muslin to the sexton, urging him to despatch by shouting out “depressa, depressa.” The muslin being drawn over the face of the girl, a large quantity of quick lime was placed upon it, and another portion spread from the head along the breast to the body, with a quantity on each side, when the man, with much ceremony, formed a cross upon it with his trowel. During the operation, the father, devoid of every proper sense of decency, cried out to him, “Vamos, vamos” (let us go); and, at another time, “Vamos, depressa, filho da pouta.” To render this last exclamation into English would only wound the feelings of those who do not understand it. Quick lime being now placed upon the flat stone of the cemetery, which runs horizontally a long way back, exhibiting its awful contents, the coffin was lifted up, and the nails of the end being also taken out, the body and piece of satin fell upon the quick lime, and the coffin was removed away. The cemeteries are afterwards walled up and plastered over in front. This father then, and even before, at the close of the church ceremony, embraced many people for joy, invited some to go home with him to a grand supper prepared for the occasion, and felt convinced that his child was gone to Heaven. Two or three hundred pounds are occasionally expended at funerals.

The catacombs are small but extremely neat, the first part forming a square, ornamented with vases, and containing aromatic shrubs and flowers, is surrounded with a sort of piazza, the inner walls of which present the front of cemeteries, neatly plastered and numbered. Opposite the entrance, and crossing the square, a door-way leads to inner avenues, lined with cemeteries, kept exceedingly clean and in good order. At the extremity of one of these avenues is situated the general charnel-house, where the bones are piled in accumulating masses. After a certain lapse of time, the bones of individuals are taken from the cemeteries, bound together, and a large label, with their names inscribed upon it, affixed to them, then piled upon the bones of their predecessors in the charnel house, where two tapers are constantly burning; and it is not uncommon for the relatives of the deceased to visit this house of the dead on a certain day in the year, offering prayers in their behalf.

The bodies of the churches are open spaces, without seats or pews, and the women sit down in the Turkish style; they, as well as the men, occasionally fall upon their knees, and, during mass, go through the ceremonies of crossing their foreheads, chins, and breasts, at regular stated periods, frequently beating their bosoms with great vehemence, but which probably must not be taken as a positive demonstration of sincerity, however imposing it may outwardly appear.