We learned that once Cruz Alta was a most important place, that six-and-thirty thousand mules used to be wintered there, and then in spring moved on to the great fair at Surucuba in the Sertão, that is the forest district of San Paulo, and then sold to the merchants from the upper districts of Brazil. But of late years the number had been much reduced, and then stood at about twelve thousand. This he set down to the accursed steamboats which took them up the coast, to the continual fighting in the state of Uruguay, and generally to the degeneration which he thought he saw in man. In the heyday of the prosperity of the place “gold flowed from every hand,” so much so, that even “as mulheres da vida” kept their accounts in ounces; but now money was scarce, and business done in general by barter, coin being hardly even seen except for mules, for which it was imperative, as no one parted with “bestas” except for money down. Passing a little wood we saw a row of stakes driven into the ground, and he informed us that they were evidently left by some Birivas, that is people from San Paulo, after having used them to secure their mules whilst saddling. The Paulistas, we then learned, used the “sirigote,” that is, the old-fashioned high-peaked saddle brought from Portugal in times gone by, and not the “recado,” the saddle of the Gauchos, which is flat, and suited better for galloping upon a plain than for long marches over mountain passes and through woods. All the points, qualities, with the shortcomings and the failings of a mule, he did rehearse. It then appeared a mule should be mouse-coloured, for the red-coloured mule is of no use, the grey soft-footed, and the black bad-tempered, the piebald fit “for a German,” which kind of folk he held in abhorrence mixed with contempt, saying they whined in speaking as it had been the whining of an armadillo or a sloth. The perfect mule should be large-headed, not with a little-hammer head like to a horse, but long and thin, with ears erect, round feet, and upon no account when spurred ought it to whisk its tail, for that was most unseemly, fit but for Germans, Negroes, Indians, and generally for all those he counted senseless people—“gente sem razão”; saying “of course all men are of one flesh, but some are dog’s flesh, and let them ride mules who whisk about their tails like cattle in a marsh.” Beguiled by these, and other stories, we soon reached the gate of the enclosure, and he, dismounting, drew a key from one of the pockets of his belt and let us in. A short half-hour brought us up to his house, passing through ground all overgrown with miamia and other shrubs which did not promise to afford much pasturage; but he informed us that we must not expect the grasses of the plains up at Cruz Alta, and thus conversing we arrived before his house.
Surrounded by a fence enclosing about an acre, the house stood just on the edge of a thick wood. On one side were the corrals for horses and for cattle, and on the other the quarters of the slaves. In shape the houses resembled a flattish haystack thatched with reeds, and with a verandah rising round it, supported on strong posts. At either end a kind of baldachino, one used as a stable and the other as a kitchen, and in the latter a fire continually alight, and squatted by it night and day a negress, either baking flat, thin girdle-cakes made of maize, shaking the flour out of her hand upon an iron plate, or else filling a gourd of maté with hot water, and running to and fro into the house to give it to her mistress, never apparently thinking it worth while to take the kettle with her into the house.
The family, not quite so white as Xavier himself, consisted of a mother always in slippers, dressed in a skirt and shift, which latter garment always seemed about to fall down to her waist, and two thin, large-eyed, yellowish girls arrayed in vestments like a pillow-case, with a string fastening them at the narrowest place. Slave girls of several hues did nothing and chattered volubly, and their mistress had to stand over them, a slipper in her hand, when maize was pounded in a rough mortar hewn from a solid log, in which the slaves hammered with pestles, one down, the other up, after the fashion of blacksmiths making a horsehoe, but with groans, and making believe to be extenuated after three minutes’ work, and stopping instantly the moment that their mistress went into the house to light her cigarette.
An official in Cruz Alta, known as the Capitão do Matto, holding a status between a gamekeeper and a parish clerk, kept by the virtue of his office a whipping-house, to which recalcitrant or idle slaves were theoretically sent; but in the house of Xavier at least no one took interest enough in anything, except Xavier himself, to take the trouble; and the slaves ruled the female part of the establishment, if not exactly with a rod of iron, still to their perfect satisfaction, cooking and sewing now and then; sweeping, but fitfully; and washing when they wanted to look smart and figure at a dance. The Capitão do Matto was supposed to bring back runaways and keep a leash of bloodhounds, but in the memory of man no one had seen him sally forth, and for the blood-hounds, they were long dead, although he drew regular rations for their maintenance. In the interior of Brazil his office was no sinecure, but in Cruz Alta horses were plentiful, the country relatively easy, and slaves who ran away, which happened seldom, timed their escape so as to put a good day’s journey between them and any possible pursuit, and on the evening of the fifth day, if all went well, they got across the frontier into Uruguay.
Terms once arranged, we let our horses loose, laid out rock-salt in lumps, first catching several of the tamest horses, and forcing pieces into their mouths; they taught the others, and we had nothing more to do. We paid our peons off, got our clothes washed, rested, and then found time at first hang heavy on our hands. Hearing an Englishman lived about ten leagues off, we saddled up and rode to visit him. After losing ourselves in a thick forest of some kind of pine, we reached his house, but the soi-disant Briton was from Amsterdam, could speak no English, was a little drunk, but asked us to get off and dine with him. During the dinner, which we had all alone, his wife and daughter standing looking at us (he too drunk to eat), pigs ran into the room, a half-grown tapir lay in a corner, and two new-caught macaws screamed horribly, so that, the banquet over, we did not stay, but thanked him in Portuguese, which he spoke badly, and rode off home, determining to sleep at the first wood, rather than face a night in such a place.
The evening caught us near to a forest, the trail, sandy and white, running close to a sort of cove formed in the trees, and here we camped, taking our saddles off, lighting a fire, and lying down to sleep just in the opening of the cove, our horses tied inside. All through the night people appeared to pass along the road. I lay awake half-dozing now and then, and watched the bats, looked at the fire-flies flitting about the trees, heard the harsh howling of the monkeys, the tapirs stamp, the splash made by the lobos and carpinchos as they dashed into the stream, and then slept soundly, and awoke to find one of the horses gone. The moon shone brightly, and, waking up my friend, I told him of our loss. We knew the horse must have a rope attached to him, and that he probably would try to get back to Cruz Alta, along the road we came. My horse was difficult to bit, but by the aid of tying up one foot, and covering his eyes up with a handkerchief, we bitted him, then mounted both of us upon his back, hiding the other saddle behind some grass, and started on the road. The sandy trail was full of horses’ tracks, so that we could do nothing but ride on, hoping to catch him feeding by the way. About a league we rode, and then, not seeing him, turned slowly back to get the other saddle, make some coffee, and start home when it was light. To our astonishment, upon arriving at the cove, the other horse was there, and neighing wildly, straining on his rope, and it appeared that he had never gone, but being tied close to the wood had wandered in, and we, thinking he must have gone, being half-dazed with sleep, had never thought of looking at his rope.
Defrauded, so to speak, out of our Englishman, and finding that the horses, after the long journey and the change of water and of grass, daily grew thinner, making it quite impossible to move them, forwards or back, and after having vainly tried to sell them, change them for mules, or sugar, quite without success, no one except some “fazendero” here and there caring for horses in a land where every one rode mules, we settled down to loaf. Once certain we had lost our money and our pains, nothing remained but to wait patiently until the horses got into sufficient state to sell, for all assured us that every day we went further into the interior, they would lose flesh, that we should have them bitten by snakes in the forests, and arrive at Rio, if we ever got there, either on foot, or with but the horses which we rode.
For a short time we had almost determined to push on, even if we arrived at Rio with but a horse apiece. Then came reflection, that reflection which has dressed the world in drab, made cowards of so many heroes, lost so many generous impulses, spoiled so many poems, and which mankind has therefore made a god of, and we decided to remain. Then did Cruz Alta put on a new look. We saw the wondrous vegetation of the woods, felt the full charm of the old-world quiet life, watched the strange multi-coloured insects, lay by the streams to mark the birds, listened for the howlings of the monkeys when night fell; picked the strange flowers, admired the butterflies floating like little blue and yellow albatrosses, their wings opened and poised in the still air, or wondered when a topaz-coloured humming-bird, a red macaw, an orange-and-black toucan, or a red-crested cardinal flitted across our path. Inside the wood behind the house were clearings, made partly by the axe and partly by fire, amongst the tall morosimos, coronillos, and palo santos, and in the clearings known as “roças” grew beans and maize, with mandioca and occasionally barley, and round them ran a prickly hedge either of cactuses or thorny bush, cut down to keep out tapirs and deer, and usually in a straw hut a negro lay, armed with a flint-lock gun to fire at parrots, scare off monkeys, and generally to act as guardian of the place. Orange and lemon trees, with citrons and sweet limes, grew plentifully, and had run wild amongst the woods; bananas were planted in the roça; but what we liked the best was a wild fruit called Guavirami, which grew in patches on the open camp, yellow and round, about the size of a small plum, low-growing, having three or four small stones, cold as an icicle to taste upon the hottest day. A little river ran through the middle of the wood, and in a stream a curious machine was placed for pounding maize, driven by water-power, and unlike any contrivance of a similar nature I had ever seen before. An upright block of wood, burned from the centre of a tree, stood in the stream, hollowed out in the centre to contain the maize; water ran up a little channel, and released a pestle, which fell with a heavy thud upon the corn, with the result that if one left a basket full in the great mortar over-night, by morning it was pounded, saving that labour which God Himself seems to have thought not so ennobling after all, as He first instituted it to carry out a curse.
So one day told, and may, for all I know, have certified another, but we recked little of them, riding into Cruz Alta now and then and eating cakes at the confectioner’s, drinking innumerable glasses of sweet Malaga, laying in stores of cigarettes, frequenting all the dances far and near, joining in cattle-markings, races, and anything in short which happened in the place.
Perhaps our greatest friend was one Luis, a slave, born in Angola, brought over quite “Bozal” (or muzzled, as the Brazilians say of negroes who can speak no Portuguese), then by degrees became “ladino,” was baptized, bought by our host Xavier, and had remained with him all the remainder of his life. Black, and not comely in the least, bowlegged from constant riding, nose flat, and ears like flappers, a row of teeth almost as strong as a young shark’s, flat feet, and crisp Angola wool which grew so thickly on his head that had you thrown a pin on it, it could not have reached the skin, he yet was honest and faithful to the verge of folly; but then, if heaven there be, it can be but inhabited by fools, for wise men, prudent folk, and those who thrive, have their reward like singers, quickly, and can look for nothing more. He spoke about himself half-pityingly under the style of “Luis o Captivo,” was pious, fervent in sacred song, instant in prayer (especially if work was to be done), not idle either, superstitious and affectionate with all the virtues of the most excellent Saint Bernard or Newfoundland dog, and with but little of the imperfections of a man except the power of speech. Often he had been with his master into Uruguay to purchase cattle, or to buy mules for the Brazilian market, and when I asked him if he did not know that he was free the instant that he stepped in Uruguay, said: “Yes, but here I was brought up when I first came from Africa; they have been kind to me, it is to me as the querencia [46] is to a horse, and were it not for that, small fear I should return, to remain here ‘feito captivo’; but then I love the place, and, as you know, ‘the mangy calf lived all the winter, and then died in the spring.’” He held the Christian faith in its entirety, doubting no dogma, being pleased with every saint, but yet still hankered after fetish, which he remembered as a child, and seemed to think not incompatible with Christianity, as rendering it more animistic and familiar, smoothing away its angularities, blotting whatever share of reason it may have away, and, above all, giving more scope, if possible, to faith, and thereby opening a larger field of possibilities to the believer’s mind.