Leaving the city at two o’clock in the ferry-boat, we kept up the harbor some fifteen miles. There was a cool breeze, and the day, though warm, was not oppressive. Passing the large Ilha do Governador, the smaller but exceedingly pretty island of Paqueta, and many others, with their palms, banana and acacia trees, dotting the harbor of Rio and adding another grace to its beauty, we landed in about an hour and a quarter at the little town of Mauá.[[24]] Here we took the cars, and an hour’s ride through low and marshy grounds brought us to the foot of the Serra (Raiz da Serra), where we left the railroad for the post-coach, which runs regularly from this station. The drive was delightful, in an open diligence drawn by four mules on the full gallop over a road as smooth as a floor. It wound zigzag up the mountains, through the wildest scenery, while below us lay the valley broken into a billowy sea of green hills, and the harbor with the coast range beyond, growing soft and mellow in the afternoon sunshine. To complete the picture, one must clothe it in palms and acacias and tree-ferns, and drape it in a tangle of parasitic growth, with abundant bloom of the purple Quaresma (Flower of Lent),[[25]] the Thunbergia vine, with its little straw-colored blossoms creeping over every wall and shrub, and the blue and yellow Bignonias. We are constantly astonished at the variety of palms. A palm is such a rarity in our hot-houses, that we easily forget how numerous and varied they are in their native forests. We have the scarlet-oak, the white-oak, the scrub-oak, the chestnut-oak, the swamp-oak, and many others. And so in the tropical forest there is the cocoanut-palm, with its swollen, bulb-like stem when young, its tall, straight trunk when full grown, its cluster of heavy fruit, and its long, plume-like, drooping flower;[[26]] the Coccoeiro, with its slighter trunk and pendant branches of small berry-like fruit; the Palmetto, with its tender succulent bud on the summit of the stem, which is used as a vegetable here, and makes an excellent substitute for cabbage; the thorny Icaree or Cari, a variety of fan-palms, with their leaves cut like ribbons; and very many others, each with its characteristic foliage and appearance.[[27]]
The mountains along the road, as indeed throughout the neighborhood of Rio, are of very peculiar forms, steep and conical, suggesting at first sight a volcanic origin. It is this abruptness of outline which gives so much grandeur to mountain ranges here, the average height of which does not exceed two or three thousand feet. A closer examination of their structure shows that their wild, fantastic forms are the result of the slow processes of disintegration, not of sudden convulsions. Indeed, the rocks here differ so much in external character from those of the Northern Hemisphere, that the European geologist stands at first bewildered before them, and feels that the work of his life is to be done over again. It is some time before he obtains a clew to the facts and brings them into harmony with his previous knowledge. Thus far Mr. Agassiz finds himself painfully perplexed by this new aspect of phenomena so familiar to him in other regions, but so baffling here. He comes upon a rock, for instance, or a rounded elevation which by its outline he would suppose to be a “roche moutonnée,” but approaching it more nearly he finds a decomposed crust instead of a glaciated surface. It is the same with the loose materials corresponding to the drift of the Northern hemisphere, and with all boulders or detached masses of rock; on account of their disintegration wherever they are exposed to the atmosphere, nothing is to be learned from their external appearance. There is not a natural surface of rock, unless recently broken, to be found anywhere.
The sun had set before we drove into the pretty town of Petropolis, the summer paradise of all Rio Janeirans whose circumstances enable them to leave the heat and dirt and vile smells of the city, for the pure air and enchanting views of the Serra. In a central position stands the summer palace of the Emperor, a far gayer and more cheerful-looking edifice than the palace at San Christovāo. Here he passes six months of the year. Through the midst of the town runs the pretty river Piabanha, a shallow stream, now rippling along in the bottom of its bed between high green banks; but we were told that a night of rain in the hot season is enough to swell its waters till they overflow and flood the road. I could not but think how easy it would be for any one who cares to see tropical scenery to come here, when the direct line of steamers from New York is established, and, instead of going to Newport or Nahant, to take a house in Petropolis for the summer. It commands all the most beautiful scenery about Rio, and the horseback rides are without end. During our summer the weather is delightful here, just admitting a semblance of wood-fire morning and evening, while the orange orchards are golden with fruit, and flowers are everywhere. We had little time to become acquainted with the beauty of the place, which we hope to explore more at our leisure on some future visit, for sunrise the next morning saw us on our road again. The soft clouds hanging over the tops of the mountains were just tinged with the first rays of the sun when we drove out of the town on the top of the diligence, the mules at full gallop, the guard sounding a gay reveille as we rattled over the little bridge and past the pretty houses where closed windows and doors showed that the inhabitants were hardly yet astir.
The first part of our road lay through the lovely valley of the Piabanha, the river whose acquaintance we had already made in Petropolis, and which accompanied us for the first forty or fifty miles of our journey, sometimes a restless stream broken into rapids and cascades, sometimes spreading into a broad, placid river, but always enclosed between mountains rising occasionally to the height of a few thousand feet, lifting here and there a bare rocky face seamed with a thousand scars of time and studded with Bromelias and Orchids, but more often clothed with all the glory of the Southern forest, or covered from base to summit with coffee shrubs. A thriving coffee plantation is a very pretty sight; the rounded, regular outline of the shrubs gives a tufted look to the hillside on which they grow, and their glittering foliage contrasts strikingly at this season with their bright red berries. One often passes coffee plantations, however, which look ragged and thin; in this case the trees are either suffering from the peculiar insect so injurious to them, (a kind of Tinea,) or have run out and become exhausted. As we drove along, the scenes upon the road were often as amusing as they were picturesque. Now we came upon a troop of pack mules with a tropeiro (driver) at their head; if a large troop, they were divided into companies of eight, with a man to guide each company. The guard wound his horn to give warning of our coming, and a general struggle, garnished with kicks, oaths, and many lashes, ensued, to induce the mules to make way for the coach. These troops of mules are beginning to disappear from the seaboard since the modern improvements in railroads and stage lines, making transportation so much easier; but until lately it was the only way of bringing down the produce from the interior. Or again we fell in with a line of country wagons made of plaited bamboo, a kind of fabric which is put to a variety of uses here, such as the building of fences and lining of ceilings or roofs, as well as the construction of carts. Here and there the laborers were sitting in groups at the roadside, their work suspended while they cooked their midday meal, their kettles hanging over the fire, their coffee-pot simmering over the coals, and they themselves lying about in gypsy-like freedom of attitude.
At Posse, the third stage of our road, after having gone some thirty miles, we also stopped to breakfast, a meal which was by no means unacceptable after our three hours’ ride. It is an almost universal custom with the Brazilians, especially when travelling, to take their cup of black coffee on rising, and defer their more solid breakfast till ten or eleven o’clock. I do not know whether my readers will sympathize with me, but I am always disappointed myself if any book of travels, having led me along the weary road, does not tell me what the hungry wanderers had to eat. It seems hardly fair, having shared their fatigues, that I should not also share their refreshment and be invited to sit down at table with them. Doing, therefore, as I would be done by, I shall give our bill of fare, and take an opportunity of saying a word at the same time of the characteristic Brazilian dishes. In the first place we had black beans stewed with carne secca (dried meat), the invariable accompaniment of every meal in Brazil. There is no house so poor that it does not have its feijōes, no house so rich as to exclude this homely but most excellent dish, a favorite alike with high and low. Then there was chicken stewed with potatoes and rice, almost as marked a feature of the Brazilian cuisine as the black beans. Beside these, there were eggs served in various ways, cold meat, wine, coffee, and bread. Vegetables seem to be rare, though one would expect a plentiful variety in this climate.[[28]] At Posse Mr. Agassiz found a cordial co-operator in Mr. Charles Taylor, who expressed a warm interest in his scientific researches, and kept one of the collecting cans that he might fill it with fishes from the neighboring rivers and streams.[[29]]
Our kind friend Senhor Joaō Baptista da Fonseca, who was our guide and our host on this journey, had neglected nothing which could contribute to the success and pleasure of the party, and had so prepared the way for the scientific objects of the excursion that at several points of the road we found collections of fishes and other animals awaiting us by the roadside. Once or twice, as we passed a fazenda, a negro carrying a basket came out to stop the diligence, and, lifting the cool green leaves which covered them, showed freshly caught fishes of all hues and sizes. It was rather aggravating, especially as we approached the end of our long drive, and the idea of dinner readily suggested itself, to see them disappear in the alcohol cans.[[30]]
At about midday we bade good by to the pretty river we had followed thus far, and at the Estaçaō d’Entre Rios (between the rivers) crossed the fine bridge which spans the Parahyba at this point. The Parahyba is the large river which flows for a great part of its course between the Serra do Mar and the Serra da Mantiqueira, emptying into the Atlantic at San Joaō da Barra considerably to the northeast of Rio de Janeiro. One is a little bewildered at first by the variety of Serras in Brazil, because the word is used to express not only important chains of mountains, but all their spurs. Any mountainous elevation is a Serra; but though there is an endless number of them between the Serra do Mar and the Serra da Mantiqueira, these are the two most important chains, running parallel with the sea-coast. Between them flows the Parahyba with its many branches. It is important to make collections here, as the peculiar character of this water basin, the many tributaries of which drain the southern water-shed of the Serra da Mantiqueira, and the northern water-shed of the Serra do Mar, make it of especial interest for the naturalist. On account of its neighborhood to the sea, it is also desirable to compare its inhabitants with those of the many short, disconnected rivers which empty into the Atlantic on the other side of the coast range. In short, it gives a good opportunity for testing those questions of the geographical distribution of living beings, as connected with their origin, which Mr. Agassiz so strongly urged upon his assistants during our voyage.
Soon after crossing the Parahyba, the road strikes the Parahybuna, a tributary which enters the main river on its northern side, nearly opposite the Piabanha. The latter part of the journey is less wild than the first half; the mountains fall away in somewhat gentler slopes, and do not shut in the road with the steep rugged precipices so striking in the valley of the Piabanha. But though perhaps less picturesque on approaching Juiz de Fora,[[31]] the scenery is beautiful enough throughout the whole ride to satisfy the most fastidious and keep the attention constantly awake. We arrived at the end of our journey at about six o’clock, and found most comfortable accommodations prepared for us at a little cottage, built somewhat in the style of a Swiss châlet, and kept by the company for the use of their guests or for the directors of the road. An excellent dinner awaited us at the little hotel just opposite, the door of which is shaded by two stately palms; and with a ramble in the neighboring grounds of Senhor Lage, and a concert by a band of German musicians, consisting of employees on the road, our day closed,—a day full of pleasure.
The following morning we were indebted to Senhor Lage for a walk, as instructive as it was charming, through his gardens and orange orchards. Not only has he arranged his grounds with exquisite taste, but has endeavored to bring together the shrubs and trees most characteristic of the country, so that a stroll through his place is a valuable lesson to the botanist, the more so if he is fortunate enough to have the proprietor as a companion, for he may then learn the name and history of every tree and flower he passes. Such a guide is invaluable here, for the Brazilians seem to remain in blissful ignorance of systematic nomenclature; to most of them all flowers are “flores,” all animals, from a fly up to a mule or an elephant, “bixos.” One of the most beautiful features of Senhor Lage’s grounds is a plantation of parasites,—an extensive walk, bordered on either side by a rustic fence, over which are trained some of the most exquisite parasitic plants of the Brazilian forests. In the midst of this walk is the Grotto of the Princesses, so called after the daughters of the Emperor who, on occasion of a visit made by the Imperial family to Juiz de Fora, at the opening of the road, were exceedingly pleased with this pretty spot, where a spring all overhung with parasitic vines, orchids, &c. flows out from the rock. The spring, however, is artificial, and is a part of the admirable system of irrigation introduced over the whole estate. So rapid is the growth of everything here that one can hardly believe this beautiful country place to have been under cultivation only five or six years; a few years more under the same direction will make it a tropical paradise.
A variety of plans combining pleasure and science had been arranged for the next day. First on the list was a drive to the “Forest of the Empress.” Everything of any interest in the neighborhood recalls the visit of the Imperial family at the opening of the road. From this event all loyal Juiz de Forans date, and the virgin forest we were to visit is consecrated by the fact that on this great occasion the Emperor with his family and suite breakfasted here in presence of a numerous assemblage of their loving subjects. Surely a more stately banqueting-hall could scarcely be found. The throne was cut in the broad buttressed trunk of a huge figueira; the rustic table, built of rough stems, stood under the shadow of great palm-trees; and around was the tropical forest, tapestried with vines, and embroidered with Orchids. These were royal accompaniments, even though the whole entertainment was conducted with a simplicity in harmony with the scene. Neither gold nor silver nor glass was brought to vie with the beauties of nature; the drinking-cups were made from the hollow stems of the wild bamboo-tree, and all the service was of the same rustic description. The tables, seats, &c. stand, undisturbed, as they were on that day, and of course this spot remains a favorite resort for humbler picnics than the one by which it was inaugurated. We wandered about for some time in the cool shade of the wood, lunched under the rustling palms, and then drove homeward, stopping for a while by the side of the river, where a pretty cascade rushes over the stones, and a rustic house built for the same memorable occurrence makes a pleasant resting-place. In the afternoon a heavy rain kept us within doors, but we were not sorry, for we were in danger of having a surfeit of pleasure, and quiet was very grateful.