At the suggestion of the friend who accompanied me, Mr. Doer was good enough to introduce me to the family of small monkeys which he has raised and domesticated. The senior members had been brought from some place in Northern Brazil, but they had multiplied, some of the offspring being born in his house, and now formed a rather numerous party. The creatures habitually passed the day in the forest, never, in Mr. Doer’s belief, wandering to a distance from the house, and at night came in and nestled among the rafters of the roof. The call was by a peculiar note, somewhat resembling a low whistle, repeated two or three times, and before a minute had elapsed the little creatures came swarming about the open window. They were decidedly pretty, their large black eyes giving an impression of intelligence, but I did not detect any indication of attachment to their master. I cannot say to what species they belonged. They had large ears like those of the marmoset, but differed in having a prehensile tail. One of them hung with his head downward, suspended by the tail from some projection above the window. After receiving some fragments of sweetmeat they soon departed, returning to their favourite haunts among the trees of the forest.
Starting early one morning, and reaching the crest of the range that divides Petropolis from the Bay of Rio Janeiro, I enjoyed in great perfection a spectacle that is commonly visible at this season when the weather is clear and settled. Before sunrise a stratum of mist extends over the bay and the low country surrounding it. As I saw it, this may have been about a thousand feet in thickness when the sun first reached it, and the fantastic summits of the mountains rose like islets from a sea of dazzling white. As the sun’s rays began to act, the mist appeared to melt away from above; the lower hills and the rocky islands of the bay emerged in succession, and finally the veil completely disappeared, and the whole wondrous view was completely disclosed.
A SEA OF MIST.
The beautiful effects displayed in the gradual disappearance of mist as seen from a height in early morning must be familiar to every genuine mountaineer, and may be enjoyed amongst the hills of the British Islands. Among my own recollections, a certain morning, when I stood alone at sunrise on the highest peak of the Pilatus, near Lucerne, showed the phenomenon in a most striking way, accompanied as it was by the coloured halo that surrounds the shadow of the observer thrown on the cloud-stratum below. But in my previous experience the disappearance of the mist was always accompanied by the upward movement of some portions of the mass. The surface appears to heave under the action of force acting from below, and some masses are generally carried up so as temporarily to envelope the observer. In the view over the Bay of Rio I was much farther away from the surface of the mist than in previous experiences of the kind, and I may have been misled by distance from the scene of action, but, though watching attentively, I saw no appearance of heaving of the surface or any break in its regular form. The waste seemed to proceed altogether from the upper surface, and the emergence of the prominent objects in regular succession gave direct evidence to that effect.
During the first five days of my visit the weather at Petropolis was perfectly enjoyable. The temperature varied from about 60° Fahr. at sunrise to about 70° in the afternoon; but the effect of radiation must have been intense, as in an exposed situation a minimum thermometer descended on one night to 46°, and on the next to 44°, and the dew was heavier than I have ever seen it elsewhere, so that in some places the quantity fallen from the leaves of the trees made the ground perfectly wet in the morning. The barometer varied very little, even after the weather changed, and stood as nearly as possible three inches lower than at Rio, showing a difference of level of about 2900 feet. On the 16th of July the sky became overcast, and some rain fell in the afternoon, the thermometer rising at two p.m. to 73° Fahr., and moderate rain fell on each succeeding day until the evening of the 19th, but scarcely any movement of the air was perceptible. There is a remarkable difference in the distribution of rainfall between the part of Brazil lying within about fifteen degrees of the equator and the region south of that limit. At Pernambuco (south lat. 8° 4′), out of an annual rainfall of about a hundred and ten inches, nearly ninety inches fall during the six months from March to August, and at Bahia, with less total rainfall, the proportion is nearly the same. But at Rio Janeiro the rainy season falls in summer, from November to March, and winter is the dry season. Of an annual rainfall of forty-eight and a half inches, only five and a half inches fall in the winter months, June, July, and August, and less than an inch and a half in July. No doubt the amount of rain is greater at a mountain station such as Petropolis, while the proportion falling in the different seasons must be about the same.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDOLENCE.
At Petropolis, as well as elsewhere in South America, I was struck by the fact that the children of European parents born in the country speedily acquire the indolent habits of the native population of Spanish or Portuguese origin. The direct influence of climate is doubtless one cause of the change of disposition, but I suspect that the chief share is due to the great difference in the conditions of life which are the indirect results of climate. Where mere existence is so enjoyable, where physical wants are so few and so easily supplied, the chief stimulus to exertion is wanting, and the natural distaste for labour prevails over the hope of gain. A boy will prefer to pick up a few pence by collecting flowers, or roots, or butterflies in the forest near his home, to earning ten times as much by walking to a distance, especially if expected to carry a light weight. On my first visit to Itamariti I took with me a German boy, whom I left in charge of the superfluous horse that I had been advised to take with me. Finding the occupation a bore, and probably fearing that he would have to carry back the portfolio and vasculum that I had taken for plant-collecting, he fastened the bridle to a tree and disappeared, never coming to claim the pay promised for his unaccomplished day’s work.
All delightful times come to an end, and, as I resolved to visit Tijuca before departing from Brazil, I quitted Petropolis on the morning of July 20, and made my return to Rio amid brilliant sunshine, in which the glorious scenery of the bay renewed its indelible impression on my memory. In passing over the tract of low land between Raiz da Serra and the shore, partly overgrown by shrubs or small trees ten or twelve feet in height, I found them covered with masses of large flowers of the most brilliant purple hue, where ten days before not a single flower had been visible. The train halted for half a minute at a solitary half-way house, and I was able to break off a branch from the nearest plant. It belonged, as I suspected, to the family of Melastomaceæ, and is known to botanists as Pleroma granulosum of Don; but one seeing dried specimens in a European herbarium, could form no conception of the gorgeous effect of the masses of rich colour that were here displayed, outshining the splendours of the Indian rhododendrons now familiar to European eyes. I again found the same species at Tijuca; but the soil and situation were, I suppose, less favourable, and the show of bloom was neither so rich nor so abundant.
I was told that the local name of this splendid plant is quaresma, because it flowers in Lent, which in Brazil falls in autumn; but I afterwards ascertained that the same name is given to several other species of Melastomaceæ having brilliant flowers, and it seems improbable that the same species which I found bursting into flower in mid-winter should have also flowered three or four months before. The only remains of fruit that I found were dry, empty capsules that had apparently survived the preceding summer.
THE EMPEROR DOM PEDRO.