Who, in his rough, imperfect line,
Thus dares to name thee;
To stigmatize false friends of thine,
Can ne’er defame thee.”
Monday, Dec. 20. Visited the Museum of Natural History. Here the beautiful birds of Brazil speak in dumb show, and her minerals seem to mourn their mines. But the specimens are not extensive. The Public Library, in another building, contains some twenty thousand volumes, which slumber in dust on their shelves. The Academy of Fine Arts has a few specimens in statuary and painting; but none that would kindle an eye that has once gazed on the triumphs of a Phidias or a Raphael. The Opera House has elegant and ample accommodations for spectators, but no performers.
All these institutions were established by Don Pedro I., but have been on the decline since his abdication. It was his ambition to make Rio a second Lisbon; but his plans outran his means. Mafra Castle alone, with its time-honored towers and their hundred and twenty bells, rolling out their anthems on the airs of old Portugal, leave all that Rio can present, like an afterpiece from which the auditory has escaped.
The great mass of the laboring classes in Rio subsist on the farina of the jatrapha-plant, made into a coarse bread, called pan de tierre caliente. It is manufactured from the same plant of which the tapioca is obtained. This, with the black bean, which grows in great abundance, is with them the staple of life. The more luxurious bread-stuffs are imported. Even meat, amidst all this teeming vegetation, is scarce and dear. Every thing here runs to coffee, of which a hundred and thirty millions of pounds are exported annually, which goes to foreign markets, and brings back, in the great circle of commerce, the products of every other clime.
Tuesday, Dec. 30. Visited the queen’s garden, which covers some six acres, and lies within the environs of the city, between the Miseracordia and Gloria Hill, and opens by a broad terrace on the bay. The gravelled walks, which sweep around in every direction, are over-arched by swinging masses of shade. The cassia waves here by the side of the silver-leaved myrtle, and the imperial laurel—the shamrock of Brazil—turns its green yellow-striped leaves to the sun; while two small pyramids of granite stand as grim sentinels over the proprieties of the place. A tough job, it is said, they have of it, when the young of the city flock here in the evening, though their watch duties are aided by conjugal jealousy and parental vigilance.
Not far removed from the garden, and in harmony with some of its associations, stands a nunnery, which, considering the uses to which it is put, might with propriety be called the bridal prison. Husbands, leaving the country or the city for any length of time, are in the habit of shutting up their wives and children in this nunnery. A beautiful exhibition of conjugal love and confidence! But where are the confessors all this time with their compulsory vows of celibacy, and that latitude of conscience which compulsion always leaves? Better to trust a wife to her own affections than the guidance of men whom superstition has invested with the power to pardon the errors of human frailty, who can commit sin one hour, and cancel it with all parties the next. Ecclesiastical rules and regulations, which deprive any portion of the community of the privileges of the marriage state, pave the way to crime. They are a violation of the laws of nature and nature’s God.
On our return we stopped at the imperial chapel, where preparations were making for a sumptuous funeral. The chapel was brilliantly lighted; the priests were in their gorgeous robes; and the dark carriage of the dead soon arrived, with four black horses, and postillions in sable plumes. The body was placed near the great altar, candles were placed in the hands of those who crowded the nave, and amid a shower of light the chant for the repose of the soul began.