‘The town of Rio Janeiro (its proper name is St. Sebastiano) is the largest and best in South America, and the population about equals that of Liverpool. It is laid out in regular squares: the streets are narrow, which, at first sight, seems objectionable to an Englishman, but he soon finds that it affords protection from the scorching sun; and the thoroughfares are tolerably well-paved and lighted, and have trottoirs at the sides. To obviate the inconvenience arising from the narrowness of the streets, carriages are only allowed to go one way, up one street and down the next, and a hand is painted up on the corners to show which way the traffic is to flow. The best street, Rua d’Ouvidor, is nearly all French, so that one can almost fancy oneself in the Palais Royal; and nearly everything that is to be found in London or Paris may be bought in Rio. Many English merchants have houses in the city, but most of the shopkeepers are French; and this proves a perfect blessing to visitors, for a Brazilian shopman is so careless and indolent, that he will hardly look for anything in his stores, and will often say he has not got the article asked for, to save himself the trouble of looking for it. The best native shops are those of the silversmiths, who work pretty well, and get a good deal of custom, for Brazilians and blacks revel in ornament, often wearing silver spurs and a silver-hafted knife though perhaps they may not have any shoes to their feet. The Brazilians are very fond of dress; and though it seems so unsuitable for the climate, wear black trowsers and an evening suit to walk about the streets in. Strangers will find no curiosities in Rio Janeiro except the feather flowers, which are better here than in Madeira, and fetch a higher price. A Frenchwoman, who employs a number of girls of all complexions in her business, is the principal manufacturer. They are made (or ought to be) entirely of undyed feathers, the best being those of a purple, copper, or crimson colour, from the breasts and heads of humming-birds. One of these wreaths has a beautiful effect, and reflects different-coloured light. The wing cases of beetles are also used, and glitter like precious stones. Madame has her patterns from Paris, so the wreaths are generally in good style and newest fashion. The worst shops are kept by English, and this will be found a general rule in these foreign towns. The merchants are good and honest; but if one wishes to be well taken in, go to a shop kept by an Englishman.’
[43] The Bank, Exchange, Custom House, and Arsenal, (of late years greatly extended,) are in the Rua Direita. Besides these, the chief public edifices are, the Imperial Palace, a plain brick building; the Old Palace, on the shore, used for public offices; a Public Hospital, alluded to elsewhere, erected in 1841; a National Library, with 800,000 printed volumes, and many valuable MSS.; and a well supported Opera House, which has supplied Europe with some very popular performers, especially in the ballet line, as witness that general favourite, Madame Celeste, who came from Rio, in 1830, with her sister Constance, another danseuse, and appeared for the first time in England at Liverpool, in the divertissement in Masaniello, Sinclair being Auber’s hero. The educational establishments are, the Imperial College of Don Pedro II.; the College of St. José; Schools of Medicine and Surgery; Military and Naval Academy; and many Public Schools. It has also many Scientific Institutions; a Museum rich in Ornithology, Entomology, and Mineralogy; and a fine Botanic Garden. Of Churches there are upwards of fifty, not of much external elegance, but mostly sumptuously decorated in the interior.
[44] The inhabitants of Rio Janeiro are fond of carriages, but the specimens generally seen would hardly do for Hyde Park, being chiefly old-fashioned coaches, drawn by four scraggy mules, with a black coachman on the box, and a postillion in jack-boots on the leaders, sitting well back, and with his feet stuck out beyond the mule’s shoulders. The liveries are generally gorgeous enough, and there is no lack of gold lace on the cocked hats and coats; but a black slave does not enter into the spirit of the thing, and one footman will have his hat cocked athwartships, the other fore and aft; one will have shoes and stockings, with his toes peeping through, the other will dispense with them altogether. But the old peer rolls on unconscious, and I dare say the whole thing is pronounced a neat turn-out. The Brazilians are great snuff-takers, and always offer their box, if the visitor is a welcome guest. It is etiquette to take the offered pinch with the left hand. Rapé is the Portuguese for snuff, hence our word rappee. They do not smoke much. The opera was good, the house very large, tolerably lighted, but not so thickly attended as it might be. The ladies look better by candle-light, their great failing being in their complexions, the tint of which may be exactly described by the midshipman’s simile of snuff and butter. The orchestra was good, many of the performers being blacks or mulattos, who are excellent musicians. The African race seem to like music, and generally have a pretty good ear. Both men and women often whistle well, and I have heard the washerwomen at their work whistling polkas with great correctness. I was amused one evening on going out of the opera when it was half over: offering my ticket to a decent-looking man standing near the door, he bowed, but refused it, saying that men with jackets were not allowed in the house.—Elwes.
[45] The population of Rio, on the arrival of the royal family, did not amount to 50,000, but afterwards rapidly augmented; so that in 1815, when declared independent, the number had nearly doubled, and now is estimated at about 400,000, with the suburbs and the provincial capital of Nitherohy, on the opposite shore of the Bay. This increase is partly to be ascribed to the afflux of Portuguese, who have at different times left their country in consequence of the civil commotions which have disturbed its peace, as well as of English, French, Dutch, Germans, and Italians, who, after the opening of the port, settled here, some as merchants, others as mechanics, and have contributed largely to its wealth and importance. These accessions of Europeans have effected a great change in the character of the population, for at the commencement of the century, and for many years afterwards, the blacks and coloured persons far exceeded the whites, whereas now they are reduced to less than half the number of inhabitants. In the aggregate population of the empire, however, the coloured portion is still supposed to be treble the white.
[46] Senhor Pereira de Andrade, the Brazilian gentleman referred to in the next note, in the course of his examination before the committee on the 19th of July, 1853, is asked by Sir George Pechell:—‘You stated what must have given very great pleasure to this committee, that you considered Brazil had done its duty with regard to the fulfilment of its treaties, and also that the feeling of the country was generally in favour of employing free labour?’—Andrade answered, there can be no doubt of it. Question.—Do you think that a candidate for election to the Parliament of Brazil would have any chance of being elected if he were in favour of the importation of slaves? Answer.—Certainly not; not a man in Brazil now would dare utter a single word in Parliament in favour of the slave trade. Question.—In short the popular cry would be all against it? Answer.—Yes. All his answers are to the same effect; and upon these answers, as well as those of the other witnesses, the committee made the report adverted to in the adjoining page.
[47] Those who would fully understand the bearings of this most interesting subject, concerning which an infinite deal of misunderstanding was, I may almost say designedly, propagated in England, so perverse was the determination, in certain quarters, to disbelieve everything that redounded to the credit, and to swallow implicitly all that was supposed to tell to the discredit, of Brazil, will find it fully set forth in the evidence given before the committee on Slave Trade Treaties, which sat in the course of last session, under the chairmanship of Mr. Hume. On that committee were several gentlemen who had been most strenuous in their resistance to all remonstrance on the part of Brazil, against the too often wanton, and almost always violent and irritating, conduct of our cruisers; gentlemen who were incessant in their appeals for vigorous measures on the part of our squadron on the coast, and of our ambassadors at the court, of Brazil; yet the committee so composed reported as follows:—The importation of slaves into Brazil, in ’47, was 56,172: in ’48, 60,000; in ’49, 54,000; but in ’51, it had diminished to 3,287, and in ’52, to 700, of which last importation a considerable portion had been seized by the Brazilian Government. Mr. Consul Porter reported to Viscount Palmerston in ’48, that 74 slave-trade vessels had sailed from Bahia in the year ’47, and 93 in ’48;—that the slave traffic was carried on with great activity; and, as an example, he stated that one vessel, the ‘Andorinha,’ of 80 tons burden, which cost £2,000 sterling, had made eight successful voyages with slaves from the West Coast of Africa, having actually landed at Bahia 3,392 slaves, and received for freight 120 milreis per head, or £40,704 sterling, giving a profit of 800 per cent.; also that towards the end of ’50, and in ’51, stringent orders had arrived at Bahia for the suppression of the trade, and that when he left Bahia in the end of ’51, ‘the slave trade was perfectly suspended.’ He thinks that the British ships alone cannot stop the trade, but that if the Brazilian Government be sincere, it will certainly be put down. Your committee invite the attention of the House to the evidence of Senhor D’Andrade and others, and to the reports of the Brazilian Ministers, for an explanation of the manner in which so great a change has been effected in the Brazils. The speech of the Emperor to the assembly of this year, on the subject of the slave trade; the stringent laws that have been passed, and others that are in progress, by the Brazilian Government against the slave trade; and, above all, the seizure and banishment of some Portuguese merchants, who, were suspected of an intention to renew the trade, convince your committee that the Brazilian Government is sincere, and that the slave trade is actually abolished in the Brazils. Your committee refer to the correspondence of the Earl of Aberdeen with the Brazilian Government, in 1845, to explain the state of the slave question at that time, and the reasons that induced Parliament to pass the 8 and 9 Vict. c. 122. The favourable change which has taken place in the councils and conduct of the Brazilian Government respecting slavery, whether accelerated by the active services of Captain Schomberg or not, may induce Parliament to repeal that Act, as intimated in his Lordship’s letter of the 2d July 1845.—It is to be hoped that this recommendation of the committee will be carried out in the course of the present session.
[48] We have said that of all public securities those of Brazil rank the highest, next to those of Great Britain itself. It may not be amiss to give the following ‘monetary’ evidence of the same fact from a well-known dispassionate Stock Exchange authority, the last edition of Fortune’s Epitome of the Funds, under the head of Brazilian Five per Cents, 1843. Capital £732,000. This was a transference of a portion of the claim of Portugal to Brazil, ‘that land of wonders, whose rivers roll over beds of gold, where the rocks glow with topazes, and the sands sparkle with diamonds, where nature assumes her richest dress beneath the blaze of tropical suns, and birds of the gaudiest plumage vie with the splendid efflorescence of the forests they inhabit; this gorgeous picture, drawn in dazzling, but not false colours, leaves unnoticed the greatest riches of Brazil, which consist in her almost unlimited power of producing the staple commodities of life and commerce. Possessed of the finest climate, and of a virgin soil of the richest fertility, cotton, coffee, sugar, in fact every production of the tropics, as well as of the temperate zone, may be cultivated to any extent, and at small expense. Numerous sea ports, with safe harbours, and noble rivers, which, at a comparatively small cost, might be rendered navigable, afford the means of turning these natural facilities to the best advantage; and, judging from the rapid increase of the commerce of late years, the Brazilians are not altogether negligent in availing themselves of these sources of boundless and lasting wealth. The progress of Brazil has been remarkable during the last ten years, the revenue having been nearly doubled. The punctuality of the payment of the dividends, the disposition evinced to preserve the credit of the country, and the presumption that it will be well maintained, gives Brazilian stock a good position in the market, as an investment; and prices have not latterly experienced much fluctuation.
[49] The following letter, illustrative of some of the scenes on that occasion, appeared in the ‘Journal do Commercio’:—‘I was expecting my family in this capital, from Rio Grande do Sul, by the steamer Pernambucana, when the melancholy and lamentable shipwreck of this vessel took place; and I must confess my eternal obligation and sincere gratitude for the heroic and brilliant action performed by the very distinguished, valiant, and intrepid mariner, Simon, belonging to the crew of the steamer, who was the only one of them that came forward and contributed, in a manner without example, to the salvation, besides many unhappy individuals who were looking on death as certain, of persons so dear to me as my wife, eight children, and three slaves, who were more than 24 hours on board the steamer after she had struck, without any other resource than Divine Providence, who sent them a protector, the black Simon; so that my loss consisted only of a little daughter, a female slave, and all the baggage.—Rio de Janeiro, 5th Nov., 1853.—Louis Vieira da Costa.’
As a frightful contrast to the conduct of the brave Simon, it appears that even on board the steamer the other sailors broke open the trunks of the passengers, with knife in hand, to get possession of the money they contained; and afterwards committed the most shocking atrocities on shore, such as cutting the fingers off the bodies that had been washed on land for the sake of the rings.
[50] Resume of The Port Regulations Issued by the British Vice-Consul at Belem Castle, Lisbon.—‘[If not asked for, retain these papers until the consignee is on board.] Deliver to the Custom-house Officer who conducts your vessel to the anchorage ground, off the Lisbon Custom house (quadrangle), your manifest list of stores and every single article on board; whatever you omit to declare will be seized, and liable you to imprisonment, and seizure of the vessel. You must declare in writing: if your cargo, or any part is destined to any other Port. The cause you put in for, orders, wind bound, or from other casualties. If any part of cargo has been thrown overboard; or picked up any articles at sea. If fish laden, or cargo on speculation, or even in ballast, by declaring you ask franquia for cargo, or vessel, you will avoid part of port charges, on proceeding to sea. Be particular to give correct account of all packages, parcels, and other articles not manifested; list of passengers, with correct note of luggage; list of crew, with a note of their tobacco, soap, and slops; list of provisions, stores, live stock, slops, nautical instruments, new clothes, &c.; separate list of all tobacco, segars, and soap, every particular, with crew and passengers to produce all they have; if any is found concealed, you are liable to transportation and seizure of vessel. Deliver up all letters, except letter for the consignee of vessel; if any are found on board you will pay nine times the amount of postage; deliver up all your gunpowder. Allow no ballast, dunnage, sweepings, or any kind of rubbish to be thrown overboard, as you will pay a penalty of 5 shillings for every ton register. To have buoys, and buoy ropes on anchors. To house jibboom, and flying jibboom. Only to have long boat astern, and the painters not to have more scope than six fathoms. To have spare bower anchor at bows, always ready to let go in case of necessity. Not to have top-gallant-masts an end during bad weather. Take care the vessel is never slack moored. Always to keep watch, and assist other vessels in best way possible, in order to avoid damage. As soon as you anchor in anchorage ground (quadrangle), land at the custom house quay; be sure on sending your boat off, or on leaving the vessel, that you give orders to your boat to go alongside of the nearest gun boat; if you omit, the boat will be seized. You cannot go on board of any vessel at anchor in the quadrangle, nor can you leave your vessel, or return on board after sunset without an order, as your boat will be seized. On leaving your vessel you are liable to be searched. I draw your particular attention to these regulations of the port, as the authorities are very severe, allow nothing to pass, and take advantage of the least omission; a strict search is made over the vessel’s rigging and sails.—Belem. J. Philipps.’