[59] Brazil has long been diplomatically represented in this country by M. Sergio Teixeira de Macedo, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary, 5, Mansfield-street, Portland-place, a gentleman whose high breeding, varied intelligence, and conciliatory manner towards all who have business at the Legation have rendered him deservedly popular, both with the corps diplomatique and the public. He writes and speaks English with ease and accuracy, and having married an English lady (lately deceased) of rare accomplishments, by whom he has had a numerous family, he is necessarily almost as familiar with the manners and usages of society amongst us as a native. His staff consists of J. T. do Amaral, Esq., secretary of legation, and Chevaliers H. C. d’Albuquerque, J. A. da Silva Maya, A. de P. Lopes Gama, H. de T. M. de Montezuma, and J. P. d’Andrada, attachés. The Brazilian consul-general is Admiral Grenfell, Liverpool, who has distinguished himself in the Brazilian service, and whose biography will be found in a subsequent page; vice-consul, L. A. da Costa, Esq., 14, Cooper’s-row, Tower-hill, London. A Brazilian vice-consul has lately been appointed at the Bahama Islands, in the person of Mr. George W. G. Robins, of Nassau, a gentleman who has already filled many honorary posts there with much distinction, and is qualified in every way to secure to the imperial flag the same respect that attaches to those of France, Spain, the United States, &c., in that thriving British dependency. England is represented in Brazil by Mr. H. F. Howard, who was attached to the mission at Munich in 1828, appointed paid attaché at Berlin in 1832, secretary of legation at the Hague in 1845, and in 1846 at Berlin, where he was several times chargé d’affaires. He was appointed envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at Rio Janeiro in 1853, with a salary of 4000l., and 500l. per annum for house-rent. His secretary of legation is the Hon. W. G. Jerningham, who was attached to the missions at Munich and Berlin in 1834, to the embassy at Vienna in 1836, appointed paid attaché at the Hague in 1839, and to his present post, with a salary of 550l. per year, in 1850. The British consuls are—at Rio Janeiro, where he had previously been vice-consul, Mr. J. J. C. Westwood, 800l.; at Bahia, Mr. J. Morgan, who was attached to the legation at Rio Janeiro as translator in 1845, appointed consul at Rio Grande in 1847, and transferred to Bahia, where his salary is 800l. per annum, in 1852; vice-consul at Bahia, Mr. J. Wetherell; at Pernambuco, Mr. H. A. Cowper, formerly consul at Pará, 500l.; at Maranham, Mr. H. W. Ovenden, 300l.; at Pará, Mr. S. Vines, 450l.; at Paraiba, Mr. B. M. Power, 400l.; at Rio Grande do Sul, the Hon. H. P. Vereker, who was appointed to a clerkship under the Commissioners of Railways in 1848, a clerkship in the Board of Trade in 1851, and to his present post, with 800l. per annum, in 1852; and at St. Catherine’s, Mr. R. Callander, 500l. These salaries are all exclusive of fees, which, in many instances, are very considerable, emoluments frequently arising from commissions on Australian gold dust left at Brazilian ports for shipment to Europe; but that source of gain is far more lucrative on the west than on the east coast of South America, and hence the increasing pecuniary importance of consular appointments in the Chilian and Peruvian ports.
[60] This was one of the most appalling disasters ever known at sea, and the sensation it produced exceeded, perhaps, that occasioned by any similar incident since the memorable destruction of the Kent East Indiaman. The Ocean Monarch American emigrant ship left Liverpool, bound for Boston, August 24th, 1848, having 396 passengers on board. She had not advanced far into the Irish Channel, being within six miles of Great Ormshead, Lancashire, when she took fire, and in a few hours was burnt to the water’s edge. The Brazilian steam-frigate Alfonso happened to be out on a trial trip at the time, with the Prince and Princess de Joinville and the Duke and Duchess de Aumale on board, who witnessed the catastrophe, and aided in rescuing and comforting the sufferers with exceeding humanity. They, with the crews and passengers of the Alfonso and the yacht Queen of the Ocean, so effectually rendered their heroic and unwearied services as to save 156 persons from their dreadful situation, and 62 others escaped by various means. But the rest, 178 in number, perished in the flames or the sea. The conduct of the New York sailor, Jerom, on this occasion, was scarcely less distinguished for bravery and self-sacrifice than that of the black sailor, Simon, at the wreck of the Pernambucana, as described at page 132.
[61] A writer in the 8th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, now publishing, says, ‘Nearly all the branches of this noble stream are navigable to a great distance from their junction with the main trunk; and, collectively, the whole affords an extent of water communication unparalleled in any other part of the globe. What adds to this advantage is, that as the wind and the current are always opposed to each other, a vessel can make her way either up or down with great facility, by availing herself of her sails in the one case, and committing herself to the force of the current in the other.’
[62] Mr. Edwards, in his ‘Voyage up the Amazon,’ before alluded to, says, that Pará contains an area of 950,000 square miles, nearly half the area of the United States, and all its territories. Its soil is everywhere of exhaustless fertility, and but an exceedingly small portion of it is unfitted for cultivation. The noblest rivers of the world open communication with its remotest parts, and lie spread like a net-work over its surface.… There is scarcely a product raised in the two countries in which Brazil could not undersell the United States in every market of the world were it not for the export-tax. Its cotton and rice, even during the past year, have been shipped from Pará to New York; its tobacco is preferable to the best Virginian, and can be raised in inexhaustible quantities.… Sooner or later, the Amazon must be the channel of a vast commerce, and Pará must be, from the advantages of its situation, one of the largest cities in the world.—Edwards’s Voyage up the Amazon.
The value of the exports from Pará in 1848 was about £148,720, of which one-fourth was taken by the United States, a like quantity by Portugal, one-fifth by France, one-sixth by Great Britain, and the remainder by the Hanseatic towns, Belgium, Genoa, and Denmark. The value of foreign goods imported in the same year was about £147,322, principally from the United States, Great Britain, Portugal, and France. The increase in the trade of this port will be seen by comparing the preceding statement with the exports and imports of 1851. In that year the value of the former was about £356,200, and that of the latter about £273,067. Proportionately with the aggregate increase, the American and British shares of the trade had slightly advanced; while the French share had declined to one-eighth, and the Portuguese had diminished more than one-half. The trade with Genoa had ceased; but that with Sweden, which had declined since 1846, showed very promising signs of a revival. The principal articles of export from Pará are caoutchouc and cocoa, the mean yearly value of the trade in the former being about £138,000, and of the latter, £67,725. Among the articles of export in which a lesser trade is carried on may be enumerated rice, piasaba rope, annatto, sarsaparilla, hides, nuts, sugar, isinglass, and cotton.
[63] Every one whom I conversed with on the subject of the Amazon advocates with earnestness the free navigation of the river, and says that they will never thrive until the river is thrown open to all, and foreigners are invited to settle on its banks. I think that they are sincere, for they have quite intelligence enough to see that they will be benefited by calling out the resources of the country.—Herndon.
[64] Piasaba is a species of palm from the bark of which is made nearly all the rope used upon the Amazon. The appearance of the rope made from it is similar to that of the East India coir. The fibres of the bark are brought down the rivers Negro and Branco, and made into ropes at Barra.
[65] The Brazilian nutmeg is the fruit of a large tree that grows abundantly in the low moist lands between the rivers Negro and Yapurá, above Barcellos, a village on the first named river. The fruit is round, and has a hard shell, containing two seeds, which are ligneous and aromatic, but not equal in flavour to the Ceylon nutmeg; though this may be owing to the want of cultivation.
[66] Since my departure from the banks of the Orinoco and the Amazon, a new era unfolds itself in the social state of the nations of the West. The fury of civil discussions will be succeeded by the blessings of peace and a freer development of the arts of industry. The bifurcation of the Orinoco, the isthmus of Tuamini, so easy to pass over by an artificial canal, will fix the attention of commercial Europe. The Cassiquiari—as broad as the Rhine, and the course of which is one hundred and eighty miles in length—will no longer form in vain a navigable canal between two basins of rivers, which have a surface of 190,000 square leagues. The grain of New Grenada will be carried to the banks of the Rio Negro; boats will descend from the sources of the Napo and the Ucayali, from the Andes of Quito and upper Peru, to the mouths of the Orinoco—a distance which equals that from Timbuctoo to Marseilles. A country nine or ten times larger than Spain, and enriched with the most varied productions, is navigable in every direction by the medium of the natural canal of the Cassiquiari and the bifurcation of the rivers. This phenomenon, which one day will be so important for the political connexions of nations, unquestionably deserves to be carefully examined.—Humboldt.
[67] Bolivia has but one sea-port on the Pacific, that is Cobija, an open roadstead and a miserable village, at the head of the great desert of Atacama. The land transportation between this port and the agricultural districts of the republic is too rough, too tedious, and too expensive ever to admit of its becoming a commercial emporium. The direction in which Bolivia looks for an outlet to a market for her produce, is along her navigable water-courses that empty into the Amazon, and then down that stream to the sea.—Maury’s Valley of the Amazon.