The highway to a certain mining district passes through the town, and many donkeys laden with inland products are constantly to be seen in the streets en route for Rio, giving the place a business aspect hardly warranted by the local trade. From the neighboring hills charcoal burners drive their donkeys every morning, laden with that article for domestic use in the town, forming picturesque groups on the public square, where they await purchasers. Others bring small-cut wood from the hill for fuel, packed in little, narrow, toy carts, each drawn by a single donkey. Scores of donkeys bearing tall, widespread loads of green fodder are so hidden by the mass of greenery which they struggle under, that none of the animal is seen at all, leading one to imagine that Birnam wood has literally come to Dunsinane. These animals are almost always attended by women, who sell the fodder in the market and return home at night with such domestic necessities as are required. Women are the laborers here, as at home in Germany, where they perform the hard work, while their husbands guzzle beer and smoke endless tobacco.
Petropolis is, as we have said, steadily growing, but the banishment of the emperor will retard its progress, as it takes from the town its strongest element of assured success. We counted about a score of fine, large residences in course of construction. The climate here is like that of June in New England, and the verdure of the trees is perennial.
There is a charming excursion which strangers rarely fail to enjoy, namely, to a place familiarly known as the Cascades. The village adjoining these falls is called Cascatinha, and is situated in the lap of the Organ Mountains, about five miles from Petropolis. The road thither leads along the side of a small but boisterous stream, which gladdens the ear with its merry, gurgling notes, past lowly, thatched cottages, orange orchards, bamboo and banana groves, and green breadths of well-cultivated, undulating land, finally ending in the midst of a panorama of bold mountain peaks, lovely with varied gradations of tint, and subtlest effects of light and shade. Here the abundant water furnished by the river, which is artificially adapted to the purpose, forms a series of cascades and falls, at the same time furnishing the motive power for operating extensive cotton and woolen mills, which give employment to several hundred men and women. A very humble type of life mingles hereabouts with that of a much more refined character. Naked or half-clad children are seen here and there playing with those who are comparatively well dressed. Nice cottage homes adjoin those of the poorest class. Children of both sexes are observed, only partially covered with rags, who are endowed with a loveliness of eyes and features, together with handsome figures, causing one to reflect upon the unfulfilled possibilities of such childish beauty.
Men and women often bring into Petropolis and offer for sale beautiful orchids, which they find in the woods not far away. These they pack in green leaves, retaining a piece of the original bark or wood upon which they have grown. These pretty flowerings of exuberant nature are sold for a trifling price. Some are very remarkable in form and color, such as we have never before chanced to see, and for really rare ones the finders ask and receive good prices. We saw among them a specimen of the Flor del Espiritu Santo,—"Flower of the Holy Spirit,"—to find which is thought to bring to the fortunate discoverer good luck, as well as a handsome price for the orchid. These women may have passed whole days in their search of the forest, patiently breaking their way through nearly impassable jungles, before nature reveals to them one of her most dainty gems. As a rule, the forests are so dense that it is useless to try to penetrate them, except by following some beaten route,—a charcoal burner's road or a straggling way formed by a watercourse.
We well remember, but can only partially describe, the glory and beauty of the Brazilian primeval forest. The general tone of the color is brownish rather than light green, influenced by the absence of strong light, for though the sun is glowing in the open country, here it is twilight. Not one direct beam penetrates the density of the foliage, the sombre drapery of the woods. At first one is awed by the vast extent of the forest, by the dark, mournful shadows, by the gigantic trees reaching so far heavenward, forming here and there gothic arcades of matchless grandeur, and by the bewildering variety of the undergrowth. Scarcely a tree trunk is seen without its parasite, green with foliage not its own, "beyond the power of botanists to number up their tribe." These dense jungles might be in India, or a bit out of "Darkest Africa;" one is barred by an impenetrable wall of vegetation. Where palms occur, it is almost always in groups; being a social tree, it loves the company of its species. So with the bamboo, which is found in the more swampy regions, but always in groups of its own family. These damp woods are the home of the orchids; it is here that they revel in moisture, clinging to the trunks of tall, columnar trees, fattening on decayed portions of the bark, but forming bits of lovely color, while about the stems of other forest monarchs wind creeping vines of rope-like texture, binding huge trunks in a fatal embrace. Their final strangulation is slow, but it is sure,—only a question of time. Lofty trees bear charming flowers, as lowly shrubs do in our northern clime. Arborescent ferns vie with the palms in poetic beauty, with their elastic, tufted tops. Bunches of lilac and blossoms of snowy whiteness hang in the air. Drooping mosses depend like human hair from widespread branches, and soft, velvety moss carpets the way, with here and there dwarf mimosas trailing beneath the ferns. Long vines of woody climbers, in deep olive-green, twine and intertwine among the ranks of stout, aged trees, breaking out at short distances with pink, blue, and scarlet buds, rivaling the color of the birds which flash hither and thither like rays of sunlight breaking through the leafy screen. Now and again the shrill or plaintive notes of unfamiliar songsters fall upon the ear, mingling with the cooing of the wood-doves and the low drone of the dragon-fly. The magnificent arboreal growth of these forests develops itself into thousands of strange and beautiful forms, stimulated by the constant humidity of the high temperature.
The atheist must feel himself stifled for breath in the tropical forest, and his fallacious creed challenged by every surrounding object, while a new light illumines his unwilling soul with irrefutable evidences. The Supreme Being writes his gospel not in the Bible alone, but upon the grand old trees, the lowly flowers, the fleeting clouds, and upon the eternal stars. Those who seek nature for religious inspiration never fail to obtain it, untrammeled by the vulgar tenets of sectarianism or outraged by the tinsel of church forms and ceremonies.
The observant traveler from the north is fain to seek some consolation, some evidence of the glorious law of compensation, while comparing the features of these poetical latitudes with his own well-beloved but more prosaic home. He remembers that if these gaudy birds do flout in vivid colors that dazzle and charm the eye, they have not the exquisite power of song which inspires our more soberly clad New England favorites. Brilliancy of feathers and sweetness of song rarely go together, a natural fact which suggests a whole moral essay in itself. The torrid zone clothes its feathered tribes in glowing plumage, but the colder north endows hers with heart-touching melody. If the flowers of the tropics exhaust the hues of the prism, attracting us by the oddity of their forms, while blooming in exuberant abundance, the sweet and lowly children of Flora in higher latitudes greet the senses with a fragrance unknown in equatorial regions. Joy is nowhere all of a piece. Blessings, we are forced to believe, whether in the form of beauty of color, fragrance, or melody, are very equally divided all over the world, and those portions which have not one, as a rule, are almost sure to have the other. When we become eloquent and appreciative in the lively enjoyment of scenes in a new country, it is not always because they are more desirable or more beautiful than our own; it is the newness and the contrast which for the moment so captivate us. That to which we are accustomed, however grand, becomes commonplace; we covet and require novelty to quicken the observation. Were the sun to rise but once a year, in place of three hundred and sixty-five times every twelve months, we would willingly travel thousands of miles, if it were necessary, to witness the glorious phenomenon. The most charming natural objects please us in proportion to their rarity or our unfamiliarity with them.
CHAPTER XI.
Port of Santos.—Yellow Fever Scourge.—Down the Coast to Montevideo.—The Cathedral.—Pamperos.—Domestic Architecture.—A Grand Thoroughfare.—City Institutions.—Commercial Advantages.—The Opera House.—The Bull-Fight.—Beggars on Horseback.—City Shops.—A Typical Character.—Intoxication.—The Campo Santo.—Exports.—Rivers and Railways.