Two vehicles cannot pass each other in this avenue without driving upon the narrow sidewalk. At times a deafening uproar prevails along these circumscribed lanes. The rough grinding of wheels, noisy bootblacks, whooping orange-sellers, screaming newspaper boys, howling dogs, the rattle of the street peddler, lottery ticket venders, fighting street gamins, all join to swell the mingled chorus. And yet these crowded thoroughfares would lose half of their picturesqueness were these elements to be banished from them. They each and all add a certain crude element of interest to this every-day picture of Vanity Fair.
In their ambition to copy European and North American fashions, the gentlemen of Rio utterly disregard the eternal fitness of things, wearing broadcloth suits of black, with tall, stove-pipe hats, neither of which articles should be adopted for a moment in their torrid climate. Nothing could be more inappropriate. Linen clothing and light straw hats are the true costume for the tropics, naturally suggesting themselves in hot climates to the exclusion of woolen, heat-brewing costumes, which are necessary articles of wear in the north. Fashion, however, ignores climate and is omnipotent everywhere; comfort is subsidiary. Wear woolen clothing by all means, gentlemen of Rio, even when the thermometer hangs persistently at 95° Fahr. in the shade, and the human body perspires like a mountain stream.
The tramway system of Rio is excellent in a crude way. Statistics show that fifty million passengers are annually transported by this popular means from one part of the city to another, and into the suburbs. The street railway was first introduced here by North American enterprise, the pioneer route being that between the city proper and the botanical garden. The prices of passage vary according to distances, as is the case with the London omnibuses. The cars are all open ones, of cheap, coarse construction, and far from inviting in appearance, being entirely unupholstered, and affording only hard board seats for passengers to sit upon. They are usually drawn by one small donkey, whose strength is quite overtasked, but the ground in the city is so nearly level that the cars move very easily and rapidly.
There is one delightful excursion from Rio which nearly all strangers are sure to enjoy. We refer to the ascent of Corcovado, the mountain which looms over Botafogo Bay to the height of twenty-two hundred feet, and to the summit of which a railway has been constructed. The grades are extremely steep, and the road is what is called a centre line, worked upon the cog-wheel system, the ascent being very slow and winding. The principle is the same as that of the railway by which Mount Washington is ascended, in New Hampshire, or the Righi, in Switzerland. This road was built by the national government, but as a pecuniary speculation it does not pay, though it is of considerable indirect benefit to the city. We will not dilate upon the grand outlook to be had from the summit of the Hunchback, which takes in a bird's-eye view of the harbor and its surroundings, but will add that no one should come hither without ascending Corcovado. The top consists of two rounded masses of bare rock, and is walled in to prevent accident, there being on one side a perpendicular descent of a thousand feet. It gives one at first a dizzy sensation to look down upon the vast city spread out over the plain, from whence a hum of mingled sounds comes up with singular distinctness. Even the bells upon the mules which are attached to the tram-cars can be distinguished, and other sounds still more delicate and minute. Just so balloonists tell us that at two or three thousand feet in mid-air they can distinguish the voices of individuals upon the earth below them. The experienced traveler learns to be astonished at nothing, but there are degrees of pleasure induced by beautiful and majestic views which mount to the apex of our capacity for admiration. One can safely promise such a realizing sense to him who ascends the Corcovado.
A tramway which starts from the centre of the city will take the traveler to the base of the hill, through roads lined by palms of great age and beauty, finally leaving him near the point from whence the steam road begins the upward journey.
Nictheroy, just across the harbor of Rio, on the east side of the bay, is a sort of faubourg of the capital, with which it is connected by a line of steam ferry-boats, as Chelsea is with Boston, or Brooklyn with the city of New York. It is the capital of the province of Rio Janeiro, and has broader streets, is more reasonably laid out, and is kept more cleanly than Rio itself. Space is found for a profusion of attractive gardens, and the senses are greeted by sweet odors in the place of needlessly offensive smells, which attack one on all sides in the metropolis so near at hand. It is quite a relief to get on to one of the ferry-boats and cross over to Nictheroy occasionally, for a breath of pure air. This is the native Indian name of the place, and signifies "hidden water," particularly applicable when these land-locked bays were shrouded in dense tropical woods.
Unlike Pará, Montevideo, and Buenos Ayres, this city has no special river communication with the interior, but her commerce is large and increasing. Railroads are more reliable feeders for business than either rivers or canals. It is a fact which is not generally realized, that Brazil has over six thousand miles of well-constructed railways in operation, besides having a telegraph system covering seven thousand miles of land service. In the construction of the railroads, the cost, so far as the ground work and grading was concerned, was reduced to the minimum, owing to the level nature of the country. As was the case in New Zealand, many of these railways were constructed at great expense, in anticipation of the wants of a future population, who it was hoped would settle rapidly upon the route which they followed. That is to say, many of these roads did not open communication between populous districts already in existence. This would have been perfectly legitimate. They run to no particular objective point, and seem to stop finally nowhere. The natural sequence followed. After being built and equipped with borrowed money, they were anything but self-supporting, and pecuniary aid from the government was freely given to enable them to be kept in operation.
There must always come a day of reckoning for all such forced schemes, and the Brazilian railways were no exception to the rule. This is largely the primary cause of the present monetary troubles in this country, as well as in the Argentine Republic. The capital for the construction of these roads came mostly from England, and that country has been accordingly a heavy pecuniary sufferer. The rates charged for transportation upon most of the lines are also exorbitant, if we were rightly informed; so much so, in fact, as to prove nearly prohibitory. Scarcely any species of merchandise brought from a considerable distance inland will bear such freight charges and leave a margin for profit to the producer and shipper. Would-be planters of coffee and sugar-cane dare not enter upon raising these staples for the market, unless situated very near the shipping point, or near some available river's course, the latter means being naturally much cheaper than any form of railway transportation.
Situated on the border of two zones, Rio Janeiro has the products of both within her reach, and thus possesses peculiar advantages for extensive trade and general commerce. It is in this latter direction that her progressive and enterprising merchants are endeavoring to extend the facilities of the port. The passenger landings—not wharves—which border the water front of the city here and there are of solid granite, from which at suitable intervals broad stone steps lead down to the water's edge, as on the borders of the Neva at St. Petersburg. We have few, if any, such substantial landing-places in our North American ports. We know of no harbor on the globe which enjoys a more eligible situation as regards the commerce of foreign countries, both of the New and the Old World. The one convenience so imperatively demanded is proper wharves for the landing and shipping of cargoes, thus obviating the necessity of the expensive and tedious lighter system. It is her many natural and extraordinary advantages which has led to so steady a growth of the city, notwithstanding the very serious drawback of an unwholesome climate, aggravated by the indolence and incapacity of the local authorities in sanitary matters. Both consumption and yellow fever have proved more fatal here than at any other port in South America, so far as we could draw comparisons.
The well-equipped marine arsenal of Rio is of considerable interest and importance, as there is no other port on the Atlantic coast, between the Gulf of Mexico and Cape Horn, where a large modern vessel can go into dry dock for needed repairs. This receptacle is ample in size, and is substantially built of granite. Such an establishment as a national shipyard is a prime necessity to a commercial country like Brazil, which has eleven hundred leagues of seacoast.