Ten years ago the finances of Brazil were in very great embarrassment. Under all circumstances of distress and difficulty, Brazil had, indeed, paid, as she still continues regularly to pay, the interest on her debt, thereby honourably distinguishing herself from other South American, and not a few European states. But, at that time, her expenditure largely exceeded her income. Gradually Brazil has reversed this state of things; instead of a heavy deficit, she now has a steadily increasing surplus, has been able to reduce the rate of interest on part of her foreign debt, is slowly reducing its capital, and is in a position to compete in the money market of London with the most favoured European governments. Ten years ago Brazil was not a little embarrassed by the fiscal restrictions she had imposed on herself by her commercial treaties with other countries. Now she is free from all such embarrassments, has full powers over her own trading and financial system, and has no treaties at all with other states. Intermediately she raised for revenue purposes her tariff of Custom duties; but now that she has a surplus to dispose of, her Government is engaged in reducing those duties, to the enlargement, of course, of her commerce. The total funded domestic debt of the empire on the 31st of Dec. last amounted to 57,704,200,000 reis, and the funded debt of the province of Rio Janeiro to 3,940,000,000 reis. The total revenue for the present year, 1854, is estimated at about 32,353,000 milreis (£3,594,700), and the expenditure at about 29,633,706 milreis (£3,292,630). The income is chiefly derived from the ad valorem duty charged on all articles imported into Brazil, amounting in 1851-2 to £2,814,443; a low duty charged on the articles exported, amounting in the same year to £503,070; and rents, royalties on mines, &c. The estimated expenditure for 1853-4 is thus distributed: Ministry of the Interior, £412,355; Justice, £250,020; Foreign Affairs, £60,000; Marine, £452,138; War, £813,935; Finances, £1,304,162: total, £3,292,630.
Ten years ago the Brazilian navy was small: it is now rising into importance; its courage and capacity were lately seen in the Plate; many of its younger officers have been reared in the British service, and from British yards it is yearly adding to its steam flotilla. It now consists of 1 frigate of 50 guns, 5 corvettes, 5 brigs, and 9 schooners, carrying together 188 guns; and 4 smaller vessels, carrying together 27 guns; 10 steamers, mounting 36 guns; with various unarmed ships and steamers, and several others are building. The Brazilian army has established its reputation at once for success, bravery, and humanity. Ten years ago Brazil had little external influence; now Brazil is obviously at the head of South American states, and has a distinct and separate part assigned to her in the destinies of the human race. Then she had but slow and dilatory intercourse with Europe; now she has two monthly steam services from England—another is being established from Lisbon; and Rio Janeiro is now only a month’s distance from London and Paris.
Whilst London, Liverpool, and Lisbon are thus sweeping its coasts with steam, Manchester is lighting Brazilian cities with gas. Messrs. Peto and Jackson, (the members for Norwich and Newcastle-under-Lyne,) whose capital and connections are interlacing Canada and the British North American provinces with a magnificent net-work of railways, are also with other capitalists about to bring their vast resources and long practised experience to bear in a like manner in several of the Brazilian provinces, and doubtless with a like result within as brief a period as the circumstances of the country and the obstacles to be overcome will possibly permit. The Government is opening up new roads, clearing away impediments in rivers, and is arranging the internal improvement of the empire on a large and comprehensive system. A great and a happier future is opening on Brazil—one calculated to advance and extend moral improvement and political freedom, as well as to promote material comfort.
In thus recording the material prosperity and anticipating the progressive greatness of this magnificent empire, it affords me infinite gratification to be able to attribute to my distinguished fellow-townsman, Admiral Grenfell, the Brazilian consul-general[59] for England, a large and conspicuous share in consolidating the strength, and enhancing the reputation of Brazil, as eminent among the nations alike for the valour of its arms, the clemency of its counsels, and the magnanimity it has evinced in eschewing territorial aggrandisement which its bravery and sagacity might so readily have secured it. A more befitting preliminary to the subsequent chapter on the Amazon there could not be than a memoir of the gallant seaman to whose skill and bravery the retention of the principal Amazonian province is due, and to whose equally admirable conduct on a scarcely less trying occasion is also due an acceleration of the settlement of the affairs of the Plate, to a correct understanding of which, in their latter phases at least, a perusal of the annexed biographical data, gleaned from the most reliable sources, will greatly contribute.
WATERFALL OF ITAMARITY. DISTANT TWO DAYS’ JOURNEY FROM RIO JANEIRO.
NOTE TO THE ILLUSTRATION.
The cataract shown in the foregoing page consists, says Sir W. G. Ouseley, from whose portfolio it is copied, of a succession of three waterfalls, subsiding into rapids, and then continuing its course as a turbulent rocky brook, working its way among the hills of the Serra de Estrella. The falls of Itamarity are not near any high road, and have been seldom visited by Europeans. It is not possible to obtain a general view of all the falls. That in the Plate is taken from an insulated rock, standing opposite the second fall. The first fall has worked a basin in the rock, as in other similar sites, and, as usual, it is asserted by the natives to be of vast or fathomless depth. Below the isolated rock is a third fall of considerable size; but the rich and thick vegetation prevents much of it from being seen. On the morning that this sketch was taken, when a party visited the Falls, some negroes were sent on beforehand to cut away the underwood and parasites, and to fell trees in order to improviser a bridge for the nonce. The ligatures used in fastening the trees, and the sort of parapet railing, were made of the lianes or parasitical plants from the surrounding trees. They hang from the highest branches like ropes of various sizes, some little larger than whipcord, others of the circumference of a large cable; indeed, they are often thicker than a man’s body, and frequently form spiral and intricate knots, like the writhings of gigantic serpents, à la Laocoon. The profuse variety of growth and rapid vegetation in this part of Brazil is scarcely credible to Europeans. A very few weeks, or rather days, after this path had been opened, and the bridge constructed to enable the party to visit these Falls, strangers might have passed close to them, only made aware of their proximity by the loud roar of the falling waters, the hoarse sound of which, deadened and rendered deceptive by the close growth of the forest, would be but an indifferent guide, and hardly enable them to find any approach by which to obtain a view of the Falls. The negroes and country people have alarming stories or traditions respecting vast crocodiles, differing from the common sort in their nature and habits, and unlike the alligators of the rivers emptying themselves directly into the bay of Rio de Janeiro, at the foot of these mountains. They are said to be infinitely larger and more voracious than their relations near the salt water. These monsters, they affirm, inhabit the deep pools formed occasionally in the course of the mountain rivers. Poisonous snakes are asserted to be often found in these waters. The present existence of these crocodiles seems very apocryphal; nor are serpents so often met with, even by naturalists anxious to enrich their collections, as is generally supposed. The name of these Falls, ‘Itamariti,’ or ‘Itamarity,’ signifies in the Indian language (probably that of the Guarani tribe) ‘the shining stones,’ or ‘the rock that shines,’ doubtless so called from the glittering appearance of the large mass of rock, the face of which is worn smooth by the water. ‘Ita’ means stone or rock.