It is impossible not to be struck when walking the streets with the great varieties of type, and consequently of colouring, among the populace. The original races have been the native Indian, the European who conquered the land, and the Negro imported for his services, and there are now, in addition to their pure-blooded descendants, every shade and mixture of the three. The colour of a man’s skin is however of little or no social concern, and there is an absence of race prejudice which to the Anglo-Saxon mind is very astonishing. We had the pleasure of visiting the opera on a gala night at the kind invitation of the British Consul and his sister, Mr. and Miss Dickie, and saw much mixture of colouring among the upper classes. The subject of the opera was romantic and dealt with the early Portuguese era, the heroine being carried off by Indian raiders. Women of all shades have a very proper idea of the consideration due to them, though there would seem to be no reason even to the most advanced of us why, as was said to be the case, a negress should consider it beneath her dignity to carry a message across the road.
The political situation is apparently liable to surprises. At the principal music-hall, just before our visit, an accident occurred to the driving-chain of the electric light, causing a certain amount of clatter; the audience immediately sprang to their feet, the women shrieked, and there was a general stampede. It had been immediately concluded that the noise was caused by pistol shots and heralded a revolution.
The economic standing of Pernambuco and the why and wherefore of its existence are a puzzle to the stranger. There is no appearance of any considerable quantity of trade or wealth, indeed, to judge by the notices displayed, the inhabitants live principally on mutual doctoring and pulling out each other’s teeth. The cost of living is nevertheless very high, owing largely to the fact that everything seems to be brought from overseas. Stone for building is conveyed all the way from Northern Europe, and a Norwegian barque, which lay beside us, was busy unloading timber at the door of the forests of Brazil. Even the common articles in use are brought from the Old World, and the tables of the restaurants are crowded with imported products, in spite of almost prohibitive tariffs, which raise the price of a ham, for example, to four or five times its original value. In addition special prices are at times reserved for strangers: the yacht’s steward was allowed to depart without purchasing a packet of cigarettes for which eightpence was asked; Rosa, with his dark skin, got the identical article for a penny.
We followed one of the rivers in the launch almost as far as it is navigable, a distance of some nine miles. The banks are low, and were at first covered with mangrove; later the land was cultivated after a fashion, and there were a certain number of country houses, but in a state of dilapidation and decay.
Anyone who wishes to leave the prosaic present and be transported back to the old times of colonisation should visit Olinda, the ancient seat of government, which lies three miles to the north of Pernambuco. The remains of it to-day are a little group of houses standing picturesquely on a wooded promontory, which rises high above the low-lying coast. The old street, winding up to the top of the semi-deserted city, along which must have passed gay cavalcades, sober monks, and captured Indians, is still the high way, but it is now carpeted with grass, kept short, not by traffic, but by the sheep which browse upon it. From the highest point, the view extends in one direction to the sea and in the other to the forests of the interior. The most arresting feature is the number of churches and religious houses: everywhere the eye turns these great buildings rise among the luxuriant foliage, from one standpoint we counted ten such edifices. Some are deserted; some are still inhabited. The Franciscan establishment, where a fraternity still occupy the conventual buildings, is said to have been the first of its kind in Brazil, but we could arrive at nothing more definite as to date from the brother who acted as guide than that the place was “three hundred years old.” The church contained some particularly good Dutch tiles representing scenes from the life of the Virgin and St. Ann; similar ones are to be seen in the cathedral, which was undergoing repair, and where no means were being taken to preserve them from injury at the hands of the workmen. These edifices were presumably rebuilt after the capture of the place by the Dutch; for Olinda is said to have been so utterly destroyed by the fighting, of which it was the centre, that Prince Maurice of Nassau gave his attention instead to the improvement of Recife.
Our regrets at leaving Pernambuco on Saturday, June 21st, after a stay of six days, were mitigated by the heat of the docks and by the fact that for some nights the mosquitoes had been unceasingly active. As soon as we left S. started an exterminating campaign, and killed sixty straight away in his own cabin and the saloon. For weeks afterwards, Mr. Gillam could be seen daily going on his rounds with a bottle of quinine tabloids, the lambs obediently swallowing the same. His medicinal doses were under all circumstances magnificently heroic, some of his remedies being kept in quart bottles, on the principle, as he explained, that it was “no use spoiling the ship for a halfpennyworth of tar.” It was doubtful in this case if the enemy were really of the malaria-carrying type; they did not appear to stand on their heads in the correct manner—anyway, we all escaped contagion with one slight exception, though I myself had had a bad attack shortly before leaving England, brought on by influenza, after six years’ complete immunity.
We had now before us a voyage of some 3,000 miles down the eastern coast of South America before the Magellan Straits were reached. It was marvellously impressive sailing day after day along the coast-line of a great continent, although at the moment the said coast was sandy and flat, the only diversity being occasional lights at night from some town on the shore. Bahia de Todos os Santos, more generally known simply as Bahia, was our next destination. Some fine Portuguese houses are said to survive from the days when it was the old capital, and it may be remembered as the locality where Robinson Crusoe was engaged in planting tobacco, when he was induced to go on the slave-raiding voyage which led to his best-known adventure. The bay, which runs north and south, extends for twenty-five miles, and the situation of the town on its east side is distinctly fine; part of it has been built on the shore, and part on the top of rising ground immediately above it. The funicular railway which connects the one with the other is to be seen from the sea.
FIG. 6.
BAHIA DE TODOS OS SANTOS.
This unfortunately is all that circumstances allow us to record. The anchor was dropped at midday, Wednesday, June 25th, and orders given for luncheon to be served at once, so that we might go on shore as soon as we had got our pratique. The health officer, when he came on board, was found to speak nothing but Portuguese, which made communication difficult; the same had been the case with the pilot at Pernambuco; and as half the vessels visiting those ports are English it might perhaps be suggested, without insular pride, that a smattering of that language, or at least of French, might be desirable in such officials. We produced the bill of health from Pernambuco in ordinary course: this, however, did not satisfy the doctor. He asked for that from St. Vincent, then from Las Palmas, and finally from Falmouth, though we pointed out that, as this had been granted three months ago, it scarcely had a practical bearing on the case: the virgin health of Bahia must, we felt, indeed be immaculate to require such protection. Finally the bill was stamped and passed. Then the officer handed in a marvellous paper of directions given in English, which stated that “if the captain went on shore all boats’ crews were to return immediately to the ship; that no one was to be on shore after 7 p.m.; no fruit was to be bought from hucksters, and none was to be eaten till it had been in a cool place for three days.”