Richard was a great mesmerizer, a thing which everybody who knew him will understand.[4] He always preferred women, and especially of the blue-eyed, yellow-haired type. I need not say that he began with me as soon as we married; but I did not like it, and used to resist it, but after a while I consented. At first it was a little difficult, but when once he had complete control, no passes or contact were necessary; he used simply to say, "Sleep," and I did. He could also do this at a distance, but with more difficulty if water were between us, and if he tried to mesmerize anybody else and I was anywhere in the neighbourhood, I absorbed it, and they took nothing. I used to grow at last to be afraid to be in the same room with a mesmerizer, as I used to experience the greatest discomfort, and I knew if there was one in the room, the same as some people know if there is a cat in the room; but I could resist them, though I could not resist Richard. He used to mesmerize me freely, but he never allowed any one else, nor did I, to mesmerize me. Once mesmerized, he had only to say, "Talk," and I used to tell everything I knew, only I used to implore of him to forbid me to tell him other people's secrets, and as a matter of honour he did, but all my own used to come out freely; only he never took a mean advantage of what he learnt in that way, and he used laughingly to tell everybody, "It is the only way to get a woman to tell you the truth." I have often told him things that I would much rather keep to myself.
In the particular instance that I am about to recount, he had mesmerized me to consult about an expedition that he was going to take, as he had previous to his illness meant to start, and I had said to him, "Don't start, because you are going to have a very bad illness, and you will want me and your home comforts;" so he now re-mesmerized me to know what he should do, and I said to him, "Don't take the man that you are going to take with you, because he is a scoundrel; don't buy the things that you are going to buy for the expedition, because you will never use them. You will go a long journey south for your health." I then said to him, "Look! what a curious procession is passing our door, a long procession of people in white, and headed by Maria and Julia"[5]—who were our old cook and her daughter, aged about seventeen—"they are all in white, with flowers on their heads. What can it mean?" I raved all night about this procession, till Richard got up and shut the shutters, and closed the door, which opened out on to the sands, the night being very hot. The next day this procession made an impression on him, and for curiosity's sake he sent up a mounted messenger to São Paulo to know if anything had occurred, or if there was any news. We had brought no servants with us, had left my maid and everybody behind.
Now, on a former occasion, about three months back, he had mesmerized me, and I had had this very cook called to me, and I had said to her, "Maria, go to confession and communion, then send to a lawyer and make your will. You have got a little cottage, and you have saved £150; you have a few boxes of clothes and things. Leave everything to Little Peter"—her son aged six—"and don't trouble about Julia." When I came to, she told me the extraordinary things I had been saying to her, and how frightened she was; but she said, "I will do all that you have told me, only I can't leave Julia without anything;" and I said to her, "I am not conscious of having said anything; but in that case, you had better say that whatever you leave to Julia goes to Peter at her death." Well, this was the news that we got by the mounted messenger: The old cook had died that day in an apoplectic fit, and before the maid had time to call or send for the daughter, she walked in, looking very ill, and sat upon the sofa, rocking and moaning, and she said, "I have come from my mistress to die here. I feel so very ill, I will not leave you." From all she told the maid, and the strange way she was going on, the maid inferred that the girl was in a particular kind of trouble, and it would be impossible to keep her there, and she begged of her to let her fetch a carriage and conduct her back to her mistress, where at least if she was ill she could be taken care of, and seeing her in such a state, she was afraid to inform her that her mother was lying dead. One of the slaves fetched a carriage, and they put her into it, and were conducting her home, but she was so bad on the road they had to lift her out, and take her into a little venda (a place where they sell wine), and run to fetch a priest, who was just in time to give her the last Sacraments, when she expired. The blood oozed from her eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and from all the pores of her skin. She died very shortly and was buried, and the smell was so bad in the venda that the walls had to be scraped and rewhitewashed, although she was only there a few hours. It was afterwards proved that she and the black cook at her mistress's were both in love with the same man, and as she had announced her intention of visiting my house, the cook had given her a cup of coffee before she set out, and had said, "Go! you will never come back." The body was exhumed. It was supposed she had received in the coffee a Brazilian poison, mixed with powdered glass, made of some herbs of which the negroes have the secret. Little Peter would have now become practically, though not theoretically, a Brazilian slave, and his little property would have been absorbed; but by the will made at the Consulate, he was under the protection of the Consul. His education was undertaken, and he was sole inheritor of the cottage, £150, and the boxes of clothes and other property.
At Santos we had a regatta, a separate boat for each nation, about nine or ten in all. The English blustered awfully, and the Americans also—talked a great deal about "Bull's Run," and so forth. All the other people sat very quiet, expecting to be beaten; the consequence was the Portuguese won, and the English came in last, and we sent up and hauled our flag down. The sea was very rough, and surrounded our bungalow; we walked through bare-legged, and went into Santos, and then went back again, and eventually to São Paulo, partly on an engine, and partly walking—butterfly-catching.
We leave Brazil—Richard goes South.
When we got back to São Paulo, Richard told me that he could not stand it any longer; it had given him that illness, it was far away from the world, it was no advancement, it led to nothing. He was quite right. I felt very sorry, because up to the present it was the only home I had ever really had quietly with him, and we had had it for three years; but I soon sold up everything, and we came down to Santos, and embarked on the 24th of July, 1868. Here he applied for leave, as the doctors advised him not to go to England at once, but to go down south to Buenos Ayres for a trip, and he asked me to go to England and see if I could not induce them to give him another post. I saw Richard off down south, and taking an affectionate leave of all kind friends, embarked for England.
Our separate Journeys.
Richard had a splendid journey to the Argentine Republic and the rivers Plata-Paraná and Paraguay, for the purpose of reporting the state of the Paraguayan War to the Foreign Office. He crossed the Pampos and the Andes to Chili and Peru amongst the bad Indians. He went to the Pacific Coast to inspect the scene of the earthquake at Arica, returning by the Straits of Magellan, Buenos Ayres, and Rio to London.