CHAPTER VI.
PERNAMBUCO.
‘That Strain Again!’—‘It hath a dying fall.’—‘Auld Lang Syne, or ’tis thirty years ago.’—Aspect of Pernambuco from the Sea.—Tripartite division of the City, Recife, St. Antonio, and Boa Vista.—Note on the old town of Olinda and its new namesake, the late steamer No. 2 of this A 1 line.—March of improvement by land and sea, in respect to ships and city.—Such Brazilian progress a lesson for West Indians.—Frugality and personal activity on the one hand, prodigality and vicarial mismanagement on the other, being the real difference between the position of the planters in either place.—Sugar Manufacturing improvements.—De Mornay’s Patent Cane Crushing Mill, and its Merits.—Appreciation of the invention in the West Indies as well as Brazil.—Exports of Pernambuco to United States.—Political and Martial feeling of the Pernambucanos.—Peculiarities of the Population, soil, and produce.—Unique effects of rain and drought in the Matta.—Hygienic hints to the consumptive and the yellow feverish.—Initiation of the Railway Era, by the De Mornays, in Pernambuco.—Immense importance of the proposed line, and certainty of its success, sustained by British Capital, and specially supported by the Emperor personally, and the Brazilian executive.—Mr. Borthwick’s report on the project.—The writer’s anticipation that it will be successful, and expectation that the reader will approve of his suggestion for making it so.—Note on Planters’ life in America.
PERNAMBUCO.
It is a trite remark, that there is probably no more permanent or abiding impression on the mind than that created by first visiting a country, whose climate, people, habits, and ideas, differ essentially from those we have been brought up with and are accustomed to regard as a part of our nature. After a lapse of more than thirty years, the sensations I experienced on my first arrival here are as fresh in my memory as if occurring only yesterday. The voyage, which occupied no less than fifty-six days; the eager anxiety for a sight of land; the first view of the foreign port and outlandish looking craft; and then the pilot coming on board with a crew of blacks, seen for the first time; the debarkation amongst strange faces of every possible shade of colour; with the curiously formed streets and singular houses, filled with a population of hues so different from that left behind—every one apparently shouting at the top of their voices; whilst hundreds of rainbow-tinted parrots, and harlequin-skinned animals, more numerous than the managerial knowledge of a boy of fifteen believed had ever appeared out of the Ark, all helped to aggravate the preternatural a perpetual din—the whole scene, as may be imagined, being such as to become indelibly engraven on such a spectator for the remainder of his life. It was a season of eager curiosity and enjoyment. ‘Youth at the prow and Pleasure at the helm’ look only to the bright side of life’s river; but neither time nor distance has since dimmed the halo that seemed then to environ the portals of this first launch into active being. Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis; still the characteristic peculiarities of a new country and new scenes remain fixed in our minds, as if no change had ever come over the spirit of our dream; and such is Pernambuco still to me, though in many respects greatly improved, altered, and enlarged, as I shall proceed to show forthwith.
Approaching Pernambuco from the main, it appears, like Venice, to rise gradually out of the waters, though, unlike the ‘Sea Cybele, fresh from ocean,’ we cannot perhaps exactly descry her ‘tiara of proud towers,’ at least in the sense applied to the mistress of the Mediterranean; but still the reality of the resemblance is quite sufficient to justify the comparison. You first discern church-steeples, domes, lofty houses, glittering in the sun; then shipping, and the general features of a commercial town, become visible. The harbour is quite a natural one, formed by a reef of coral rocks, already described as running along nearly the whole extent of the Brazilian coast, and supposed to be continued inland, where the coast projects beyond the line of the reef. At Pernambuco it has positively all the appearance of a wall some yards wide, just as if erected by the industry of man, and extending along the whole sea-front of the town, breaking off the swell of the ocean, and leaving the water in the harbour or creeks perfectly smooth, except sometimes at high water, and at periods of high tide, when the sea, finding its way over the reef, causes a little bubbling inside. The entrance is through a kind of break in the reef, which also forms the mouth of a river, intersecting the town, but not going any great distance inland;—passing through and rounding the reef, in an instant you are in smooth water, and in Pernambuco harbour. The width of the passage is not much above 200 yards, taken from the reef to the shore, and this is lined with quays and wharves, which have been much extended of late years, and a dredging-machine is now constantly at work, deepening the channels, which are influenced by the current and freshes of the river. The bar formerly allowed only of the passage of vessels drawing 14 feet, but, they say, it is now quite safe for those of 15 to 15½ feet; and hopes are entertained that it can be deepened so as to admit the largest class of vessels, which would be a boon of immense importance to the place.
The town, or city, of Pernambuco is divided into three compartments:—the first, called the Recife (literally Reef), being that directly opposite the reef, and where most of the foreign commercial firms are located; crossing a wooden bridge, is St. Antonio, inhabited chiefly by shopkeepers; and a well-built and extensive compartment further on is Boa Vista, to which you cross by another long wooden bridge, but protected with a light iron railing at the sides. The river runs under these bridges very rapidly at times, and with a snake-like course, almost insulating the two first divisions. From Boa Vista good roads branch off to the country, and a new one has latterly been made to Olinda[40] along the margin of the river, lighted with lamps, &c., a very useful and praiseworthy undertaking on the part of the government.
The town is generally well-built; lofty houses whitewashed, with red tiles, and plenty of verandahs, and windows to admit the cool breezes; and for miles in every direction, towards the interior, are comfortable villas, some very large, and constructed with considerable taste. When I first came here in 1821 only two or three carriages existed in the place, old-fashioned ones belonging to equally old-fashioned Portuguese, and I should suppose something like the ‘dormeuse’ of the Grand Prior of Alcobaça, so graphically described by Beckford, when he travelled with that dignitary to the grand abbey of Batalha [vide Lisbon, page 36]; now there are some 200 vehicles, of all sorts and sizes, and many very good ones for hire, besides those belonging to private individuals; and no doubt taste and luxury would be still more extended in this direction if it were not for the narrow archways through which the Recife is traversed.
In all respects, Pernambuco has been not only a thriving but an improving place, so much so that one who would visit it now for the first time could hardly believe it to be the same town of which Koster, a comparatively short time ago, said that the shops were without windows, light being admitted only by the door, and that there were no distinctions of trades, and no municipal regulations worthy of being so called. Extensive waterworks have been constructed, which bring good water some distance to the town; and doubtless, in a few years, it will be lighted with gas. A bank has been established on a safe and respectable footing; and the merchants have their news-room, as a sort of rendezvous for business, instead of an Exchange, whilst extensive quays have been formed on the margin of the rivers that would serve as models for the conservators of ‘Father Thames.’