Dona Maria de Jesus.
Dona Maria told me several particulars concerning the country, and more concerning her own adventures. It appears, that early in the late war of the Reconcave, emissaries had traversed the country in all directions, to raise patriot recruits; that one of these had arrived at her father's house one day about dinner time; that her father had invited him in, and that after their meal he began to talk on the subject of his visit. He represented the greatness and the riches of Brazil, and the happiness to which it might attain if independent. He set forth the long and oppressive tyranny of Portugal; and the meanness of submitting to be ruled by so poor and degraded a country. He talked long and eloquently of the services Don Pedro had rendered to Brazil; of his virtues, and those of the Empress: so that at the last, said the girl, "I felt my heart burning in my "breast." Her father, however, had none of her enthusiasm of character. He is old, and said he neither could join the army himself, nor had he a son to send thither; and as to giving a slave for the ranks, what interest had a slave to fight for the independence of Brazil? He should wait in patience the result of the war, and be a peaceable subject to the winner. Dona Maria stole from home to the house of her own sister, who was married, and lived at a little distance. She recapitulated the whole of the stranger's discourse, and said she wished she was a man, that she might join the patriots. "Nay," said the sister, "if I had not a husband and children, for one half of what you say I would join the ranks for the Emperor." This was enough. Maria received some clothes belonging to her sister's husband to equip her; and as her father was then about to go to Cachoeira to dispose of some cottons, she resolved to take the opportunity of riding after him, near enough for protection in case of accident on the road, and far enough off to escape detection. At length being in sight of Cachoeira, she stopped; and going off the road, equipped herself in male attire, and entered the town. This was on Friday. By Sunday she had managed matters so well, that she had entered the regiment of artillery, and had mounted guard. She was too slight, however, for that service, and exchanged into the infantry, where she now is. She was sent hither, I believe, with despatches, and to be presented to the Emperor, who has given her an ensign's commission and the order of the cross, the decoration of which he himself fixed on her jacket.
She is illiterate, but clever. Her understanding is quick, and her perceptions keen. I think, with education she might have been a remarkable person. She is not particularly masculine in her appearance, and her manners are gentle and cheerful. She has not contracted any thing coarse or vulgar in her camp life, and I believe that no imputation has ever been substantiated against her modesty. One thing is certain, that her sex never was known until her father applied to her commanding officer to seek her.
There is nothing very peculiar in her manners at table, excepting that she eats farinha with her eggs at breakfast and her fish at dinner, instead of bread, and smokes a segar after each meal; but she is very temperate.
Sept. 8th, 1823.—I went with Mr. Hoste and Mr. Hately, of His Majesty's ship Briton, to Praya Grande, to see a party of Botecudo Indians, who are now there on a visit. As it is desired to civilise these people by every possible means, whenever they manifest a wish to visit the neighbourhood of the city, they are always encouraged and received kindly, fed to their hearts' content, and given clothes, and such trinkets and ornaments as they value. We saw about six men, and ten women, with some young children. The faces are rather square, with very high cheek-bones, and low contracted foreheads. Some of the young women are really pretty, of a light copper-colour, which glows all over when they blush; and two of the young men were decidedly handsome, with very dark eyes, (the usual colour of the eyes is hazel,) and aquiline noses; the rest were so disfigured by the holes cut in their lower lips and their ears to receive their barbarous ornaments, that we could scarcely tell what they were like. I had understood that the privilege of thus beautifying the face was reserved for the men,[122] but the women of this party were equally disfigured. We purchased from one of the men a mouth-piece, measuring an inch and a half in diameter. The ornaments used by these people are pieces of wood perfectly circular, which are inserted into the slit of the lip or ear, like a button, and are extremely frightful, especially when they are eating. It gives the mouth the appearance of an ape's; and the peculiar mumping it occasions is so hideously unnatural, that it gives credit to, if it did not originally suggest, the stories of their cannibalism.[123] The mouth is still more ugly without the lip-piece, the teeth appearing, and saliva running through.
When we entered the room where the savages are lodged, most of them were lying in mats on the floor; some on their faces, and some on their backs. Three of the women were suckling their infants, and these were dressed only in coarse cotton petticoats; the rest of the females had cotton frocks, the men shirts and trousers, given them on their arrival here. As they are usually naked in the woods, their garments seemed to sit uneasily on them: their usual motions seemed slow and lazy; but when roused, there was a springy activity hardly fitting a human being, in all they did. They begged for money; and when we took out a few vintems, the women crowded round me, and pinched me gently to attract my attention. They had learned a few words of Portuguese, which they addressed to us, but discoursed together in their own tongue, which seemed like a series of half-articulate sounds.
They had brought some of their bows and arrows with them of the rudest construction. The bow is of hard wood, with only two notches for the string. The arrows are of cane; some are pointed only with hard wood, others with a flat bit of cane tied with bark to the end of the hard wood: these arrows are five feet long; and I saw one of them penetrate several inches into the trunk of a tree, when shot by an Indian from his bow. I purchased one bow and two arrows. Most of these people had their hair closely clipped, excepting a tuft on the fore part of the head; and the men, who had slit their lips, had also pulled out their beards. The two handsome lads had cut their hair; but they had neither cut their lips nor pulled their beards. I tried to learn if this was a step towards civilisation, or if it was only that they had not reached the age when the ceremony of lip-slitting, &c. is practised, the interpreter attending them not being able to explain any thing but what concerns their commonest wants and actions.
September 9th.—I took two very fine Brazilian boys, who are about to enter the Imperial naval service, to spend the day at the botanical garden, which appears in much better order than when I saw it two years ago. The hedge-rows of the Bencoolen nut (Vernilzia Montana) are prodigiously grown: the Norfolk Island pine has shot up like a young giant, and I was glad to find many of the indigenous trees had been placed here; such as the Andraguoa, the nut of which is the strongest known purge; the Cambucá, whose fruit, as large as a russet apple, has the sub-acid taste of the gooseberry, to which its pulp bears a strong resemblance; the Japatec-caba, whose fruit is scarcely inferior to the damascene; and the Grumachama, whence a liquor, as good as that from cherries, is made: these three last are like laurels, and as beautiful as they are useful. I took my young friends to see the powder-mills, which are not now at work, being under repair; but they learned the manner of making powder, from the first weighing of the ingredients to the filling cartridges: and then we had our table spread in a pleasant part of the garden, under the shade of a jumbu tree, and made the head gardener, a very ingenious Dutchman, partake of our luncheon; which being over, he showed us the cinnamon they have barked here, and the other specimens of spice: the cloves are very fine, and the cinnamon might be so; but the wood they have barked is generally too old, and they have not yet the method of stripping the twigs: this I endeavoured to explain, as I had seen it practised in Ceylon. The camphor tree grows very well here, but I do not know if the gum has ever been collected. The two boys were highly delighted with their jaunt, and I not less so. Poor things! they are entering on a hard service; and God knows whether the two cousins da Costa may not hereafter look back to this day passed with a stranger, as a bright "spot of azure in a stormy sky."
Sept. 13th.—I rode again to the botanic gardens with Mr. Hoste and Mr. Hately. Our chief object this time was the powder-mills. After walking round the garden, we proceeded along the valley of the mills; and so beautiful and sequestered a place, in the bosom of the mountains, was surely never before chosen as a manufactory for so destructive an article: I suppose the great command of water for the machinery is the chief inducement to fix it here. The powder is mixed by pounding, the mortars being of rosewood, and the pestles of the same shod with copper; yet the mortar-hoops are iron, which seems to me to be a strange oversight. I do not understand these things, however; but the machinery interested me: it is extremely simple, and the timber used in the construction very beautiful. The principal mill blew up a few months since, and is now under repair; so that we had an opportunity of seeing the watercourses, dams, wheels, &c., which we could not otherwise have enjoyed. We could not learn the relative strength of the powder. I have heard, however, that it is good. What I have seen is about as fine in grain as what we call priming powder in the navy. While we were walking about we were invited into several houses, by the overseers and other persons employed in the works, and pressed to eat and drink with great hospitality. The greatest liberality to strangers, indeed, exists in all public establishments here. For instance, at the botanic garden there is a constant nursery of the rare and the useful plants, which are given away, on application, to strangers and natives alike; so that not only the gardens of Brazil are stocked with the rarer productions of the East, but they are carried to different countries in Europe, prepared by this cooler climate for their farther transplantation.
14th.—I observed on the beach to-day a line of red sandy-looking matter, extending all along the shore, and tinging the sea for several feet from the edge. At night this red edge became luminous; and I now recollect when on the passage to India in 1809, that on observing a peculiar luminous appearance of the sea, we took up a bucket of water, and on examining it next morning, we observed a similar red grainy substance floating in it. It is the first time I have seen it here, and I cannot find that any body has paid any attention to it. Perhaps it is not worth noticing; but I am so much alone, that I have grown more and more alive to all the appearances of inanimate nature. Besides, I must make much of the country, as in a few days I have to take up my abode in one of the narrow close streets of Rio; and this not from choice. It is the custom here, and a very natural and pleasant one it is, for every family that can, to live in the country all the summer: so that the houses of every kind, in the country, are in great request. The term for which that I live in was hired is expired, and I am therefore obliged to leave it. My going to town, perhaps, might be avoided, but there are some things I shall probably learn more perfectly by living there; and, besides, does not Lord Bacon advise that in order to profit much from travel, one should not only move from city to city, "but change his lodgings from one end and part of the city to another?"