April 10th.—Yesterday afternoon we returned to Pacatuba, descending the serra much more rapidly and with far less fatigue than we had ascended. We would gladly have availed ourselves longer of the pleasant hospitality of our hosts, who very graciously urged us to stay; but time is precious, and we are anxious not to miss the next steamer. Donna Maria’s kindness followed us down the mountain, however, for scarcely had we reached the house before an excellent dinner—stewed fowls, beef, vegetables, etc.—arrived, borne on the heads of two negroes. When I saw the load these men had brought so steadily down the same path over which I had come rolling, pitching, tumbling, sliding,—any way, in short, but walking,—I envied their dexterity, and longed to be as sure-footed as these shoeless, half naked, ignorant blacks. To-day we leave Pacatuba for the house of Senhor Franklin, on our way back to Ceará.
April 12th.—On the 10th we returned to Monguba, where we passed that day and the following night at the fazenda of our friends, the Franklins. The next morning we had intended to start at six o’clock on our way to the city. No sooner were the horses at the door, however, and the pack-mules ready, than a pouring rain began. We waited for it to pass, but it was followed by shower after shower, falling in solid sheets. So the day wore on till twelve o’clock, when there was a lull, with a prospect of fine weather, and we started. I could not help feeling some anxiety, for I remembered the streams we had forded in coming, and wondered what they would be after these torrents. Fortunately, before we reached the first of them, we met two negroes, who warned us that there was a great deal of water on the road. We hired them to come on with us, and guide my horse. When we reached the spot it really looked appalling. The road was inundated to a considerable distance, and the water rushed across it with great violence, having in many places a depth of four or five feet, and a strong current. If there had been a sound bottom to rely upon, the wetting would have been nothing; but the road, torn up by the rains, was full of holes and deep gullies, so that the horses, coming unexpectedly on these inequalities, would suddenly flounder up to their necks in water, and recover their footing only by kicking and plunging. We crossed four such streams, one man leading my horse while the gentlemen followed close behind, and the second negro walking in front to see where it was possible to pass without getting completely out of depth. These streams, not quite deep enough to allow the horse to swim, and with such a broken bottom that he is in constant danger of falling, are sometimes more difficult of passage than a river. We met with only one accident, however, which, as it did no harm, was rather ludicrous than otherwise. The negroes had left us, saying there was no more deep water in the road, and when we came presently to a shallow stream we entered it quite confidently. It was treacherous, however, for just on its edge was a soft, adhesive bog-mud. In entering, the horses stepped across this quagmire, but their hind legs were instantly caught in it. Major Coutinho, who was riding at my side, seized my bridle, and, spurring his own horse violently, both the animals extricated themselves at once by a powerful effort. Our servant, who followed behind, was not so fortunate; he was mounted on a small mule, which seemed likely to be swallowed up bodily for a moment, so suddenly did it disappear in the mire; the man fell off, and it was some minutes before he and his animal regained the road, a mass of mud and dripping with water. We reached Ceará at five in the afternoon, having made a journey of five leagues. Every one tells us that the state of the roads is most unusual, such continuous rains not having been known for many years. The sickness in the city continues unabated, and a young man who was attacked with yellow-fever in the next house before we left has died in our absence. Everywhere on our journey we have heard the same complaints of prevalent epidemics, and the authorities are beginning to close the schools in the town on account of them. The steamer is due in a day or two, and we are making our preparations for departure. We should not bid good by to Ceará without acknowledging the sympathy shown by the President of the Province, Senhor Homem de Mello, in the objects of the expedition. Mr. Agassiz has received a collection of palms and fishes, the directions for which he had given before starting for the Serra, but the expenses of which are defrayed by the President, who insists upon their being received as a contribution from the province. Mr. Agassiz is also greatly indebted to Senhor Felice, at whose house we have lodged, for efficient help in collecting, and to Senhor Cicero de Lima for a collection of fishes and insects from the interior. I conclude this chapter with a few passages from notes made by Mr. Agassiz during his examination of the Serra of Aratanha and the site of Pacatuba.
“I spent the rest of the day in a special examination of the right lateral moraine, and part of the front moraine of the glacier of Pacatuba; my object was especially to ascertain whether what appeared a moraine at first might not, after all, be a spur of the serra, decomposed in place. I ascended the ridge to its very origin, and there crossed into an adjoining depression, immediately below the Sitio of Captain Henriquez, where I found another glacier bottom of smaller dimensions, the ice of which probably never reached the plain. Everywhere in the ridges encircling these depressions the loose materials and large boulders are so accumulated and embedded in clay or sand that their morainic character is unmistakable. Occasionally, where a ledge of the underlying rock crops out, in places where the drift has been removed by denudation, the difference between the moraine and the rock decomposed in place is recognized at once. It is equally easy to distinguish the boulders which here and there have rolled down from the mountain and stopped against the moraine. The three things are side by side, and might at first be easily confounded; but a little familiarity makes it easy to distinguish them. Where the lateral moraine turns toward the front of the ancient glacier, near the point at which the brook of Pacatuba cuts through the former, and a little to the west of the brook, there are colossal boulders leaning against the moraine, from the summit of which they have probably rolled down. Near the cemetery the front moraine consists almost entirely of small quartz pebbles; there are, however, a few larger blocks among them. The medial moraine extends nearly through the centre of the village, while the left-hand lateral moraine lies outside of the village, at its eastern end, and is traversed by the road leading to Ceará. It is not impossible that eastwards a third tributary of the serra may have reached the main glacier of Pacatuba. I may say, that in the whole valley of Hasli there are no accumulations of morainic materials more characteristic than those I have found here,—not even about the Kirchet; neither are there any remains of the kind more striking about the valleys of Mount Desert in Maine, where the glacial phenomena are so remarkable, nor in the valleys of Lough Fine, Lough Augh, and Lough Long in Scotland, where the traces of ancient glaciers are so distinct. In none of these localities are the glacial phenomena more legible than in the Serra of Aratanha. I hope that before long some members of the Alpine Club, thoroughly familiar with the glaciers of the Old World, not only in their present, but also in their past condition, will come to these mountains of Ceará and trace the outlines of their former glaciers more extensively than it has been possible for me to do in this short journey. It would be an easy excursion, since steamers from Liverpool and Bordeaux reach Pernambuco in about ten days, arriving twice a month, while Brazilian steamers make the trip from Pernambuco to Ceará in two days. The nearest serra in which I have observed traces of ancient glaciers is reached from Ceará in one day on horseback. The best season for such a journey would be June and July, at the close of the rainy season, and before the great droughts of the dry season have began.”
CHAPTER XV.
PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS OF RIO DE JANEIRO.—ORGAN MOUNTAINS.
Voyage from Ceará.—Freshets at Pernambuco.—Arrival at Rio.—Collections.—Vegetation about Rio as compared with that on the Amazons.—Misericordia Hospital.—Charities connected with it.—Almsgiving in Brazil.—Insane Asylum.—Military School.—The Mint.—Academy of Fine Arts.—Heroism of a Negro.—Primary School for Girls.—Neglected Education of Women in Brazil.—Blind Asylum.—Lectures.—Character of the Brazilian Audience.—Organ Mountains.—Walk up the Serra.—Theresopolis.—Visit to the “St. Louis” Fazenda.—Climate of Theresopolis.—Descent of the Serra.—Geology of the Organ Mountains.—The Last Word.
May 29th.—We arrived in Rio more than a month ago, having left Ceará on the 16th of April. There was nothing worth recording in our voyage down the coast, except that at Pernambuco we found the country even more overflowed by the recent rains than it had been at Ceará. Going to breakfast with our friends, Mr. and Mrs. R——, only four or five miles from the city, we passed through portions of the road where the water was nearly level with the floor of the carriage; and temporary ferries were established by negroes, who were plying rafts and canoes between the shores for the benefit of foot-passengers. A mile or two beyond Mr. R——’s house we were told that the road, though one of the most frequented in the neighborhood of the city, had become quite impassable. We saw many overflowed gardens and houses abandoned because the water was already above the windows of the ground-floor.
We had a warm welcome back to the beautiful bay of Rio, on board the “Susquehanna,” just then in the harbor. Captain Taylor sent his boat at once to our steamer, and we were soon on his deck, received so cordially by him and his officers, and by a party of American friends who were making a visit to his ship, that it seemed like an anticipation of our arrival at home. There is nothing so pleasant as an unexpected meeting with one’s own fellow-citizens on coming into a foreign port, and this was a delightful surprise to us.
We are again in our old quarters in the Rua Direita, and, except that our fellow-travellers are all scattered, it would seem as if we had stepped back a year. Since our return, Mr. Agassiz has been arranging and despatching to the United States the numerous specimens which have been sent in during our absence. Among them is the large and very complete collection made for him by the Emperor last summer, when in command of the army at the South. It contains fishes from several of the southern fresh-water basins, and includes a great number of new species. Taken in connection with the Amazonian collections and those from the interior, it affords material for an extensive comparison of the faunæ of the southern and northern fresh-waters in Brazil.
Our excursions since our return have been only in the neighborhood of the city to Petropolis and the Dom Pedro Railroad. We are surprised, on returning to this road while our Amazonian impressions are fresh in our minds, to find that the vegetation, the richness of which amazed us when we first arrived in Brazil, looks almost meagre in comparison to that with which we have since been familiar. It is dwarfed, to our eye, by the still more luxuriant growth of the north.
Yesterday was Mr. Agassiz’s birthday, again made very bright to us by the cordial testimony of kind feeling and sympathy from his friends and country people. In the evening we were pleasantly surprised by a torchlight procession in his honor, formed by the German and Swiss residents of Rio de Janeiro. The festivities concluded with a serenade under our windows by the German club.