Had the calls of the mail steamer been deliberately designed to give the stranger a cumulative impression of the beauties of Brazil, they could not have been more happily arranged. First of Pernambuco in flat country, redeemed by its splendid vegetation; then Bahia with its fine bay and gentle hills, and lastly Rio the incomparable.
I have seen most of the surface of this globe, and I say deliberately, without any fear of contradiction, that nowhere is there anything approaching Rio in beauty. The glorious bay, two hundred miles in circumference, dotted with islands, and surrounded by mountains of almost grotesquely fantastic outlines, the whole clothed with exuberantly luxurious tropical vegetation, makes the most lovely picture that can be conceived.
The straggling town in my day had not yet blossomed into those vagaries of ultra-ornate architecture which at present characterise it. It was quaint and picturesque, and fitted its surroundings admirably, the narrow crowded Ruado Ouvidor being the centre of the fashionable life of the place.
It will be remembered that when Gonçalves discovered the great bay on January 1st, 1502, he imagined that it must be the estuary of some mighty river, and christened it accordingly "the River of January," "Rio de Janeiro." Oddly enough, only a few insignificant streams empty themselves into this vast landlocked harbour.
During my first fortnight in Rio, I thought the view over the bay more beautiful with every fresh standpoint I saw it from; whether from Botofogo, or from Nichteroy on the further shore, the view seemed more entrancingly lovely every time; and yet over this, the fairest spot on earth, the Angel of Death was perpetually hovering with outstretched wings; for yellow fever was endemic at Rio then, and yellow fever slays swiftly and surely.
One must have lived in countries where the disease is prevalent to realise the insane terror those two words "yellow fever" strike into most people. On my third visit to Rio, I was destined to contract the disease myself, but it dealt mercifully with me, so henceforth I am immune to yellow fever for the remainder of my life. The ravages this fell disease wrought in the West Indies a hundred years ago cannot be exaggerated. Those familiar with Michael Scott's delightful "Tom Cringle's Log" will remember the gruesome details he gives of a severe outbreak of the epidemic in Jamaica. In those days "Yellow Jack" took toll of nearly fifty per cent. of the white civil and military inhabitants of the British West Indies, as the countless memorial tablets in the older West Indian churches silently testify. Before my arrival in Rio, a new German Minister had, in spite of serious warnings, insisted on taking a beautiful little villa on a rocky promontory jutting into the bay. The house with its white marble colonnades, its lovely gardens, and the wonderful view over the mountains, was a thing of exquisite beauty, but it bore a very evil reputation. Within eight months the German Minister, his secretary, and his two white German servants were all dead of yellow fever. The Brazilians declare that the fever is never contracted during the daytime, but that sunset is the dangerous hour. They also warn the foreigner to avoid fruit and acid drinks.
Conditions have changed since then. The cause of the unhealthiness of Rio was a very simple one. All the sewage of the city was discharged into the landlocked, tideless bay, where it lay festering under the scorching sun. An English company tunnelled a way through the mountains direct to the Atlantic, and all the sewage is now discharged there, with the result that Rio is practically free from the dreaded disease.
The customs of a monarchial country are like a deep-rooted oak, they do not stand transplanting. Where they are the result of the slow growth of many centuries, they have adapted themselves, so to speak, to the soil of the country of their origin, have evolved national characteristics, and have fitted themselves into the national life. When transplanted into a new country, they cannot fail to appear anachronisms, and have always a certain element of the grotesque about them. In my time Dom Pedro, the Emperor of Brazil, had surrounded himself with a modified edition of the externals of a European Court. A colleague of mine had recently been presented to the Emperor at the Palace of São Christovão. As is customary on such occasions, my colleague called on the two Court Chamberlains who were on duty at São Christovão, and they duly returned the visit. One of these Chamberlains, whom we will call Baron de Feijão e Farinha, seemed reluctant to take his departure. He finally produced a bundle of price lists from his pocket, and assured my colleague that he would get far better value for his money at his (the Baron's) ready-made clothing store than at any other similar establishment in South America. From another pocket he then extracted a tape measure, and in spite of my colleague's protest passed the tape over his unwilling body to note the stock size, in the event of an order. The Baron de Feijão especially recommended one of his models, "the Pall Mall," a complete suit of which could be obtained for the nominal sum of 80,000 reis. This appalling sum looks less alarming when reduced to British currency, 80,000 Brazilian reis being equal to about £7 7s. I am not sure that he did not promise my colleague a commission on any orders he could extract from other members of the Legation. My colleague, a remarkably well-dressed man, did not recover his equanimity for some days, after picturing his neatly-garbed form arrayed in the appallingly flashy, ill-cut, ready-made garments in which the youth of Rio de Janeiro were wont to disport themselves. To European ideas, it was a little unusual to find a Court Chamberlain engaged in the ready-made clothing line.
On State occasions Dom Pedro assumed the most splendid Imperial mantle any sovereign has ever possessed. It was composed entirely of feathers, being made of the breasts of toucans, shaded from pale pink to deep rose-colour, and was the most gorgeous bit of colour imaginable. In the sweltering climate of Brazil, the heat of this mantle must have been unendurable, and I always wondered how Dom Pedro managed to bear it with a smiling face, but it certainly looked magnificent.
One of the industries of Rio was the manufacture of artificial flowers from the feathers of humming-birds. These feather flowers were wonderfully faithful reproductions of Nature, and were practically indestructible, besides being most artistically made. They were very expensive.