As we were looking over the bay, a larger boat appeared: it neared the shore; and our host, Mr. Lewis P., who superintends the fazenda, landed, and kindly received our apology for coming without previous notice. The visit had long been talked of; but now our time at Rio was likely to be so short, that had we not come to-day, we might not have come at all. He led the way to the garden, where we passed the time till supper was ready. The midshipmen found more oranges, and better than they had yet met with, and did full justice to them. The fruit and vegetables of Europe and America, of the temperate and torrid zones, meet here; nor are their flowers forgotten: over against the little parterre, an orange and a tamarind tree shade a pleasant bench; close to which, in something of oriental taste, the white stucco wall of the well is raised and crowned with flower-pots, filled with roses and sweet herbs.
2d.—I rose at daylight, and rode with Mr. N. through the estate, while Mr. Dance, my cousin Glennie, and the two boys, went to shoot in the marsh by the river side.
Every turn in our ride brought a new and varied landscape into view: beneath, the sugar-cane in luxuriant growth; above, the ripening orange and the palm; around and scattered through the plain enlivened by the windings of the Guazindiba, the lime, the guava, and a thousand odorous and splendid shrubs, beautified the path.—But all is new here. The long lines of fazenda houses, that now and then take from the solitariness of nature, suggest no association with any advance either of old or present time, in the arts that civilise or that ennoble man. The rudest manufactures, carried on by African slaves, one half of whom are newly imported, (that is, are still smarting under the separation from all that endears the home, even of a savage,) are all the approaches to improvement; and though nature is at least as fine as in India or in Italy, the want of some reference to man, as an intellectual and moral being, robs it of half its charms. However, I returned well pleased from my ride, and found my young sportsmen not less pleased with their morning's ramble. Not, indeed, that they had shot snipes, as they intended, but they had gotten a huge lizard (Lacerta Marmorata), of a kind they had not seen before. They had seen the large land-crab (Ruricola), and they had brought down a boatswain bird, a sort of pelican, (Pelicanus Lencocephalus), which they proposed to stuff. Accordingly after breakfast, as the weather was too hot to walk farther, the bird and the lizard were both skinned, the guns were cleaned, and I made a sketch of the landscape.
In the evening I took a long walk to a point of view whence the whole bay with the city in the distance is distinctly seen, and on the way stopped at a cottage, where Mr. P. who is, literally, here "king, priest, and prophet," had some enquiry to make, concerning the health of the indwellers: these were two negroes, who have grown old in the service of the estate, and are no longer useful. I have seen examples of such being freed, that is, turned out of doors to starve. Here they would be entitled, by the rules of the estate, if not by law, to come every day for the same allowance as the working negroes: but they do not choose it. They indeed live in a hut, and on the ground of their master; but they maintain themselves by rearing a few fowls, and making baskets: so dear is the feeling of independence, even in old age, sickness, and slavery.
Sunday, 3d.—I went out before breakfast, with a negro carpenter for my guide. This man, with little instruction, has learned his art so as to be not only a good carpenter and joiner, but also a very tolerable cabinet-maker, and in other respects displays a quickness of understanding which gives no countenance to the pretended inferiority of negro intellect. I was much pleased with the observations he made on many things which I remarked as new, and with the perfect understanding he seemed to have of all country works. After breakfast, I attended the weekly muster of all the negroes of the fazenda; clean shirts and trowsers were given the men, and shifts and skirts to the women, of very coarse white cotton. Each, as he or she came in, kissed a hand, and then bowed to Mr. P. saying, either "Father, give me blessing," or "The names of Jesus and Mary be praised!" and were answered accordingly, either "Bless you," or "Be they praised." This is the custom in old establishments: it is repeated morning and evening, and seems to acknowledge a kind of relationship between master and slave. It must diminish the evils of slavery to one, the tyranny of mastership in the other, to acknowledge thus a common superior Master on whom they both depend.
As each slave passed in review, some questions were asked concerning himself, his family, if he had one, or his work; and each received a portion of snuff or tobacco, according to his taste. Mr. P. is one of the few persons whom I have met conversant among slaves, who appears to have made them an object of rational and humane attention. He tells me that the creole negroes and mulattoes are far superior in industry to the Portuguese and Brazilians; who, from causes not difficult to be imagined, are for the most part indolent and ignorant. The negroes and mulattoes have strong motives to exertion of every kind, and succeed in what they undertake accordingly. They are the best artificers and artists. The orchestra of the opera-house is composed of at least one-third of mulattoes. All decorative painting, carving, and inlaying is done by them; in short, they excel in all ingenious mechanical arts.
In the afternoon I attended Mr. P. to see the negroes receive their daily allowance of food. It consisted of farinha, kidney-beans, and dried beef, a fixed measure of each to every person. One man asked for two portions, on account of the absence of his neighbour, whose wife had desired it might be sent to her to make ready for him by the time he returned. Some enquiries which Mr. P. made about this person, induced me to ask his history. It seems he is a mulatto boatman, the most trusty servant on the estate, and rich, because he is industrious enough to have earned a good deal of private property, besides doing his duty to his master. In his youth, and he is not now old, he had become attached to a creole negress, born, like him, on the estate; but he did not marry her till he had earned money enough to purchase her, in order that their children, if they had any, might be born free. Since that time, he has become rich enough to purchase himself, even at the high price which such a slave might fetch; but his master will not sell him his freedom, his services being too valuable to lose, notwithstanding his promise to remain on the estate and work. Unfortunately these people have no children; therefore on their death their property, now considerable, will revert to the master. Had they children, as the woman is free, they might inherit the mother’s property; and there is nothing to prevent the father’s making over all he earns to her. I wish I had the talent of novel writing, for the sake of this slave’s story; but my writing, like my drawing, goes no farther than sketching from nature, and I make better artists welcome to use the subject.
The evening was very stormy: deep clouds had covered the Organ Mountains; and vivid lightning, sharp rain, and boisterous wind, had threatened the fazenda with a night of terror. But it passed away, leaving all the grand and gloomy beauty of a departed thunder-storm in a mountainous country; when the moon broke through the clouds, and the night seemed, from the contrast with the last few hours, even lovelier than the last. Then just as the
"Sable clouds
Turned forth their silver lining on the night,
And cast a gleam over the tufted grove."
I heard the sounds of music; not such, indeed, as Milton’s echo, with Henry Lawes’s notes, would have made,—of which the night and the scene had made me dream; but the voice of the slaves on this their night of holiday, beguiling their cares with uncouth airs, played on rude African instruments. Taking one of my ship-mates with me, I immediately went to the huts of the married slaves, where all merry-makings are held; and found parties playing, singing, and dancing to the moonlight. A superstitious veneration for that beautiful planet is said to be pretty general in savage Africa, as that for the Pleiades was among the Indians of Brazil; and probably the slaves, though baptized, dance to the moon in memory of their homes. As for the instruments, they are the most inartificial things that ever gave out musical sounds; yet they have not an unpleasing effect. One is simply composed of a crooked stick, a small hollow gourd, and a single string of brass wire. The mouth of the gourd must be placed on the naked skin of the side; so that the ribs of the player form the sounding-board, and the string is struck with a short stick. A second has more the appearance of a guitar: the hollow gourd is covered with skin; it has a bridge, and there are two strings; it is played with the finger. Another of the same class is played with a bow; it has but one string, but is fretted with the fingers. All these are called Gourmis. There were, besides, drums made of the hollow trunks of trees, four or five feet long, closed at one end with wood, and covered with skin at the other. In playing these, the drummer lays his instrument on the ground and gets astride on it, when he beats time with his hands to his own songs, or the tunes of the gourmis. The small marimba has a very sweet tone. On a flat piece of sonorous wood a little bridge is fastened; and to this small slips of iron, of different lengths, are attached, so as that both ends vibrate on the board, one end being broader and more elevated than the other. This broad end is played with the thumbs, the instrument being held with both hands. All these are tuned in a peculiar manner, and with great nicety, especially the marimba[92]; but, as I am no musician, I cannot explain their methods.