The fish market is a curious sight in the variety of colors and shapes afforded by the inhabitants of the neighboring bay, where most of them are caught. What an array of finny monsters!—rock-fish, large as halibut, ray, skates, craw-fish, cuttle-fish, and prawns half as large as lobsters, together with devil-fish and oysters. Funny idea, but these oysters, many of them, are grown on trees! How is this possible? Let us tell you. The mangrove trees line the water's edge; many of the branches overhang the sea, and are submerged therein. To these young oysters affix themselves, and there they live and thrive. The same phenomenon was observed by the author some years ago in Cuba. These oysters are found in small corrugated shells scarcely larger than a good-sized English walnut, which they somewhat resemble.
In the fish market one sees some very original characters among the negro women who preside over the finny tribe. They are large, good-natured creatures, quick at a trade, and quite intelligent. We recall one, who was a prominent figure among her companions. She was tall, portly, and strong as a horse. Her head was decked with a bandanna kerchief of many colors, her flat nose and protruding lips indicating close African relationship. Secured behind one of her ears was a cigarette, while a friction match protruded from the other, ready for use. Her coarse calico dress, of deep red, was covered in front by a brown linen apron extending nearly to her bare feet. Her uncovered arms were about as large as a man's legs. This negress dressed the several kinds of fish with the facility of an expert, making change for her patrons with commendable promptness, and dismissing them with a good-natured smile, adding some remark which was pretty sure to elicit hearty laughter.
As we stood viewing these things, a noisy fellow made himself very obnoxious to every person whom he met. He had evidently been too often to the neighboring spirit-shops. A police officer arrested the man by touching him lightly on the shoulder and saying a few words to him; then, pointing ahead, made the fellow precede him to the lock-up. Though this disturber of the peace was half drunk, he knew too much to resist an officer, which is considered to be a heinous offense and is severely punished in Rio. It was natural to contrast this scene with the violent resistance offered by offenders with whom the police of New York and Boston have often to deal.
The streets of Rio, at all times of the day, present a motley crowd of half-naked negroes, overladen donkeys, lazy Portuguese, Italian, and Spanish loafers, smoking cheap cigars, with here and there a Jew hawking articles of personal wear, women with various heavy articles upon their heads, water carriers, vociferous sellers of confectionery, all moving hither and thither, each one intent upon his or her individual interest and oblivious of all others. The background to this kaleidoscopic picture is the low, stucco-finished houses, painted in lively red, yellow, or blue, interspersed here and there by bas-reliefs, the whole reflecting the rays of a torrid sun. Though it is all quite different, yet somehow it recalls the narrow, crowded streets and bazaars of Cairo and Alexandria. It is very natural, in passing, to regard with interest those screened balconies, and to imagine what the lives may be of the half orientally excluded women within them, while occasionally catching luminous glances from curious eyes. The notes of a guitar, or those of the piano, often reach the ear of the passer-by, sometimes accompanied by the ringing notes of a song, for the ladies of Brazil are extremely fond of music; indeed, it seems to be almost their only distraction. Of books they know very little, and any literary reference is to them like speaking in an unknown tongue. Even the one poet of Portugal, Camoens, appears to be a stranger on this side of the Atlantic. The isolation and want of intellectual resort among the average women of this country are a sad reality, and are in a degree their excuse for some unfortunate indulgences and immoralities, domestic unfaithfulness being as common here as in Paris or Vienna.
The majority of the Brazilian women marry at or before the age of sixteen, and become old, as we use the term, at thirty. The climate and the cares of maternity together age them prematurely. In early youth, and until they have reached twenty three or four years, they are almost universally very handsome, but this beauty is not retained, as is often the case among the sex in colder climes. Of their charms, it must be honestly admitted that they are almost purely physical (animal); the beauty which high culture imparts to the features, by informing the mind and developing the intellect, is not found as a rule among Brazilian women. Of course there are some delightful and notable exceptions to this conclusion, but we speak of the women, generally, of what is termed the better class. Now and then one meets with ladies who have been educated in the United States, or in Europe, upon whom early and refined associations have left an unmistakable impress. The superiority of such is at once manifest, both in general ease of manner, and the inexplicable charm which high breeding imparts.
One searches in vain for a full-faced, well-developed, hearty looking man, among the natives in the streets of this capital. The average people, both high and low, are sallow, undersized, and cadaverous. Sunken cheeks and thin figures are the rule among the men, a passing North American or Englishman only serving to furnish a strong and suggestive contrast. These people have brilliantly expressive eyes, with handsome teeth and mouths, though half shriveled up and undeveloped in body. If one pauses to analyze the matter, he comes to the conclusion that vice and short commons, unwholesome morals and an unwholesome climate, have much to do with this prevailing appearance, which must be in part hereditary, to be so universal, commencing some way back and increasing with the generations. As in Mexico, gentlemen meeting on the streets of Rio hug each other with both arms, at the same time inflicting two or three quick, earnest slaps with the flat of the hand upon the back. This is perhaps after an absence of a few days; but if they meet ten times a day, off come their hats, and they shake hands with the most earnest demonstrations, both at meeting and at parting. Kissing on both cheeks is common enough in many parts of Europe among society people, but this hugging business between men meeting upon the public streets strikes one as a waste of the raw material.
It goes without saying that the popular religion of Rio Janeiro and the country at large is that of the Romish Church, though all denominations are tolerated by the laws of the republic. In some districts it is the same here as in Mexico and continental Spain, the Protestants being persecuted in every possible manner. Nevertheless, the power of the priesthood, we were creditably informed, is on the wane. They owe the loss of it in a great measure to the gross abuse of their positions and their shamefully immoral lives. No one conversant with the true state of the case, be he Protestant or Romanist, can deny this statement. The author thought that the Roman Catholic priests of Mexico were about as wicked a set of men as he had ever met with, taken as a whole, but further experience in South America has convinced him that the Mexican priesthood have their equals in immorality in Brazil, and elsewhere south of Panama. The popular religion of the country is one of the saddest features of its national existence, forming the great drag-weight upon its moral, and indirectly upon its physical progress.
The Botanical Garden of Rio is a justly famous resort, situated about six miles from the city, behind the Corcovada, between that mountain and the sea, but it is easily reached by tramway, or better still by a delightful drive along the shore of Botafogo Bay, over a road shaded by imperial palms, together with occasional clusters of the ever beautiful bamboo, the sight of which recalled the luxuriant specimens seen in Japan and Sumatra. The nearest approach to this admirable public garden is to be found at Kandy, in the island of Ceylon, which, as we remember it, is considerably more extensive, and presents a larger variety of tropical vegetation. The examples of the india-rubber tree, especially, are finer in the Asiatic garden than we find them at Rio. A tall, slim-stemmed sloth-tree, straight as an arrow, and bare of branches or leaves except at the top, was pointed out to us here. It is so called because it is the favorite resort of that animal. This creature is very easily captured, and the natives are fond of its meat, which may be nutritious, but it can hardly be called palatable. As it is almost entirely a vegetable-feeding animal, we know not why there should be any objection to the meat it produces. The sloth climbs up into the tall branches of the tree described, though it does so with considerable difficulty, and there remains until it has consumed every leaf and tender shoot which it bears; then the voracious creature wanders off to find and denude another.
The bread-fruit tree is interesting, with its handsome feathery leaves, and its large, melon-shaped product. It grows to fifty feet in height, and bears fruit constantly for three quarters of the year, then takes a three months' rest. It is only equaled in the profuseness of its product by the banana, forming one of the staple sources of food supply to the lazy, indolent denizens of tropical regions. The candelabra-tree, with its silver-tinted foliage, is one of the beauties of this charming Brazilian garden. Among other notable trees are fine specimens of the camphor-tree, the tamarind, the broad-spreading mango, opulent in fruitfulness, the flowering magnolia, also the soap-tree, with its saponaceous berries. The cochineal cactus was thriving after its kind, near by what is called the cow-tree, which interests one quite as much as any of its companions, rising over a hundred feet in height, with a red bark and fig-like leaves. The milk which it yields is of cream-like consistency, very similar to that from a cow, and it may be used for any ordinary purpose to which we put that article. The tree is tapped, as we treat the sugar-maple, in order to obtain its very remarkable and useful product. It is nutritious, that is freely admitted; but most probably it has some medicinal properties of a latent character, though of this we could learn nothing.
The world-famed avenue of royal palms in the Botanical Garden of Rio is unique, being undoubtedly the finest tropical arboretum in the world arranged by the hand of man. We saw here a delicate little member of the palm family, a sort of baby tree, known as the small-stemmed palm of Pará. Many trees from Asia have become domesticated side by side with the maple, the pine, and the elm from New England. Some of the large trees were decked with orchids and hanging lichens, the dainty and fantastic ornamentation of nature herself, not promoted by artificial means. The humidity of the atmosphere especially facilitates the growth of this beautiful family of plants, which are as erratic in shape as they are variegated in prismatic colors.