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Title: A summer journey to Brazil
Author: Alice R. Humphrey
Release date: August 14, 2025 [eBook #76683]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Bonnell, Silver & Co, 1900
Credits: Alan, The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SUMMER JOURNEY TO BRAZIL ***
[Illustration: MAP OF TWO HEMISPHERES.]
A SUMMER JOURNEY
TO BRAZIL
By Alice R. Humphrey
“To the general American public Brazil is a _terra incognita_.
Less is known of it than of Asia, Africa, the distant islands
of the sea, or even of the North Pole.”
“I asked no other thing,
No other was denied.
I offered Being for it;
The mighty merchant smiled.
Brazil? He twirled a button,
Without a glance my way:
‘But, madam, is there nothing else
That we can show to-day?’”
EMILY DICKINSON.
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
BONNELL, SILVER & CO.
LONDON: 4 TRAFALGAR SQUARE
1900
COPYRIGHT, 1900, by
BONNELL, SILVER & CO.
_All rights reserved_
Press of E. Scott Co., New York
CONTENTS.
PAGE
New York to Lisbon 1
Two Weeks in Tropical Seas 11
Pernambuco 20
Two Beautiful Bays 26
Petropolis 40
Santos and Some Brazilians 51
Consular Service at Santos 65
The City of São Paulo 72
Homeward Bound 96
APPENDIX.
An American System of Schools 102
Religious Instruction in Schools 112
Facts about Brazil 118
The Samaritan Hospital 122
Brazilian Naval Revolt Ended by U. S. Protection
of her own Merchant Ships 124
Roman Catholic Church in Brazil as a State
Church and as Related to Protestantism 141
1864 and 1900 147
John T. Mackenzie 148
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
Map of Two Hemispheres 1
Place du Commerce, Lisbon 6
Harbor, St. Vincent, Cape Verd Islands 14
Cable Station, St. Vincent 16
Reef, Pernambuco 20
President of Brazil.--Wife of President 32
Docks and Arsenal, Rio de Janeiro 34
Petropolis 40
Alley of Palms 48
Map of the State of São Paulo 50
Railway Station, Santos 52
Hotel and Park, Guaruja 62
Mackenzie College 68
Government Normal School Building 82
Coffee Picking 95
Coffee Washing 98
Coffee Drying 106
Blacks of Bahia 120
PREFACE
Experiences indicated in these pages are not merely incidental and
exceptional but prove by repeated journeys to be really characteristic.
We first visited the Empire of Brazil when Dom Pedro was at his best;
then in the critical period following the revolution; last when the
era of discord had culminated and the first _civilian_ President
was peacefully elected. The short but severe apprenticeship in self
government transformed a Latin Empire into a settled Republic in eight
years. Now for three years the rapid advance in things which pertain
to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” has been so quiet and
steady as to pass unnoticed.
The eleven years’ history of this sister Republic is full of hope for
Porto Rico, Cuba and the Philippines. The New York Evening Post, June
26th, 1900, says: “Under republican institutions individual effort has
been stimulated and rapid development has gone forward in the wilds of
the Amazon as it has in the coast regions of Brazil.” _But nearly six
years of military government were necessary before it was practicable
to elect a civilian President._
The English expectation of a collapse of a Brazilian Republic was not
given up until about 1896.
Great Britain’s equipment for _ruling other nations_ is so far in
advance of the United States that any thought of our copying her
methods is as absurd as it would be to expect England to set up a
self-governing Republic. The St. James Gazette of June 26th, 1900
expresses the opinion that China is “teaching America the impossibility
of a great trading nation avoiding Imperialism,” and adds “America’s
experience will teach her that it is not the desire to grab distant
lands, but unavoidable destiny that drives Great Britain ever forward.
Washington has no choice but to protect the imperilled American
citizens and having once interfered in China to protect her interests
she will never be able to shake from her shoes the dust of the
Celestial Empire.” When Edwin H. Conger was Minister to Brazil the
United States in protecting American shipping ended the Brazilian
Republic’s most serious revolt. _But the United States interference in
Brazilian affairs went no further._
Little as the United States has otherwise done for Brazil the expressed
feeling is “Our greatest wish is to model the new Brazilian Republic
according to the Constitution of the United States and to develop
and consolidate our friendship and commercial relations with that
incomparable Nation.”
H. M. H.
PLAINFIELD, N. J.
AUGUST, 1900.
A SUMMER JOURNEY TO BRAZIL.
NEW YORK TO LISBON.
Five winters in succession without one summer is an experience which I
recall with pleasure these hot days! How did I manage it? Just crossed
the equator to Brazil in May, back to New York in November, down to
Brazil in May again and back once more in October.
Many people “who loved geography when they were young” have still no
realizing sense of the reversal of the seasons south of the equator,
and do not know how interesting a voyage they might easily make if they
went “up and down in the world,” instead of going around it.
Everybody who is fortunate enough to have the money to do it has
treated himself or some of his family to a trip around the world, and
missionaries and commercial men have added to the list until we all
speak with familiarity of life and travels in China and Japan, India
and Egypt; but what American ever started for a pleasure trip to the
southern half of his own hemisphere! Why not?
I have gone there by two different ways, and for variety recommend
them both. Suppose you go in May--as you can most comfortably and with
the largest number of new experiences--by way of the American Line
to Southampton, England; thence, sailing from that same Southampton
harbor, to Rio de Janeiro by the English Royal Mail Line. You find
yourself leaving England in a good-sized, well-built steamer named for
some river, “Nile,” “Danube,” “Magdalena,” or “Clyde,”--let us say the
“Nile,”--and evidently made for different seas from the North Atlantic.
Your cabin may be 7 × 10 feet, its walls on the gangway made of slats
like blinds slightly open for ventilation; and the wide decks covered
with permanent awnings suggest a summer veranda. This line of steamers
makes the trip from England to Buenos Ayres in twenty-four days, and
winter and summer they must heat the cabins at one end of the trip for
the comfort of the passengers; for at one end it is winter if at the
other you find summer. You will arrive at Rio de Janeiro at the end of
seventeen days.
Out of the English Channel, stopping at Cherbourg for a few passengers
from Paris, across the Bay of Biscay, it takes from Friday morning till
Sunday to reach the quaint Spanish harbor of Vigo. Perhaps, so far,
there will have been in the ship’s company one or two wine merchants
who now leave for Oporto. Here you will receive your first instalment
of emigrants, Spanish peasants, going to the Argentine Republic, the
women with black hair and eyes and the most brilliant colors in their
clothes. They may have nothing on their feet but their heads will be
tied in kerchiefs, suggestive of a tulip-bed for hues.
You wish with your careful American training that a dignified old
English steamship line would not regularly plan to spend that first
Sunday in such a heathenish port, loading and unloading freight and
taking on such irreligious-looking passengers. There is no service for
you but what you make for yourself, and you look on with a painful
sense that the great outside world is different from your gentle home,
and go down to your room and get your Bible and try to think while the
hoisting apparatus outside is lifting bumping boxes out of lighters and
creaking them down into the hold, and scores of little boats full of
Spanish vendors are screaming their fruits and earthenware or helping
their poor countrymen into the steerage of your ship.
You wonder if “Boss Tweed” really enjoyed life here up to the time when
Nast’s cartoon strayed into the town and inspired the authorities to
report the discovered “child-stealer.”
One lesson you may learn from the foreign conditions of the day--to
sympathize more sensitively with the daily life of our Lord spent
among people who did not think as He did.
One day more and you anchor off Lisbon. Of course you will make one
of a party with some of your shipmates, hire a boat and go ashore, a
mile or more of rowing or sailing. How pretty the cream-colored city
looks in her green palms! and how substantial the great stone quays!
You hire a guide and go to drive. You get an impression of ornate
public buildings and memorial statues, of narrow business streets with
numberless insignificant shops, of the broader avenues of thick-walled,
stuccoed, gay-colored residences, standing low and square in heavy
shrubberies, of the Botanical Garden which no well regulated Portuguese
city could be without and which here lies on the brow of a hill looking
over the town; and now you know you must have your luncheon, and find a
good one at a hotel. The semi-tropical life is comfortable behind “the
Venetians,” and you have been getting glimpses of pretty courts through
open corridors.
Now you must try to think what best use you can make of the remaining
hour before you must cross the Place du Commerce, or Black Horse Square
as the English call it, looking out on the harbor and surrounded the
other three sides by government offices and custom-house, with spacious
arcades, a triumphal arch, and bronze statue of Joseph I., then pick
your way down the wet stone steps to the little boat which will row you
out to your ship.
But where shall you go _for one hour_? Down to the dirty, narrow, old,
Moorish quarter? No. Out to the church and palace of Belem built on
the site whence Vasco de Gama embarked in 1500, and now containing
the tombs of that explorer and of the great poet, Camoens (whom many
readers will also connect with Macao, China). No that’s too far and
too interesting for a mere hour. So is its neighboring tower in which
the peerages of Portugal and her colonies are kept, and which looked
so picturesque from the steamer, Moorish architecture in yellow brick.
Can you go to see what the irreverent traveler calls “the dried
kings” in the fine church of San Vicente de Fora, where you may see the
remains of royalty of the line of Braganza preserved in glass coffins?
Can you go to the beautiful suburb of Cintra, the summer resort of the
nobility, the favorite of the English residents? No, it is fourteen
miles away, through orange groves, and up, up from two to three
thousand feet.
[Illustration: PLACE DU COMMERCE, LISBON.]
I remember when we were seeing the sights of Lisbon we had one very
entertaining man in our little party who proved to be an American
missionary in Brazil. He had been over this ground before, and seemed
never to forget anything. He told us the story of a Lady Bountiful,
blessing the poor with her generosity, no other than our old
fellow-countrywoman of Woman’s Rights’ fame, Victoria Woodhull, now
married and living near Lisbon. Indeed she is a very great lady, said
the tale, and very gracious to American visitors.
But no! It would require too much time to see any sights more than
the marvelous pictures of three scenes in the life of our Lord, done
in Rome in mosaic after Raphael, Michael Angelo and Guido Reni, which
we find in a small chapel in the church of San Roque in the heart of
the city. About 1740 King John V. had this alcove or chapel made in
Rome. He was a devoted Romanist, had been enriched by the discovery
of the gold and diamond mines of Brazil, so this could be very costly
in mosaic, bronze, porphyry, lapis lazuli, etc. It was set up in St.
Peter’s in Rome and the Pope celebrated the first mass in it, then it
became one of the treasures of Lisbon.
And now you are again on the ship. You look at beautiful Lisbon and
know that if it had not been for Brazil you would never have seen it.
It has been so easily reached from England on this steamer, but what an
interminable journey it would have been by rail! Spain seems far enough
away when one is traveling “on the Continent,” but Portugal! Indeed,
this enterprising, seafaring, colonizing country of three hundred
years ago is nearly forgotten. How many know now that her sailors named
Formosa (beautiful) as they found its lovely shores, or think to trace
her hand on every Continent!
But the anchor is being drawn up and you feel like old residents on the
“Nile,” and hardly know whether you are English or Americans as you
look about at the new passengers, French, Portuguese, Brazilians and
Argentinos; for the English tongue and simple brusque manners fall into
slight minority. French clothes, which these wealthy new-comers love,
are well displayed by their ladies, and you will soon be shrugging
your shoulders and gesticulating dramatically unless you are very
unsympathetic. Your next meals amuse you; for the bill-of-fare which
so far has had English names and dishes, now caters to at least three
sets of people. The English get their bacon, their “grilled bones,”
and their cold meat pies, the Americans have hash (with a foreign
element of grease and onions which the true Yankee would not own), the
Portuguese have baccalhao and feijao (codfish and black beans), and
plenty of mutton stewed with carrots. What else? Good soups, meats,
vegetables, salads and desserts, and one dish daily required by the
original charter of the Royal Mail Steamship Co.--curry and rice!
These people and you are to be two weeks together now, in summer seas,
a most _al fresco_ life. Each passenger has brought a deck chair to his
own taste, varying from the simplest camp variety to the East Indian
adjustable luxury of rattan with bottle-sockets in the arms and places
to keep one’s books, field-glasses and games.
TWO WEEKS IN TROPICAL SEAS.
What will you do with yourself during the two six-day stretches from
Lisbon to St. Vincent of the Cape Verde Islands and from St. Vincent to
Pernambuco?
You find yourself an old resident of the ship now, and mean to gain
some sense of the real life of the people about you. The passengers are
clannish at table and on deck. The English and Americans fall together
in groups according to their taste or experience. The Portuguese,
Brazilian and Argentine elements do the same. If you speak French you
can converse with any of the three latter, for they are not confined to
their mother tongues. “You Americans speak so few languages,” said one,
once, to me with polite derogation.
You soon settle into a routine. Early salt bath to which your steward
calls you on schedule time, a cup of black coffee, breakfast
at nine. Perhaps you have already been on deck and greeted your
fellow-passengers, as they all do, “Have you slept well?” After
breakfast a “constitutional” on deck, pausing now and then at the
end railing to look down a few feet upon the five hundred steerage
passengers, the common details of whose lives are very public. They
are nearly all barefooted, fearfully dirty, and you gratefully watch
the ship’s doctor going among them with energetic disinfectants, and
take perhaps your first lesson in seeing English officers control the
ignorant and unclean Latin. Your admiration rises; for their discipline
is perfect even of this temporary charge. The “Nile” carries a thousand
souls. Among those poor steerage people there are nearly always deaths
at sea, but all is managed with quietness and consideration, and you
probably will not know when the sorrowful burials take place.
You have had your walk, or your energetic game of ring-toss or
shuffle-board, and sit down to rest and read, when up comes a charming
young English passenger and says, “May I include you in our sweepstakes
for the ladies?” and you may be as ignorant as I and answer “Yes,” in
response. “Two shillings, please;” and your best friend will explain
to you that you have been betting on the ship’s run for the day. If
you say no, you will probably be the only woman on the ship, rich or
poor, who has no chance to win, and you must be as gracious and clever
as you know how to make up for your incomprehensible Puritanism. At
12.30 P.M. the ship’s run is posted, and by the time that excitement is
over you go to luncheon. At 4 o’clock comes the cozy cup of tea, when
perhaps some English lady will give you a slice of delicious cake she
has brought from the famous Buzzard’s in London, and you will offer her
American ginger snaps crisp from the can in return.
When you left England your 7 o’clock dinner not only began, but ended
in broad daylight. As you near the equator the days shorten rapidly
until at 6 o’clock you see the sun at the horizon, take out your
watch, in three minutes you are in darkness without twilight. A week
later when you land at Rio de Janeiro the sun will set at 5.15 P. M.
You change temperature as well as the length of your days. Leaving
England with cool weather and thick clothing, you graduate yourself
into the lightest of raiment soon after leaving Lisbon. The water, the
air and the sides of your cabin all maintain a temperature of 82° day
and night for five or six days, and you keep yourself sheltered from
the hotter rays of the sun.
One could easily imagine one’s self a guest at a summer
house-party--the decks some great verandas overlooking an illimitable
lawn of the bluest blue, so quiet is the water. For dinner the
gentlemen wear their dinner coats, the ladies make careful toilets, and
Englishmen who have lived in India wear dress suits of white linen with
short jackets and broad sashes of rich silk.
[Illustration: HARBOR, ST. VINCENT, CAPE VERDE ISLANDS.]
At least four days before the equator is reached the young people,
with the assistance of the officers, make out a two days’ program
of athletic sports. Every first-class passenger is asked to
enter his name for one or more of the contests, and nearly all are
obliging enough to do so. Then comes the fun of appointing judges and
committees; the ladies search their trunks for ribbons for badges, and
trinkets for prizes are selected. Then the two days of “sports.” The
veterans’ race in which old men run who haven’t done it for years, and
young men’s and young women’s and children’s, three-legged races and
“obstacle races,” “potato races” and “thread-and-needle races,” and the
ship’s company is going from side to side and up and down to watch it
all, or try to win, or compliment the winners. Well! you will have your
exercise and many a good laugh, and in the evening the prizes will be
distributed in the music-room by the captain or the most distinguished
passenger.
After dinner you will watch the phosphorescent water gleaming like
a trail of fire at the stern, take more walks with the promenaders
around the decks, and repair to the music-room where your talented
fellow-passengers are sure to furnish a concert, including everything
from the classics to Irish ballads and college songs. Even a
prestidigitator may give you a performance some night. Oh! you are all
great friends now. The Portuguese Countess and you have been having
an hour’s womanly visit; and you are anxious about the baby of the
fascinating English wife of the Argentine ranchman who lives in such
dignity in their little colony on the pampa. The baby feels the rapid
change to summer heat, and you advise the mother to fill her rubber
(hot) water-bag with ice-water and slip it under baby’s little pillow,
and she thinks it might be well and says she has always heard the
Americans were “keen after ice.”
[Illustration: CABLE STATION, ST. VINCENT.]
You will be glad to see land for a few hours, though it is a dreary,
treeless spot, picturesque St. Vincent. Thirty-five English telegraph
operators form the nucleus of the town and are there to repeat
cablegrams from the systems of wires which center there in mid-ocean.
At a center of information, yet what fearful isolation! Other steamers
stop for coal as yours does.
The second Sunday at sea is one to be remembered. It is spent in
mid ocean, in the tropics. In the companionway is posted a notice
of service in the great dining-saloon at 10.30 A. M. At ten you are
sitting on deck, in a fresh white dress, waiting. Soon after the crew
begins to gather, stewards, cooks, quartermasters, every one who can
be spared from duty. They come in neat uniform, white trousers, navy
blue jackets and caps with the Royal Mail device embroidered in color.
The line of men, over a hundred, stretches the length of the deck. The
captain and purser, followed by all the officers walk the length of
the line for roll-call and review. The officers lead the way to the
dining-saloon followed by the crew, then by the passengers. The stately
service of the Church of England is read by the captain; the psalms are
all sung, led by an accomplished English lady at the organ.[1] How
many fine voices there are among those sailors! It is an impressive
service, and you are glad that it is required by law, and that all
sorts and conditions of men join in it.
[1] As the hymns and chants are those of the English Church an English
musician is naturally chosen, and there are always those among the
English passengers who are fully competent to render this service.
After this luncheon, and a deck unusually full of novel readers, for
some of the gentlemen do not play “poker” in the smoking-room Sundays.
I remember we saw during that Sunday afternoon two men whom we had not
seen before. They were reading Bibles. A notice of a Gospel service
at 8 P. M. by the forward hatch was posted. We went; so did all the
passengers. The two new men were the evangelists. They gave out a
Gospel hymn and started it, but no one seemed to know it or joined
in the singing. They read the Scripture and exhorted, expressing
themselves strongly on unrighteousness, betting and the use of tobacco,
while the listeners occasionally took their cigarettes out of their
mouths long enough to smile derisively. We felt pained at the apparent
failure and asked the captain for the cause. “Well,” said he, “these
men are in the world but not of it. They have shut themselves away from
the passengers, the sports; shown no friendliness to the sailors. My
men are very obliging and often sing well when these missionaries come
along, but this sort offends them, makes them ugly.” We saw no more of
the men until they landed four days later.
PERNAMBUCO.
You cannot help being properly excited when you anchor off your first
Brazilian city, Pernambuco--the sugar-shipping port. It lies two
miles away--a low line of light-colored buildings with palm trees
interspersed. Between you and it is the strange wall, the natural
breakwater, which looks as if some human engineer had planned it there;
narrow, level, twelve feet above high water, with the surf broken into
white foam against its side. This reef follows the coast for several
hundred miles, but not always above the water line. Opposite your
anchorage is the break in the wall which would let a lighter vessel
than yours over the reef; and in the quiet harbor lie the smallish
craft from everywhere. At the end of the reef near you is an old bit of
a Dutch fort, and it dawns on your mind that in the colonizing times
between 1530 and 1660 this land was owned successively by Portugal,
Spain, England, Holland and finally by Portugal again.
[Illustration: REEF PERNAMBUCO.]
You may feel very superior in some ways to what you see when you go
ashore, but not in the antiquity of your country nor the superiority
of your coffee. The truth is you are in a life wholly different from
anything you live in at home. You look down the narrow streets at
buildings which remind you of the different colonists who built there.
Close by is a public building, the outside walls of which are faced in
pattern with glazed tiles in green and yellow like your neighbor’s new
mantelpiece. Next is a stucco building, tinted to imitate pink marble,
with sky-blue trimmings. It makes you laugh, it’s all so gay, but it
seems pleasant after all that any people should want their very houses
and stores and town halls to look so cheerful. You are not quite used
to seeing fair-sized children in the street without clothes, but they
are black mostly who avail themselves of such liberty. You look at
the street cars, which your English companion calls a “tram” and your
Brazilian escort a “bond,” and their unsleek little mules with their
long fur all welted where they have been beaten, suggest room for a
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
You ride over the long iron bridge built in Dom Pedro’s time to the
suburb where fine residences make you realize anew how the people
love brightness--for in the gardens are not only brilliant flowering
plants, but wire frames among the shrubbery holding great quicksilvered
balls, and your confused sense is of a continuous Christmas tree in hot
weather with no gift for you. Indeed you feel in a very foreign land.
There is not a tree or plant you have seen outside of greenhouses. The
colors are all more brilliant, the motions more slow, the greetings
more elaborate, the beggars more loathsome, the whole place more
ancient and semi-decayed than anything you know. Every wall is thick to
keep out the heat, every window has its “Venetian,” behind which you
fancy are eyes.
A fellow-traveller on the steamer knows the life here and has been
assuring you that the climate is delightful: that no one ever takes
cold; that windows never are shut; that the same weight of clothing
can be worn the year around; that the foreign colony is agreeable, the
hand-made lace is pretty and durable, and the best “drawn-work” simply
exquisite.
Six strong men row you over the two miles to your ship. Outside the
reef it is rough enough to keep you very still in your little boat and
glad to exchange it for a steamer, and you wonder if you can be quick
enough to catch the ladder as the wave lifts your boat to meet it.
It has seemed to you the last few minutes that the miracle of Peter
walking on the water was being repeated several times about you on that
rough sea, only these modern sea-walkers have a mast and a bench. It is
really the fishermen’s catamaran, a raft constantly washed by the sea,
navigated by a sail.
The ship is as familiar a home now as you can remember, and you think
you know everything that can happen to you there. You have loaded and
unloaded freight, listened to the noise of the ice-manufacturing, the
dumping of the ashes from the furnace-room in the early morning, and
the daily scrubbing down of the decks at 4 A.M. You have watched the
crew go through the fire drill and the drill of manning the lifeboats.
You have listened to the Captain’s stories of helping disabled ships
in mid-ocean, and the heavy expense of it, and learned how they signal
their distress with rockets. You know Sunday in port and Sunday at sea,
how to count the “bells,” and change your watch daily to the new time.
But while you are eating the first half of your dinner that night you
realize that you are an object of interest to your next neighbor at
table, a _bon vivant_ who has made this journey many times before. You
cannot think what is the cause of his suppressed excitement. You like
the fresh vegetables that have come aboard and remember your childhood
when you look at the new bouquets which decorate the tables--such
old-time solid pyramids of posies. At length dessert is reached. The
steward brings a whole pineapple, lifts its cap (the entire outside),
reveals the juicy inside cut in slices which you taste. Now you know
what your neighbor wanted to see, your surprise and delight in the
Pernambuco “pines,” the abacaxi (abà-ca-shee). Make the most of the
abundance of this ripe, rich-flavored, tender, fiberless fruit here,
for you probably won’t find anything else that tastes so good.
TWO BEAUTIFUL BAYS.
It is two days from Pernambuco to Bahia. The ship does not keep in
sight of land, for coast currents are not safe.
I remember well our anchoring in 1895, in the great bay--Bahia means
bay--surrounded by bluffs on which the bright-colored buildings of the
city show to fine advantage. The fleet of little boats rowed out the
mile to meet us. The Presbyterian missionary friends we had known so
pleasantly in our own land, the Chamberlains and the Kolbs, were in one
of them and we no longer felt unknown and far away.
Mr. Chamberlain said, “We came out to see you and Bishop Granbery.”
“The Bishop is not on this ship,” we replied. But persistent
investigation discovered him, his wife, and the Secretary of
the Foreign Mission Board of the Methodist Church South in the
“second-class.” The quarters located over the screw had kept them
miserable from the constant vibration and seasick the entire voyage, so
they were thoroughly used up.
Whoever has read “The Bishop’s Conversion”[2] will appreciate the
story. Most merchants “economize some other way.” There are differing
views of this economy among missionaries, and individual needs should
enter into the decision, but the nervous system should be strong to
endure the perpetual motion of the screw.
[2] Published by the Methodist Book Concern.
That half-day in Bahia harbor with our friends was a taste of missions
at short range. Their flourishing school had just closed. It was a
new venture with Miss Laura Chamberlain for principal. The last day
of school had been a memorable one, visited by parents who sent their
children with fear and trembling, but who came to see the ending with
pride and astonishment. The secular papers had commented unrequested
on the high quality of instruction--a brave deed there where
Protestantism had no friends. The Brazilian owner of a great factory in
a suburb had been present and proposed to pay the expenses of such a
school among his employees if “we” could provide such teachers. How we
all planned! How worth while it seemed to live! to plan schools for a
great state in which only sixteen in a hundred could read! even if it
were only for two schools, “ours” and the factory owner’s.
Mr. Chamberlain had just returned from his first long journey in the
saddle away, away into the interior of the state, and found material
for Gospel teaching which filled him with enthusiasm--the sturdy
“cowboys,” men clad in leather, of fine physique and stamina. “Rough
Riders” were not then renowned, but Mr. Chamberlain’s prophetic eye saw
his men as they might be and longed to get plenty of help and be at
work to realize the vision.
The religious history of the state of Bahia has been making since that
day, but not without persecution. A third school was planted, and
grew, out on the nearest edge of “the interior” at the cattle-market,
Feira St. Anna, in spite of warnings of priests and Romish fanatics,
with Christine Chamberlain as principal teacher, beloved by the
children and admired by their parents, who needed such goodness,
efficiency and magnetism as hers to overcome their fear of a Protestant
school. Now the burning torch which was beginning to lighten that dark
spot has been taken away to the land where there is no more night.
Both Miss Chamberlain and her Brazilian assistant, Noemi, have died
of fever, contracted while going through an unsanitary part of Bahia
on a visit of friendly inspection to that “factory school.” And the
factory school is like a green bay tree. The patron was warned that it
might cost him his friends and even his great business, but he has been
determined to accomplish such instruction for his people in spite of
the fact that the Bible was to be used as freely as any text-book. He
is a convert to modern (Christian) education.
Pretty Bahia seems more nearly in a comatose state than the other
Brazilian cities you have heard described so freely on the steamer. You
gather that there is less intelligence, more superstition, less broad
public spirit, more fevers, less elegance of speech and courtesy of
manner. Your steamer does not wait long enough for you to verify these
impressions. You only climb the bluff in an elevator, go in a bond to
see pretty suburban residences, passing consular offices with their
national colors. You come back through the narrowest of streets, and
stop at one church “of Our Lady,” and have a hurried look within. It is
old-looking, bare and dirty to your eyes, and the image of the little
Christ in His mother’s arms shocks you by its ugliness and frippery.
Hung about are waxen imitations of arms, legs, heads, etc., with sores
and various ailments depicted on their surfaces. You recognize them as
the offerings you have heard about, and to be found in many churches,
of sufferers who plead with the Mother of Our Lord to heal their
diseases. Time and dust do not make these objects more pleasing to the
eye.
Back again you row to the ship and dine, then go on deck. Forget the
few unpleasant things you saw ashore, remember the palms and the
colors, and give yourself up to the pleasure of the soft night-air and
that great crescent of lights--electric and gas--from the water’s edge
to the height of the bluff, with the lighthouse shining nobly at the
point.
Some new passengers have come for the south, one coffee-merchant, from
Boston, you are told; the others all Brazilian. You have never met
people more courteous than this Brazilian Senator and his wife, but
their manners are very conservative compared with their countrymen,
who are now taking leave of each other after a champagne party given
down in the dining-saloon by those about to sail. The men literally
embrace each other, in true Brazilian style, patting each other’s
shoulder-blades, and their kissing is on both cheeks. A criticism I
once heard there of an average gentleman of the United States was, “He
had no manners whatever. Why, he did not even know enough to shake
hands.” So from now on you must have your hand ready, and soon learn
_bom dia_, good-day, to say to every one you really meet.
[Illustration: DR. MANOEL FERRAZ DE CAMPOS SALLES PRESIDENT OF BRAZIL]
[Illustration: DONA ANNA GABRIELLA DE CAMPOS SALLES. WIFE OF THE
PRESIDENT.]
A little over two days and you are about to enter the famous harbor of
Rio de Janeiro. Deeply serrated mountains form the coast, with varying
altitudes from one to four thousand feet, and the city of four hundred
thousand people is so crowded by these precipitous heights that it
must wind its way up several valleys and over the lesser hills with at
least two cog-wheel railroads to the upper levels. These items have
been told you by some new friends you have made on the ship, who are
generous with all they know; and one man even brings you a paragraph
he has copied from the _Encyclopedia Britannica_, which says: “The Bay
of Rio de Janeiro has been the subject of poetic panegyric ever since
it was discovered; and the traveler who comes to it after a voyage
round the world seems as susceptible to its charm as if it were his
first tropical experience. This bay is the very gate to a tropical
paradise. There is nowhere so bold a coast, such a picturesque cluster
of mountains, such a maze of inlets and outlets, such a burst of
all-pervading vegetation. The actual entrance between Fort São João and
Fort Santa Cruz is 1700 yards wide. Within there are fifty square miles
of anchorage, or even more for vessels of light draught, the bay having
a width varying from two to seven miles, and stretching inland from the
sea for sixteen miles. Its coast line, neglecting minor indentations,
measures sixty miles. Such a sheet of water would be beautiful
anywhere; but, when on all sides it is surrounded by hills of the most
varied contour, the beauty is enhanced a thousandfold. Its surface is
broken by a large number of islands from Governor’s Island, six miles
long, down to the little clusters.” This man, by the way, started
from England for the round trip of the “Nile,” making altogether a
two months’ voyage. He has a large state-room, with books, mostly of
science and reference.
For seventeen days you have heard of Rio, and Rio, and Rio, on deck and
at table; for many of your companions live there or are eager to see it
for the first time. You are up by six o’clock to lose none of the early
morning view. The ship is nervous among the shore currents outside the
harbor, then makes one great plunge over the bar, whereat all the old
residents laugh familiarly, and glides in stately quiet within the
smooth harbor.
[Illustration: DOCKS AND ARSENAL, RIO DE JANEIRO.]
You have had your early black coffee, so stay with all the rest to take
in the exquisite beauty. Seeing is better than being told. Your lungs
drink in the soft air. Your eyes drink in the forms and colors. Here is
the old Sugar Loaf, sheer rock a thousand feet up out of the water, a
sharp cone, gray, softened by green mosses, the sentinel of the city.
There is the city built to the water’s edge, with sharp hills in the
midst, crowned each with a church, “built in Jesuit style.” The groups
and alleys of the royal palms are tall and straight, some of them a
hundred feet in height, your neighbor says.
The ship anchors not unduly near another ship. There are many others,
warships and sailing vessels and steamers, “tramps” and “regular
liners.” In an incredibly short time a fleet of launches and row-boats
surround you, and happy are you if you, too, find some one there to
meet you. Here is an Englishman to meet the gentle wife and troop of
little children he sent “home” a year ago to build up in cold weather.
You look the other way at the bank clerk sent to meet two new recruits,
and at the manager of an American coffee firm who comes to meet the
man who is to be his substitute while he goes “home” for six months’
change. But perhaps you are most interested to see the Scotchman who
has come for his bride, for she has been such a cosy, little body all
the way down. She sailed “in care of the captain,” brought her wedding
dress, her wedding cake and requisite legal papers along, has been
everybody’s helper and nobody’s trouble, and finally has the nickname
of Sammy, which is short for good Samaritan. She will have a Brazilian
civil marriage service first, then the chaplain of the Church of
England will perform a religious one, and three weeks after she lands
the British consul will marry the couple a third time and the notice
can be recorded “at home.” England does not intend to countenance
runaway marriages. At the end of the third service you may telegraph
your good wishes to “the Bride of the Nile.”
The American knows the Rio Secretary of the International Young Men’s
Christian Association, and invites him to the steamer breakfast, of
which nearly all now partake, both passengers and visitors. You and
your husband are invited to be of the party to go ashore in that
launch, and spend the day till four o’clock sight-seeing. You are
advised to spend your nights in Petropolis; for it is beautiful up
there, and a slight risk to stay down in the city at night on account
of “the fever.”
You prove during that first day in Rio that the narrow streets are
lined with really interesting stores containing goods quite beautiful,
but very expensive. You see French clothes and fine diamonds;
brilliant birds, stuffed; and humming-birds set in gold for jewelry;
feather flowers of the most beautiful colors, made from the natural,
undyed plumage of tropical birds--crimson, pink and snow-white rose
buds, pale pink morning-glories, scarlet coffee-cherries, all with
green feather foliage. Such blossoms would not suffer in your bonnet if
you wore them in the rain, but no one does it.
You stop a moment at the large music-store, having its own and foreign
publications, and there catch the first strains of a Brazilian Tango,
the dance of Spanish rhythm which you find quite new and fascinating.
You will hear this same rhythm many times before you leave Brazil, but
will not find it used for dancing.
You visit the large and elegant library building, containing they say
one hundred and twenty thousand volumes, but see no readers. It was of
royal origin long ago.
You go to see the new Young Men’s Christian Association Building,
the only one in Brazil, while your guide, Mr. Myron Clark, from
Minneapolis, tells you the demand upon it in this port, and you wish it
were not such a struggle to raise money for it. “The foreigners” are
quite ready to contribute to the English hospital, for any of them may
need its care; but the use of a Y. M. C. A. is not familiar to many of
them. How shall it get the money it deserves?
You go to see the National Art Gallery and find a few good pictures
of local feeling or history, but otherwise the work of artists who
have studied in Paris. You have climbed one precipice of five hundred
feet by the “Plano inclinado,” looked down over the brilliant city
flecked with palms, and followed the substantial aqueduct “built by
the Jesuits” long ago, which brings water into town from the heights,
over arches at first low, but rising about a hundred feet across one
valley. The masonry is stuccoed, moss-grown, fern-draped; the water
pure and refreshing. You ascend to the top of Corcovado, twenty-five
hundred feet high, by another cog-wheel railroad, and find a little
shelter-house at the peak from which you see the wonderful view of
city, bay, other mountains and ocean bathed in light; then hurry down
to get the “barca,” the large fine ferry-boat which takes you ten
miles across the bay on your way to Petropolis. It leaves at four in
the afternoon. How you love that sail in the soft air across that
beautiful bay! You look forward to the great Organ Mountains up which
you will soon be climbing, and wonder what harmonies came from those
giant fluted pipes when the morning stars sang together. You have good
company, English, German and American in addition to the Brazilian.
Too soon you are in the train which speeds along the few level miles,
then dismembers and climbs the heavy grade in sections. You will never
forget the outlook from these windows and wonder if so much beauty has
existed all these years known to so few.
PETROPOLIS.
Four thousand feet up, and back from all sight of the harbor, you
reach Petropolis, built first as the summer residence of the Emperor,
Dom Pedro, and named for himself. It is a beautiful town, the home of
rich Brazilians, foreign merchants and foreign legations, for it is
the diplomatic center. While you stay at the English Pensáo Honoria,
some ship-friends are near by at the Hungarian Pensáo Central, both
with unusually good food and service. In the garden great bushes of
the camelia are covered with waxen blossoms and the poinsettia blazes
beside a hedge of heliotrope. Humming-birds dart in and out among the
shrubs. Through the middle of every street runs the mountain stream in
a stone-curbed channel, spanned by Indian-red bridges at the street
crossings.
[Illustration]
Dom Pedro was the “village improvement society,” and the main street
is still called the “Rua Imperador” although it was renamed when he
was banished. The town follows the narrow valleys between hills always
green. The gardens are bewildering in their profusion of flowers.
Lilies blossom as they do in California. Orange trees perfume the air.
The verandas are but a step up from the ground, and the rooms open upon
the verandas. You feel little need for a house. Only hotels and palaces
are two stories high; the rest are one.
The British Minister, the American, the Swedish, the Belgian, the
German, the Argentine, with their suites, are soon recognizable. You
go to call on your American Minister, find it is an afternoon “at
home,” and imagine you know what the confusion of tongues was like,
for all the other kinds of foreigners are there. You go also to call
on the Methodist missionary, sent by the Southern Church from Georgia.
He is the only Protestant minister living in this region except the
German Lutheran, who is the shepherd of a colony of good German workers
imported by the Emperor long ago.
These Methodists have begun with a school instead of a church, and
have honored their work by buying a beautiful building in beautiful
grounds for a seminary, which is the only rival of the school of the
nuns in the old imperial palace. These are both boarding as well
as day-schools. You smile when you become conscious of some of the
difficulties these teachers have in preparing text-books and explaining
general literature, for the North Star is not visible--the Southern
Cross has taken its work. December, January and February are the
hottest months; Christmas will probably be scorching; the sun shines in
at the north windows, and the farther south you go the colder it grows;
for you are south of the equator. Have Australia and South Africa and
South America had to read all our best literature all these years with
a commentary to make it intelligible!
The Portuguese days of the week suggest Old and New Testament instead
of the heathenish origin of Anglo-Saxon names:
Monday _Segunda Feira_ Second Market Day.
Tuesday _Terça Feira_ Third Market Day.
Wednesday _Quarta Feira_ Fourth Market Day.
Thursday _Quinta Feira_ Fifth Market Day.
Friday _Sexta Feira_ Sixth Market Day.
Saturday _Sabbado_ The Sabbath.
Sunday _Domingo_ The Lord’s Day.
You have made several friends among coffee, insurance, banking,
exchange, diplomatic and missionary people, and have discovered mutual
friends “at home”; so you have had visits and invitations to drive and
to walk, and now have one for a breakfast at one o’clock on Sunday.
Really just what would the Sabbath Observance Committee do here? There
is no English service till four in the afternoon, to be held in a
hall over a grocery store by the missionary of the Methodist Church.
A Frenchman comes to mind who mentioned with bewildered disgust the
American plea for closing the Exposition on Sunday: “What do they
expect us to do, then! Sit on a bench in the park all day!”
The business men are all at home, glad to rest one day in seven from
the three hours’ journey to their Rio offices and the three hours back,
besides their exciting markets. Through the week they have little
chance for exercise, for the only train down the mountain leaves at
seven in the morning, and one cannot reach home much before seven
at night. The early coffee has thoroughly wakened and fortified the
system against malaria. You see with what keen pleasure the various
parties start off on horseback or a-wheel. They will ride until they
are healthily tired and come back to be entertained in little groups
at hospitable boards. What will you do? accept the invitation and join
one of the groups? or stay in your own garden, and eat your own hotel
breakfast?
In any case you attend the service in the hall, in company with thirty
or forty others. Double this number in town are English or Americans.
One of the Methodist schoolteachers plays the harmonium. Moody and
Sankey hymns are sung. It is more nearly a piece of North America
than anything you have seen since you left that beloved spot, but the
setting is foreign, from the different wall-paper patterns to the very
wide boards of very hard wood which compose the bare floor, and the
foreign-looking houses you see through the window. Your missionary
preacher has held a Portuguese service, attended by the poor, in the
morning, and a collection keeps this English service self-supporting,
so far as room-rent goes.
You must make another trip to Rio. This time your first objective point
will be the Botanical Garden, with its magnificent alley of palms,
its more beautiful alley of bamboos, old tamarind trees and other
attractions. You will not be disappointed in the beauty, but you will
be surprised to find yourself there almost alone. The “bond” has taken
you through interesting streets, and quite a long distance on the edge
of the bay. You have skirted hills built to the top and others too
steep for that. You return to the heart of town in time for a late
breakfast, one o’clock, which you may have invited some friends to
share at a capital restaurant on “the Ouvidor.” You climb a long flight
of stairs to a large, cool, pleasant room with many open windows. Every
room by law must be at least fifteen feet high, whatever its floor
dimensions, and public rooms are always frescoed with old-time panels
and bunches of flowers.
What is the Ouvidor? A very narrow street, too narrow for vehicles,
lined on both sides for seven or eight blocks with the best stores
of Rio. It is also a meeting-place for politicians and newsmongers,
gentlemen of leisure and fashion.
When I went to Rio first in 1884 it was not proper for a woman to go in
the street without some man to take care of her. She certainly could
not go to shop alone in the Ouvidor as she sometimes does now.
When Prof. Agassiz visited Brazil, “on the occasion of his first
lectures delivered in the capital, he earnestly requested the emperor
that ladies might be allowed to be present,--a privilege till then
denied them on grounds of etiquette. The request was granted, and the
sacred domain of science for the first time was thrown open to the
women of South America.”[3]
[3] _Reminiscences._ Julia Ward Howe.
Now she is verily a new woman, being far less restricted. The sanitary
conditions of the streets have been improved. The sights do not
shock her ideas of propriety. Rio is fast becoming a city like any
in Southern Europe, never forgetting its superior natural charms.
Whoever would have thought that the probable presence of women on the
streets of a town could work a revolution! Even the negro porters and
little children are now reasonably clad. I used to apostrophize the
coffee-sack, ripped a little way at the bottom and a little way on each
side to let a head and pair of arms through, as the only garment of the
poor man, but now the coffee-sack serves only its original purpose. The
curious tin trumpets projecting from the level of the second floors no
longer, so far as I have seen, discharge the pails of water which were
thrown on the floors and swept out through these convenient vents into
the street. There are no longer bonds labeled “descalços,” (barefooted)
in which such were compelled to ride.
[Illustration: ALLEY OF PALMS, BOTANICAL GARDEN, RIO.]
This time you must climb the mountains back of Rio for the night. Had
ever an emperor such a park as Dom Pedro made of these mountains of
Tijuca! Thirty miles of park road, swept every week, lighted by gas,
winding in and out, up and down the precipitous slopes of mountains
green to the top! And such green! the green of palms and tree ferns,
of trees with orchids and sipos. Every few yards brings you to a
distinctly new view: sometimes it includes the Atlantic, sometimes the
Rio harbor, sometimes the distant city, more often a lovely valley,
a waterfall, a height of rock all covered with ferns and mosses, and
another stretch of your winding road with a railing of tall, graceful
bamboos growing at some dangerous place. You are shown the spots which
Agassiz specially studied and stay in the old hotel where he stayed.
Why do people go to Petropolis with this beautiful spot so much
nearer? Because, in the summer-time, between December and April, yellow
fever has been known to get a little lodgment even here; rarely, it is
true, but the foreigner who knows his new home never takes any risks.
He will not stay in Rio during fever-time after sundown. He will not go
out in the early morning without his coffee. If he has the slightest
intimation of fever he takes castor oil without a moment’s delay. If he
has taken the fever he goes at once to the hospital in Rio, not risking
the change to the cool heights of Petropolis, lest he might not have
strength to rally in the cold when the period of collapse comes. You
say you would not live in a place where such a sword hung over your
head, but they read New York and Chicago papers in July with records
of hundreds of deaths from sunstroke while their temperature is hardly
varying five degrees from seventy, and in February, when their fever is
at its worst, they read the numbers of victims of pneumonia, grippe,
diphtheria, and find the ills of life not so unevenly distributed
after all. Men on salaries large enough to live in Petropolis need
have little fear of yellow fever. But the missionaries in Rio, the
secretaries of Y. M. C. A., Bible Society, etc., and the under-clerks
of foreign establishments must have it once. How these men and women
have nursed each other through the sharpness of the fever and the awful
weakness afterwards! Do you wonder that friendships spring up under
these circumstances between people who would hardly find their affinity
at home?
Kipling voiced the spirit of such comradeship in a small community in a
foreign land, when he wrote:
“I have eaten your bread and salt,
I have drunk your water and wine,
The deaths ye died I have watched beside
And the lives that ye lead were mine.
“Was there aught that I did not share,
In vigil, or toil, or ease,
One joy or woe that I did not know,
Dear hearts across the seas?
“I have written the tale of our life,
For a sheltered people’s mirth,
In jesting guise--but ye are wise,
And ye know what the jest is worth.”
[Illustration: STATE OF S. PAULO (MASSACHUSETTS SHOWS RELATIVE SIZE).]
SANTOS AND SOME BRAZILIANS.
Though you are so comfortable and happy in Petropolis with frequent
excursions to Rio, you cannot leave Brazil without a trip to Santos and
São Paulo. Perhaps you never heard of these places before you arrived,
but now they are all-important. You recall “Santos” as a mark stuck
in coffee-bags at your grocer’s at home. Here you know it is the port
which ships the greatest amount of coffee to Europe and North America
of any in the world--millions and millions of dollars’ worth. And São
Paulo, a city of 200,000, is the capital of a great and wealthy state
of the same name, lying up on the high table-land forty miles from
Santos, its port.
You study the daily papers for a “_vapor_” (steamer) to take you these
two hundred miles farther south, and find them due from every port in
Europe, freighters with cabins for a few passengers. It is a rather
rough voyage, but after twenty hours you round the island which lies in
front of Santos, making the Santos “river” a quiet harbor.
Every flag flies in that harbor, but how the seamen hate it on account
of the awful scourge of yellow fever six years ago, when forty or fifty
vessels were abandoned there for lack of living crews to take them out.
The sanitary conditions are improved since then, and you may safely
sleep on the seashore near by, and go into town during the day. The
stone quays are now fine. The narrow streets are laden with the odor
of green coffee. Barefooted Portuguese and negroes are the beasts of
burden. They walk rapidly up a gang-plank with two coffee-bags, each
weighing one hundred and thirty-two pounds, on the two shoulders and
meeting over the head; then, with a quick motion, dump the bags into
the ship’s hold.
[Illustration: RAILWAY STATION, SANTOS.]
The bright-colored houses and the palms are like those you love in
every Brazilian town. The women mostly sit in the windows, idle,
ill-clad and untidy. The mountains climb abruptly behind the half-dozen
streets. When you go to São Paulo you will climb those mountains by an
English railway, starting from a good station.
By the station stands one of the oldest churches in Brazil, dating
back perhaps to 1550, the Romish church of Saint Antonio. It contains
a curious chapel, wainscoted high with blue and white tiles (Delft?)
forming a panoramic picture. In the center of the chapel an image of
Christ, with the heart exposed, has lines of rope running taut from the
heart to the images of the saints grouped about him--“Will draw all men
unto me.” It is very realistic, very crude, really revolting, but very
illustrative also.
The island which shuts Santos from the vast Atlantic, stretching down
towards the South Pole, has on its ocean side a succession of beaches
each a mile or more in length separated by rocky promontories. In
the most spacious of these _praias_ a Brazilian syndicate has built
a “Brazilian Monte Carlo,” called Guaruja, consisting of hotel,
cottages, a Catholic church with never a service in it, a theater, and
a Casino where roulette was wont to be played every night and Sundays.
If you stay at Santos you will find this spot safe from yellow fever,
and your first twenty-four hours will convince you that you have found
the climate of Paradise. You are at the edge of the south temperate
zone. For weeks the temperature will not vary five degrees from seventy
Fahr. day or night. The lines of nature are exquisite--the slopes of
the hills, the curve of the smooth, hard, sandy beach. The air is soft
to breathe.
The hotel is filled with large Brazilian families, some from the
city of São Paulo, others from the great coffee plantations farther
interior. They are typical wealthy Brazilians. Some have been sent by
their doctors for sea-bathing. The number of baths is prescribed, and
taken literally and seriously at six o’clock in the morning. Some have
come for gaiety, relief from the monotony of life on a plantation. Some
from São Paulo were “monarchists,” do not like the new republic, go to
Paris where the Brazilian Princess holds a little court, and bring back
French clothes which may enable you to take to New York some fashions
in advance from the remote suburb of Santos!
A good quartet plays for dancing in the hotel _sala_ (parlor) every
night, especially Sundays. The Casino is the next building, and a wail
goes up because the state government, in what is considered an excess
of virtue, has sent soldiers to prevent gambling there.
All the ladies speak French fluently and their piano-playing is
brilliant. They use the time which we bestow upon “an all-round
education” upon these accomplishments, and marry by the time they are
sixteen. Some time they will go to Paris. Now they are over-run by
their many little children, and usually look older than they really are.
You are puzzled to know who belongs to whom. The wife of Senhor de
Couto is Dona Margarida. The mother of Senhor Antonio Prado is Dona
Veridiana. The wife of the nation’s president, Campos Salles, is Dona
Anna Gabriella. They might all be members of a royal family, or belong
to the time of the patriarchs, so far as their use of names goes. When
the narrow gauge train brings the papas at night to the front of the
hotel there is pleasant excitement. The sons kiss the hands of their
fathers respectfully. You will select the lawyers and doctors by the
distinctive gem each wears in his ring, diamond or emerald. The barons
are mostly owners of coffee plantations, and the many commissarios are
the coffee factors who often advance much money “up country” to perfect
and bring down the coffee to the port. You meet them all easily on the
verandas or in the park which borders the beach.
The park itself deserves your interest; for the neighboring forests
have yielded their palms, aloes and dragon’s blood to beautify it, and
the little summer houses are thatched with blossoming air-plants all
pink and green.
Your strong, good coffee and fresh French bread are brought to
your bedroom at seven in the morning, and then, before the sun is
unpleasantly strong, you have your walk on the beach after watching the
little narrow gauge train start with the business men for Santos. At
eleven you go to the dining-room for a four or five course breakfast.
At four o’clock you will make your own tea on your spirit lamp and have
some of Huntley and Palmer’s biscuits. (When the “biscuits” are eaten
the box is just what you want to keep your kid gloves from mold and
your gluey laces from being eaten by insects. I was not surprised to
read of a British Bible Society making Bibles for Central Africa of a
size and shape “to fit in biscuit boxes,” that they may be preserved
from the ravages of ants, these biscuits being for sale in all such
climates.) At five the Brazilians begin to dine. You wait till six,
but some are still in the dining-room. You wonder at the parents, who
give wine out of their own bottles to babies not more than two or three
years old; and at the seven-year-old who invites a half dozen of her
own age to dine with her on her birthday, and at the close of the
meal has her health drunk in champagne by her mates with experienced
clinking of glasses. You make a note of the little American boy five
years old, lately arrived, who quickly learns the ways of the country.
He asks his mother for a bag of marbles and some money. “What is the
money for, my son?” “Why you can’t play marbles here unless you play
for money,” says the wee man.
You watch the new arrivals and wonder what are the relationships in
this big family--a father, two mothers, or aunts, or what? with those
children. You soon appreciate the exalted place given to the godmother,
and she it is who is neither aunt nor mother at that table--a law
unto herself and them. Of course she is invited when the family comes
to the seashore! I remember an Anglo-Brazilian gentleman once became
very angry at this same hotel because he was not given a very good
room, “and my _compadre_ (associate father, god-father of the son) the
President of this hotel company!”
You watch the keen, unprincipled-looking boy just down from the great
Jesuit school with whom the hotel manager is vexed “because he is such
a little liar.”
You greet your neighbor on the veranda with good-day in Portuguese;
then she speaks more of the same tongue but you shake your head.
“_Parlez-vous Français?_” but there again you are soon beyond your
depth, and at length one is found who speaks “a lit-tle English.”
You have noticed this young woman before, a modest, bright,
intelligent-looking girl, with an expression just a little different
from all the others, evasive but of a more familiar type. “Where did
you learn English?” you inquire. “At the Eschola Americana (American
School), in São Paulo,” she replies; and you tell her you are going to
that city very soon and to visit that school. You have found a friend,
though a shy one; Brazilian girls keep well in the background, and
next day when a box of flowers, oranges and sugar-cane comes down from
her father’s fazenda, she brings you some camelias and tells you about
the sugar-cane, though neither of you cares to chew it. It is for
children, and “children of a larger growth.”
St. John’s Day comes at the end of June. It is one of the greatest
of the many Romish holidays or _festas_. The “American schools”[4]
do not close for saints’ days, indeed one is puzzled to think what
other schools do with such constant interruptions and the overwhelming
illiteracy is partially accounted for! They do close, however, for a
ten days’ vacation at St. John’s Day, for it is midway from Christmas
to Christmas and fits the school semesters. Dr. Lane, President of
the “American schools” and college, and some of the teachers come
down to Guaruja to rest, and you have many a quiet time to talk over
their work with them, such as they could not well afford to give were
they among their five hundred pupils. You enjoy seeing them meet old
friends among these Brazilian families. You sit out on the veranda
in the evening, while St. John is honored with fire-works (saints
always have fire-works) and talk a little with the orphaned Scotch and
Italian girls who have been brought to school and are being trained for
teachers. They have all been under the weather. It has been forty-five
degrees Fahrenheit up in São Paulo morning and evening for three weeks,
a little too cold for a building with no heaters fiercer than little
charcoal braziers, but the Brazilian children are accustomed to such
winter temperatures, even though consumption has more victims than any
other disease.
[4] “American Schools” were founded many years ago by a Presbyterian
missionary and have maintained a high standard.
This is a holiday for business men as well as schools and the
prevailing church.
A picnic to the bay of the second _praia_ is arranged. The islands
boasts two carriages and you charter them for the ladies and the
luncheon. The gentlemen go on horseback. You arrive at a rocky coast
with no beach, no means of reaching the water’s edge. And there in
sight of your picnic party are hundreds of huge turtles in the water!
The question is proposed, “How much does one of those turtles weigh?”
The inexperienced guess wildly from ten to forty pounds. A knowing one
says they will average from one to three hundred! A French steamer is
passing the island as you watch, and soon will round the lower end and
make the Santos harbor, but she is well out from shore. You never see a
little boat among those breakers. No one goes for turtles. If they were
on our northern shores what would their lives be worth! but here living
is too indolent to spend ingenuity on capturing turtles.
[Illustration: HOTEL AND PARK, GUARUJA.]
I must give you some reminiscences of older Guaruja. The town was
created just at the close of the Columbian Exposition. The President
of the syndicate visited the United States and bought the buildings
for Guaruja, all pine, ready to put together. It looked like a section
of Coney Island and very novel in that land of red-tiled roofs and
plastered sides. A narrow-gauge railroad across the island and an
electric light plant proved the enterprise of the company. Only three
of the many sleeping-rooms in the hotel were lighted by electricity,
however. They were arranged _en suite_ with a light in each, but
only one switch, in the middle room, turned the three on and off. It
was our drollest fun to tease the English couple who occupied one of
the side rooms about the hour at which their neighbors sent them to
bed. If there was a baby there they were plunged into darkness before
nine. If there was a “quiet game” going on next door these poor victims
must lie in a brilliant light until late. These two rooms lacked their
own switches for more than a year to my knowledge.
Two words you easily learn with their depths (or lengths) of meaning
are, _paciencia_, patience, and _amanha_, to-morrow (which means some
other time, probably no other time).
If you wish to hear an uproarious laugh listen to any one familiar with
Brazil hearing for the first time Kipling’s:
“Now it is not good for the Christian’s health to hustle
the Aryan brown,
For the Christian riles and the Aryan smiles, and he
weareth the Christian down;
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white
with the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear: ‘A fool lies here who tried to
hustle the East.’”
Life in Santos--now at high pressure, then idle--now pitiless to one’s
neighbor, then tender as a brother--now mastering business knowledge
of the ports and exchanges of the world as if such accuracy were
all-important, then comes a whirl of speculation in exchange which
seems to take all value out of special expert knowledge--life in Santos
is evasive to one who would portray it faithfully. It seems difficult
to express more than half the truth at one time. If one lives there
a month the personal histories will all be familiar to him, and a
like time on the Praça (Exchange) will acquaint him with the business
characteristics of every firm. It is easy to learn things on the
ground, to get a just and appreciative knowledge of excellencies and
difficulties which is not readily transferrable. There are not only
facts which can be stated, but a spirit of the place and people as
necessary to know as the facts.
CONSULAR SERVICE AT SANTOS.
While these reminiscences of our life in Santos and Guaruja in 1895
and ’96 are uppermost, a figure comes to my mind which deserves your
knowledge. It was still painfully near the horrible epoch of yellow
fever developed by dredging for the new quays. That was why we all
slept at Guaruja, the Barra, São Vicente, or São Paulo, even though
daily coffee, banking or navigation business must be prosecuted in
Santos. Such living was and is expensive, very.
At this time the United States saw fit to pay her consul in Santos
$1,600 a year, since raised to $2,700, without allowance for office
rent and expenses. The port cleared eight to ten millions of dollars’
worth of coffee per annum for the United States, and a large import
business was opening up. The barest existence at Guaruja, or other
healthful suburbs, for a single man, with daily transportation to
Santos, cost $1,500 in gold. But one man could be found to try the
service of our government for this State, and he was an Alabama negro.
He was presumably an immune from yellow fever. At any rate, his income
necessitated his sleeping in his office in Santos, and when even such
undignified economies left him short of funds, he borrowed of the
American merchants. A U.S. cruiser anchored off shore. The U.S. Consul
and American citizens were invited on board. Tide and conditions made
it necessary for the “tars” to carry the guests ashore on their backs
through water about waist deep. The lieutenant in charge prophesied too
sure an accident to do other than advise the consul to wade ashore on
his own feet.
This black man did the routine work of the office, earned more than he
received, and left in debt. Merchants, as consular agents, have filled
emergencies for the government. The lack of a living salary for a good
man as consul in a difficult but important port is the point I wish to
make clear.
The British government rates this as a first-class consulate; salary,
£1,500, nearly seventy-five hundred dollars. Offices for him in both
Santos and São Paulo are maintained at government expense. Each year
here counts for two in his required term of service, and at the end of
the service his pension is based on the salary of the port. Of course
he has been trained to the consular service.
The British Consul when we were in Guaruja had just come from ten
years’ service in Mediterranean ports, a gentleman of intelligence,
elegance, refinement and courtesy. His regalia always adjusted to
a nicety to the diplomatic requirements of the occasion, be it a
wedding ceremony, a Queen’s birthday dinner, a reception or a funeral,
provoked smiles from the Americans. Even the flower in his buttonhole
artistically harmonized or contrasted with the shade of velvet of his
lapels and cuffs.
During his first year the worst of “the fever” was in the shipping.
Sailors from British ships came to his office in all stages of it.
With his own hands he steadied the tottering sick ones, sent them to
the hospital, and knew of his own knowledge that they were being taken
care of. When they died he collected their pay from the ship-masters
and saw that their money and effects reached their relatives at home.
He received while we were there a letter of thanks from an American
mother, whose boy, a sailor on an English ship, had died in Santos. He
had collected his pay and sent home his kit. The mother sent him money
to erect a stone over her son’s grave.
His systematic exercises were a daily swim in the ocean, followed by a
three-mile walk on the beach in the early morning, and two miles more
when the business day was done, thus maintaining his best health and
vigor in tropical conditions.
[Illustration: MACKENZIE COLLEGE.]
The engineer and purser of a British Royal Mail steamer came out to
Guaruja while their ship lay in port. Neither could swim, but both
went for baths in the sea. The current caught one who was drowning, and
the consul rescued him in a seething surf after a struggle to the point
of exhaustion. Reaching the shore, he discovered the other, a very
heavy man, was being carried rapidly out to sea. He swam after him,
but found him dead from sudden apoplexy, and brought his body ashore.
He received a medal from the Royal Humane Society of England for his
action.
These were contemporary consuls at Santos and for the great and rich
State of São Paulo.
The American Manufacturers’ Excursion to Brazil and the Argentine took
place that year for the purpose of promoting trade. Governments fêted
them. Papers and magazines chronicled their movements. Only the very
sad death of one of their number prevented their completing their plan
of coming to the important port of Santos and being received by the
representative from Alabama.
To the most of the American merchants their consul was “that ----
nigger.” To the British Consul he was always the representative of the
U. S., and an individual in a trying and poverty-stricken position, and
treated with corresponding courtesy and sympathy.
En route to Brazil we saw posted in the Oxford, England, post-office,
a notice warning all emigrants against going to Brazil until they had
consulted the Home Office.
A few months later we saw a steamer crowded with emigrants from
Canada enter the Santos harbor. The State of São Paulo had sent out
a statement of the need of agriculturalists. Misunderstanding of
needs and conditions had brought about five hundred poor Canadians to
this “Land of Warmth and Sunshine,” knowing nothing of agriculture,
half-skilled in some trades, or well-skilled in trades useless in
Brazil. The State fed them in barracks for a while, tried them on
interior plantations, returned them to the barracks, tried to obtain
other employment, but mostly to no avail. They sickened. Their feet
festered with jiggers. They could not speak Portuguese. They were
helpless. The British Consul had to send them home by twos, threes,
tens, and scores, on tramp steamers, sailing-vessels--any way that they
could work their passage or that he could secure the money to pay the
passage of the women and children.
A letter from an American in São Paulo, dated July 6th, 1900, says:
“What does our government mean by sending out an Italian Priest
as Consul to Santos? If he were only a priest who had practically
withdrawn from active functions, it would not be so bad; but this one
makes it his first duty to visit the newspapers and declare that he
will not allow the duties of the consulate to interfere with his higher
ecclesiastical functions, and, as proof of this, he left the duties of
the office yesterday and came up to say a 30th day Mass for the soul of
a person connected with the _Diario Popular_, and had it advertised far
and near.”
THE CITY OF SÃO PAULO.
There is one train up from Santos to São Paulo at dawn and one after
business hours. A coffee merchant has extended the courtesy of the
club-car which daily brings and returns the bankers and merchants of
this busy but sickly port. Half the men in this car are Brazilian,
some of pure Portuguese descent, others with strains of African or
Indian blood; the remainder are German, English and American. The
journey takes two hours and a half, so they proceed to play poker,
with a few exceptions, who prefer chess or cribbage, or have a big
“home mail.” They are all too accustomed to these beautiful mountains
to look out of the windows as you do, except to count coffee cars and
estimate to-morrow’s receipts. You see many air-plants lodged among
the trees with spikes of pink blossoms, which look like hyacinths at
a little distance. Close by you would think the hyacinth much prettier
and like its fragrance better. The tropical forest is an impenetrable
thicket. You see the face of it only. A car going up the mountain must
be attached to a cable weighted at the other end by a balancing car
going down the parallel track. In this way passengers and thousands of
carloads of coffee are transported by three successive, long, steep
inclines. At the top you wait until all the cars of your train are
cabled up; the train is joined and starts for São Paulo, over level,
open country.
Judging from the din of porters and carriages at the station, São Paulo
is very much alive. The hotel is in the midst of stores. You are taken
to a suite of two huge rooms and asked a great price. You had said you
wanted one room. Argument ensues. The rooms belong together. You affirm
that you will have but one. There is no access to the farther room but
through yours; would you afflict the hotel? You persist in taking the
one, and at night hear voices in the other and know the owners found
their resting-place by some other door than yours. That was only a
white lie. That’s nothing!
After dinner you rest in an Austrian bentwood chair (the universally
prized furniture, with no upholstery for insects and dampness, nor
joints which come unglued), and read your lesson; for in traveling one
reads all the available literature about the place one is visiting.
It is little in English you have found about the city of São Paulo.
You know it is now the educational center of all Brazil: that it is
more than three hundred years old, with 200,000 people; that it has
furnished two Presidents for the new republic, and many statesmen; that
it has a charming mingling of tropical and temperate climates: that
England, France and Germany have the import business rather than the
United States.
Coming down on the steamer you became deeply interested in all you
heard of it. A nobleman, who shared his Emperor’s banishment ten years
ago when the republic began, was making a brief visit to his old
home. One day he said very sadly to some American people of Brazilian
experience: “What do you think of my country since the republic?” The
gentlemen replied: “It has improved in many ways.” The Count said:
“You are republicans, of course; yet is not my country very different
from yours?” “Yes, _because there has been no education of the common
people, and they have not been accustomed to self-control_.” Then an
outline of what American missionary schools are trying to do for all
grades, “gentle and simple,” in this city, was given, to his great
surprise.[5]
[5] See Appendix.
Here are items you find in your reading:
“Less than thirty years ago it was common for men to lock their wives
and daughters securely in the upper story when they went to business,
or if absent for any length of time to deliver them to a convent for
safekeeping. No respectable woman could go alone on the streets of any
of the large towns.
“The story of Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Cuba is the story of
Brazil and all countries where Rome has held undisturbed sway. In the
seventeen and one-half millions of Roman Catholic Brazilians there is
82 per cent. of illiteracy and an enormous per cent. of illegitimacy
and crime.
“The first missionaries of the Presbyterian Board landed in Brazil
in 1860. Every avenue to knowledge was held by the State Church and
the Jesuits had control. Private schools were subject to priestly
inspection. Protestantism was fiercely opposed by State, Church and
people. Men who dared to preach the Gospel publicly, risked their
lives.”
In 1885, their schools had been opened fifteen years. “Under the
influence of Protestantism, or at any rate coincident with the growth
of Presbyterian schools and churches in Brazil, new and more liberal
educational laws were enacted. Influences were at work in society which
in the near future were to abolish slavery, overthrow monarchy, set up
a government of the people and separate Church from State.”
In 1889 “Mackenzie College” was begun. In 1890 their record stands: “A
boys’ boarding school, a girls’ boarding school, and a day school in
the rua São João, with thirteen rooms for teaching purposes--a normal
department with four rooms, all full to overflowing--an enrolment of
four hundred and forty-seven pupils in all grades from kindergarten to
high school. Eighteen primary schools in different parts of the field
with an efficient corps of native teachers, and a self-supporting
manual training school.”
The report up to date (1900) is: “The enrolment for the year was
546, with a very high average attendance. There were 339 Brazilians,
48 Germans, 38 Italians, 18 Americans, 14 French, 12 English and
17 of other nationalities. Roman Catholics, 427; Protestants, 117;
Israelites, 2. This completes the twenty-ninth year of the school and
the tenth year of the college.” A footnote explains that the numbers
have not grown the last few years because there is not an inch more
room to put a pupil in.
The Rev. Geo. W. Chamberlain was the founder of these schools. At the
beginning boys and girls had not been accustomed to meet each other
with any freedom. Evil was very evil and very universal. A Brazilian
General of high rank, and the last Governor of the province of São
Paulo under Emperor Dom Pedro, General Couto Magelhaes (Magellan,
a descendant of the old explorer), later became Mr. Chamberlain’s
friend, and begged for more American teachers and a larger school for
_co-education_!! as he had now seen it developed. Indeed he said, “The
only hope of Brazil lies in such co-educational schools.” Query. Did
Prof. Agassiz plant the germ of this thought when they went up the
Amazon together?
Next day you take a carriage and try to get a general sense of the
town. You have heard the State of São Paulo called the “New England
of Brazil.” But if you call the city of São Paulo the Boston, the
difference is most apparent. The narrow, crooked streets are similar,
but the buildings are like those in all Spanish and Portuguese towns.
As you go down the poorer streets, one word comes to you at every
turn of your eye, “unclean”--the children, the grown-ups, the houses,
the streets, even the emblem of the Holy Spirit which an appointed
solicitor of his parish church carries while he begs funds for the
celebration of the annual holiday of this member of the Trinity. When
I saw one of these I mistook it at a little distance for a pole with a
cast-off bonnet on top--a cluster of dilapidated artificial flowers and
a bird. Investigation proved the latter a dove!
While many streets are lined with one-story hovels, there are many
broad and quite well-paved thoroughfares, and you see these with
pleasure. Solid walls higher than your head shut most of the pretty
gardens from view, but you get glimpses of comfortable one and
two-story houses, the bright colors soft and pleasing. Now and then
the Portuguese style is supplanted by the French mansard, and you may
guess the owner has been to Paris. Indeed, if he travels far in any
direction, he must go on horseback, or on the Atlantic.
Gas, electric lights, street-car lines, sewers, public buildings, and
parks, all add to the comfort of living in this old metropolis.
You drive through the finest part of town on your way to the Avenida
(Boulevard) and to see the modern reservoir with fine water-works,
and isolating hospital, just built by an ambitious government. On the
slope of the ridge up which you drive, you see for a long distance a
plain, square, substantial three-story, buff brick structure. “What is
that?” “Mackenzie College.” In this city of ornate architecture and
brilliant coloring this solid plainness is nearly droll. But it is
just so much more noticeable. Everybody knows Mackenzie College. The
low, insufficient dormitory, house for little boys, manual training
shop and President’s dwelling dot the campus, not a foot of which can
be spared to be sold if only they can get money to build a dormitory.
Descending to the town again you pass the new Government Normal School
building and go to see the teachers at the São João school. Plain brick
again. Heavy wall around the grounds. What a bee-hive inside! You go
through one full schoolroom after another with Miss Scott. The children
are so well disciplined they scarcely notice you. The faces are pretty
and bright. What surprises you most are the exquisite writing of the
young Brazilian teachers on the black-boards, the order and attention
in every room whether governed by American teachers or Brazilian
who have been trained here, the devotion of the wee new scholars to
Miss Baxter and the perfect cleanliness, system and good food which
Miss Munson secures. Surely Dr. Lane and Miss Scott, who guide this
combination day and girls’ boarding-school, ought to be happy, thankful
and proud, and the men and women in the U. S. whose gifts have made
this school a possibility ought to be grateful also. The children come
from families of the rich and the poor, of title and missionaries, of
many nationalities, and differing religious belief. But the mental and
moral discipline has challenged the attention of the Government to
such an extent that it has been building several remarkable buildings
for schools, and teachers trained in this “American School” have been
invited to assist in developing the work in them. Many are the tales
you will be told, while you stay, of a Boston school-ma’am who was
lent by the American school to inaugurate the first years of work in
the new Government Normal School. The question of Bible and religion
in the Government schools is the same in São Paulo and Chicago, but
the other religious opportunities and influences are not the same. If
any education of our Protestant type is given to Brazilian youth (not
sectarian, but Protestant) it cannot be left to Brazilian fostering.
Infidelity, spiritualism, and materialism abound.
When Sunday comes you can choose between three Protestant services,
two Presbyterian and one Methodist, all in Portuguese, or the Church
of England service in English. Perhaps you prefer to go early to mass.
There is ample opportunity for that, and then the day would be a free
holiday, so says the majority in the city.
[Illustration: GOVERNMENT NORMAL SCHOOL, SÃO PAULO.]
You may go to the Catholic cemetery on high ground, commanding a fine
view of the city. In the thick wall surrounding it are receiving cells
for coffins, which can be rented for varying lengths of time. It is a
reproduction of such a place in Spain, the West Indies or New Orleans,
including the durable wreaths of flowers made of metal, of bisque or of
beads, often also photographs under glass. Women never go to a funeral.
The hearses and coffins are of brilliant colors, purple, or scarlet, or
yellow, and gold.
You must watch the people come and go at the hotel and amuse yourself
again with their trunks. Here is a complete set of French ones--real
Louis Vuittons made for every sort of contents, even one for the huge
tin wash-pan which will be used for my lady’s clothes. How long since
you had seen a real old-time “hair-trunk,” i. e., a trunk covered with
calf-skin with its hair on! Here they are, studded with brass nails,
initials and all! But the tin trunks were the drollest, till you
finally bought one yourself and found how well it kept out dampness.
The tin ones are all sizes and all colors--decorated. Yours is a nice
bright blue, with red roses painted in a stiff bunch on top.
You are rapidly learning the value of sunshine in damp climates. You
hang out your clothing and shoes at least once a week in the hot sun
until the particles of mold are entirely dry, so they will not be
pasty, then brush them thoroughly. Your gloves you buy, without metal
buttons, which discolor, only a few at a time, and keep them with lumps
of dry ammonia in a tight glass jar or tin biscuit box. You do not trim
your dresses with steel. That would rust. When you buy a new hat-pin it
has a gilt or brass, not a steel, pin. You keep an eye to your needles
and scissors.
A few insects will give you something to talk about when you reach
home, but they are not much more troublesome than home-pests.
The flea (_pulga_) takes the place of mosquitoes. He does not keep you
awake with singing, and if you compel careful cleaning of your rooms
and do not cherish vagabond dogs you will not find him a serious
trial after the first fortnight or so. I do not know whether it was a
truth spoken in jest or how to characterize the assertion of an old
resident who said that his own home fleas never bit him. It was only in
other people’s houses that he suffered. One does at least seem to grow
bite-proof.
A borachuda bite is more rare but more interesting. He looks like a
feeble baby fly. He bites your hand in the shadow, on the sly, and the
spot indurates besides inflaming, and lasts longer than the other sorts
of bite, but is not serious.
The barata is like a huge cockroach. He loves leather, shoes,
traveling bags, passe-partouts, book-bindings. Starch and glue are
also acceptable articles of diet to him. With strict housekeeping he
is banished. You see how convenient a tin trunk will be if you really
travel in all sorts of places, to protect a few of your valuables, now
and then.
Now you know the worst there is to know, unless it may be the early
puzzles of an American housekeeper here. First as to ice. You can
get some if you will, but most people do not. It is considered most
unwholesome to drink ice-water. I cannot myself see the superiority of
an evaporating water-jar of porous terra cotta, for it has a slender
neck and could only be rinsed, never washed and absolutely cleansed,
I should think. I admit the chill of the ice-water may be bad in
yellow-fever regions. Most people and most shops have no refrigerators.
Meat is eaten the day it is killed, and is called _carne verde_, green
meat. This is the tempting label on butchers’ carts. I remember going
to dine with a lady who was a fine housekeeper. The turkey was as
tender as one from Rhode Island or Philadelphia. I asked the secret.
She said that before it was killed that morning she had fed it whisky
until it staggered.
Every house of pretension has its “dispense,” or locked closet, from
which the housekeeper every morning counts out or weighs out exactly
what is to be used by the cook for the meals of the day. The cook
usually goes to market, being able to beat down the prices to the
proper point with better grace than the presiding genius of the house.
Besides he or she can bring home the purchases in a basket, and there
is no further doubt as to whether the article purchased is the one
delivered. The great markets are worth a visit. You will go at least to
the chief one, in the heart of town, in a great, light market-building
which would be a credit anywhere.
You visit an English bride who came with her new husband on your
steamer, and is to live in São Paulo. Her wedding presents have
been delayed in the custom house, and are but just received after
paying duties the equal of $400, in American money! It was only the
usual collection of gifts to the average bride, but the duties are
excessive on silverware and on any bric-à-brac or furniture having
gilt mountings. Fabrics and even rugs are dutiable by weight. You have
lifted an Oriental rug. She had one. She also had, unfortunately,
a whole “bolt of American muslin”--too close-woven and heavy for
Brazilian customs. She is trying to decide whether her _sala_ shall be
altogether British or partly Brazilian in arrangement. An afternoon
tea-table will seem like home to her. She settles upon bentwood
furniture, cane-seated of course, and arranges sofa and chairs with
elastic reference to Brazilian custom. The sofa occupies a prominent
place, two mate armchairs face each other at right angles to the sofa,
making three sides of a conversational square, nicely accommodating
four persons. The genuine Brazilian would go on adding to the two
chairs at least two more on either side of the sofa. His guest would
take the chair farthest from the sofa while waiting for the host, and
a seat on the sofa at the end of the aisle of chairs would be the high
honor which could be extended by the host when he comes in.
She has an oil-stove, too, which is an occasional comfort in the cool
evening or on a rainy day when even an umbrella will not dry.
Her handsome mahogany furniture is a comparative trial here, for the
Brazilians have a cheaper hard wood of the same color from which many
ordinary articles are made, and some other would have been far more
elegant, black walnut for instance!
You are by this time entirely accustomed to the universal toothpick,
smoothly made of orangewood, really a perfection of a toothpick; for
every Brazilian has used one at intervals throughout every meal on the
steamer and at hotels since you left Lisbon; also to the universal
cigarette, welcome in dining-room and salon. You also find that they
hold American dentists in high esteem, and there are several good ones
in Petropolis, Rio and São Paulo.
Walking down the street men lift their hats as they pass each Romish
church. Every sort of package is carried on porters’ heads, and the
colored porters often fall into a rhythmical walk or trot as peculiar
to them as the flourish of a black waiter in a restaurant in America.
A pleasant invitation comes to you to attend the English cricket
match, a gay affair, with plenty to eat--and drink.
I remember while I was in São Paulo one cool July day talking over
the news of the last package of New York _Heralds_ (the paper, or its
Paris edition, taken largely by American exiles in Brazil), with an
Anglo-Brazilian friend. We had been discussing the unwholesomeness of
ice. I showed her the subscription list to the “_Herald_ Ice Fund for
the Poor of New York City!” She could only think it $10,000 misplaced!
So true is it that one needs really to live in a given climate or place
to really appreciate its requirements.
Frequently, evenings, there is a blaze of fireworks for saints you do
not know. One day you are invited to go with a party to the “Penha,”
one of the Madonna festivals, perhaps the greatest one here. It is
celebrated a little distance from town, with scores of roulette wheels,
and the people save their earnings for some time to gamble there to
their hearts’ content.
When I was in São Paulo a General Conference of Methodist missionaries
convened. The men had come from long distances, several of them remote
from railroad or seaboard. I went to their farewell meeting. It was
held in a plain, whitewashed room. We were seated on long benches.
There was little modern style about the garments or evidence of high
living in the cheeks or eyes. Bishop Granbery presided with gentle
dignity. Dr. Morrison made the address. He began by quoting the text,
“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust
doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal, but lay up
for yourselves treasures in heaven.” Looking about with a quiet,
half-sarcastic smile, he said: “Brethren, I do not think any one will
accuse any one here of laying up treasures on earth. Let us talk about
treasures in heaven. Any of you who has found a poor, ignorant, debased
soul here, and has patiently put his own life beside that life, and
taught and developed and strengthened that life by God’s help so that
it is purer, holier, more Christlike, will find some treasure laid up
in heaven. It will be the difference between that soul as he found it
and what it becomes.” I have had many occasions to recall that bit of
sermon in my knowledge of American missionaries and their helpful work
in Brazil, and so, I believe, will you.
It will always be a pleasure to remember the hospitality of both
merchants and missionaries. Before leaving São Paulo, you must
accept the offer of Dr. Lane, President of Mackenzie College, to go
through not only his own preparatory classes and college, where you
will find the first working laboratory for chemistry in a Brazilian
school and the first manual training school, as well as plenty of
classic Portuguese, Latin, and other things, but go through the
Government schools as well, where he is always an honored guest. Then
go to Cantareira with Prof. Orville A. Derby, the eminent Government
geologist, and the young professors of the college. It is an easy day’s
excursion to the source of the water supply for the city. A train of
open cars takes you through old gardens of roses, and out to the
mountain streams, enclosed by first-rate engineering, and filtered and
reservoired amid gardens and masonry most attractive. You can study a
coffee-tree (or bush) of your own height, with shiny green leaves and
bright red cherries, the pits of which are two coffee-beans lying with
their flat sides together, and recall the enthusiastic description of a
man who has just returned from a trip to a great coffee plantation in
the interior.
“As one rides on horseback between the rows of coffee-trees his head
is hardly visible above them. Call to mind the hedgerows of England,
stretch them in straight, long lines with just room between for the
pickers. A space twenty-five feet wide between every hundred rows is a
road for carts, but there are no cross streets. Starting from the edge
of the fazenda (plantation) quite rapid riding for two hours brings one
to the center view from a dome-shaped hill. In all directions as far
as the eye can see there is nothing but coffee trees. The only visible
ground is the deep red earth of the streets separating each hundred
rows. It is a rolling prairie of living green, on a colossal scale. Two
months earlier the blossoms covered it ‘like a white sheet.’ A little
later this green will be brilliant with red cherries, the branches
heavily weighted down by the fruit. This fazenda has 1,600,000 bearing
coffee trees. The next has nearly 4,000,000 trees and is the largest
in the world. Now I understand how this State produces more coffee
even in a bad year than all the rest of the world outside of Brazil
combined. Its possibilities in a good year are nearly double the crops
other than those of Brazil. The quality is altogether finer than that
known in the United States as Rio. This is what has brought English
and German capital, increased the population of the city of São Paulo
to 200,000 from 60,000 in 1884, and made the commerce of Santos what
it is. Italians and Germans both work on these plantations and the one
I have just described, which I have just visited, has fifteen hundred
people living on the fazenda and constantly employed. The larger
plantation, ‘the Fazenda Dumont,’ had a railroad of some twenty miles
for use on the plantation, and its connecting line running through the
‘Fazenda Schmidt,’ was used by Mr. Schmidt, my hospitable host, for
shipping his coffee to the trunk line and so on down to Santos.”
[Illustration: COFFEE PICKING.]
HOMEWARD BOUND.
It is October. You choose to leave here before it grows too warm. The
young spring buds are already adding their delicate green to the darker
old foliage.
Rio is reached by rail in fourteen hours. You would like to go home in
one of the great New Zealand steamers which makes the round trip from
London to London in ninety days, and which always carries charming
passengers for the whole voyage by Suez, New Zealand, Straits of
Magellan, Rio de Janeiro, Madeira, London. Everybody here knows what
variety is provided by this journey, not only of interesting sights in
port, but of amusement of every description at sea. They also know when
one of these steamers has arrived by the unwonted varieties of game,
vegetables, and well-hung beef and mutton in the markets.
No. You decide to go directly to New York, for you have come by way of
England, so sail on the “Wordsworth.” Even she is English and there
is no longer an American Line. You will touch at Bahia, Pernambuco,
and St. Lucia, one of the West Indies, and see New York harbor in
twenty-four days from Rio.
Bahia you saw hurriedly on the way down, but it looks even more
attractive as you approach it the second time. It is invested with some
added interest, also, since learning that the court came here from
Portugal for shelter in Napoleonic times; and that this city has always
been the center of Jesuitical influence.
The Bahian blacks, a finer race of negroes than you have ever seen,
and said to have been Mohammedans, make a very strong impression now.
They are physically superb. The low-necked, short-sleeved linen garment
worn by the women is frequently beautified with “drawn-work.” The great
strings of gold beads around their necks are their substitute for a
bank account, for banks are not a convenience to a people who cannot
read.
The Bahian oranges are like the finest Floridas, and far superior to
any others you have had. Bananas are everywhere the food of the poor,
and not better than are for sale at home, and other tropical fruits
have been a disappointment.
At Pernambuco you find you own the wonderful reef, and the pine-apples,
and the catamarans; for have you not seen them before, and do they not
now prove themselves old friends and permanent possessions!
The next many days are a repetition of your former oceanic, tropical
temperatures, with far fewer passengers, and less ceremony, perhaps.
The sea, however, seems trying to compensate you for other lacks by
furnishing interesting creatures for you to watch. There are numberless
flying fish, frightened from the water by your ship, and the delicate,
little, pink “Portuguese men-of-war,” as the sailors call them, go
dancing by on the surface of the water in tantalizing beauty. Do not
be sorry that you cannot get one, for, trailing from that shining pink
bladder, there are processes which sting like nettles.
[Illustration: COFFEE WASHING.]
For a few days you seem almost to be crossing a wheat-field as you
take a long look across the water yellow with gulf-weed which has been
thrown off by the gulf stream and floats at rest on this quiet sea.
Take a fish line and catch some pretty branches, look at the little
fruit which grows upon them and gives the name, grapes, to the sea. It
is called by its Spanish form the Sargasso Sea.
St. Lucia pleases you to see for several reasons. You like a day in
port. You like to know what this one of the West Indies is like. You
enjoy the negroes diving under the ship for coins you throw in the
water as you did before at St. Vincent, and, on the whole, though you
have had a rarely charming summer, you are glad to cable that you are
well and leaving your last port before your arrival home.
The cool October days of the North Atlantic demand again the rugs and
warmer wraps which have been needed now and then since the journey was
begun. As the fresh air blows in your face you are delighted to find
yourself so rested and so easily challenged to an expenditure of energy.
But there are other passengers whose residence in Brazil numbers years
of work instead of weeks of pleasure. They have found themselves unable
to conquer some attack of disease without the bracing and stimulating
aid of a more rigorous climate. They are longing for cold and snow. The
Brazilian air which has relaxed and rested you has become enervating to
them. Foreign merchants and Bank managers expect six months’ furlough
once in three years. Missionaries get a year’s recruiting once in eight
years. Anxious relatives were notified before these workers left Brazil
that the wrecks were going home. Who would believe that twenty-four
days of sea-voyage could make such different looking beings of these
invalids! The prospect of home and old familiar scenes and foods seems
happiness enough to put new life into anyone, one thinks, in watching
these returning exiles.
Familiar faces are waiting on the dock. Good-by. _Ate logo._
APPENDIX.
AN AMERICAN SYSTEM OF SCHOOLS IN BRAZIL.
Nearly thirty years ago an attempt was made to adapt the American
system of schools to Brazil, South America, where social conditions
and political aspirations are somewhat analogous to our own, and we
set about to find out what the American system really was. We sought
it in the official courses, which usually cover the whole domain of
knowledge; in the voluminous reports of Superintendents, reeking with
erudition and statistics; in the schools and colleges of the different
States, which we visited and studied, and in the great educational
conventions. We found such a lack of uniformity of thought, of
organization, and even of purpose and principles, as to leave us in
doubt as to whether we had as yet a distinctively American system. In
some places there was genuine education, in others they were simply
drilling for examination, and not a whit better than the Chinese. We
made an extended tour of European institutions for a comparative study,
and found many special processes and devices that could be engrafted,
and singularly enough, that some of the German methods had their best
development in the United States, but no complete system that could
be profitably taken over _en bloc_. The great problem of how best
to influence the heterogeneous masses which flock to the shores of
both Americas and make them into good citizens is not touched by the
European systems. The problem is not exactly how to teach this or that
special branch, but how to co-ordinate the work and relate all branches
to the rapidly changing conditions of American society. The problem is
the same in both Americas.
We found it difficult to follow the vertiginous activity of American
educators along all lines or to wade through the voluminous
literature which accompanies it, brought from the ends of the earth;
but, believing that there was a truly American system in process of
development, we tried to catch the trend of thought and anticipate the
results. Entirely free, unhampered by politics or precedent; with no
fads or need of seeking favor of governments or patrons, but at liberty
to select what was best from all sources, it will be readily conceded
that we had a decided advantage over the educational reformer of our
own country.
The following, in brief outline, has been in operation for the fourteen
years in the American schools at S. Paulo, Brazil, as a result of our
study, and has been eminently satisfactory.
1. A primary school of five years, with a minimum of 100 school days of
five hours each per annum, for the ungraded country schools, and 210
(a full school year) for the graded city schools. This course embraces
Reading, Writing and the four operations of Arithmetic. Arithmetic is
made the test of advancement, but great attention is also paid to
Expression and Language, and, very early, small vocabularies of the
_two modern languages_, that are to be studied systematically later,
are introduced by the “natural method” (French and English by French
and English teachers), with pleasure and profit to the pupils; thus
in the very beginning of school life the habit of comparing modes of
expression is cultivated, which later will be applied to processes.
Through Geography the study of nature is begun and our relations to the
world in which we live are studied; through Manual training, and the
drawing preliminary to it, _things_ and their relations are studied
and the child is taught to _do_ and _see_ as well as to think. This is
that part of education which society, for its own safety, _must demand_
for every girl and boy in the land. It is all that can be given to the
masses, the very poor, the wage-earner’s children, who must go to work
early in life. Very bright pupils, with intellectual surroundings, may
complete this course easily in four years, as many have done far better
than others in five.
2. A Secondary course of six years divided into two periods of three
years each. This is an expansion of the primary, extending mathematics
to meet all requirements of practical life; cultivating carefully
the mother tongue, giving some notions of the two modern languages;
thorough training in Brazilian Geography and History, with outlines of
General History and Geography; Manual training and mechanical drawing,
etc. This first section embraces that part of an education essential
to GOOD citizenship, within reach of all, but not compulsory--a short
Grammar school course. The second section is a preparation for College,
without, however, special reference to a college course. In it the two
modern languages are finished; Algebra and Geometry are studied, Latin
begun, etc., going about a year further than the average High-school
course of the United States. This completes the common school system
and prepares the pupil for the highest duties of citizenship.
[Illustration: COFFEE DRYING]
The bright pupil who has finished the primary course in four years may
complete this in five. This has been frequently done, and is the
rule for those preparing for College.
The student who does this is ready for College at fifteen.
We believe the tendency of American education is to return somewhat to
the _Humanities_, enrich the secondary school with studies heretofore
included in the advanced courses, and thus shorten the College course.
This is the language period of life, and fourteen years’ experience has
shown us that the two modern languages can be easily carried parallel
to the mother tongue, with benefit to the pupil. It furnishes excellent
mental discipline and has the advantage of awakening the habit of
comparison earlier. There is a slight sacrifice of the mathematical
or scientific side, which is pushed into the next division where it
logically belongs.
The first division in this system aims to reach the great mass of
society and force it up to the level of _safe_ and intelligent
citizenship. The second reaches after the great middle class and
purposes to fit its members for the highest duties of citizenship,
as well as equip them for trade, manufactures and all legitimate
activities, at public expense. It gives a sufficient amount of
formulated knowledge and mental training to enable them to continue
their studies independently through the opportunities afforded by the
Press, public libraries and lectures.
The next step embraces three years of a _culture_ course for that
comparatively small class who desire to take a profession, or
wish a _liberal education_ in literature, art and sciences, as a
stepping-stone to still more advanced studies. Entrance to this
class ought to be guarded by severe tests in order to exclude the
weak-brained who want a degree simply as an ornament and because they
can pay for it. The brainy, poor young man can always find means.
This is the College, reduced to three years. It lies between the
public school system and the specialized University courses,--not
absolutely necessary but highly advisable. It is where the student
is thrown into the larger current of independent action and takes on
the responsibilities as well as the privileges of manhood, either to
prepare for entrance into the higher spheres of active life or to enter
upon other studies.
This gives a minimum of school life, at public expense, of four years
and a maximum of eleven years.
Education will, therefore, be finished at these ages: The large class
of children of the very poor, at ten or eleven years. Another class
will go out at the end of the first period of the secondary (the old
Grammar course) and enter society fairly well equipped for the ordinary
pursuits of life at twelve or thirteen. The second class completes
school life, at the end of the public school course, at the age of
fourteen or fifteen, well educated; a still smaller class completes the
liberal College course at seventeen or eighteen, while the winnowing
of all classes produces the comparatively small group of scholars and
professionals who are able to enter life fully equipped, with such
knowledge as can be obtained from books, at twenty-one to twenty-two.
The student who skips the College and short-circuits from the High
School to the University may graduate from his professional course with
honor at nineteen or twenty, but will always lack that something that
enables the man with the wider culture and discipline to win in the
race of life.
The points in which the foregoing differs from the plan commonly
adopted in United States are: the introduction of two modern languages
at the language period of life, for their own value, to improve the
study of the mother tongue and to develop earlier the comparative
process as mental discipline; the shortening of the College course to
three years and reducing school life by at least two and possibly three
years, leaving some of the enthusiasm of youth for the first years
of independent self-supporting life, also shortening the period of
parental support.
No attempt is made here to indicate the exact organization of the
various courses; the purpose and logical distribution is what is
sought to show. We have been able to see the finished product of the
system and feel sure it is an improvement upon the old plan. This is
the system of schools known as “Mackenzie College” and the “Eschola
Americana” at S. Paulo, Brazil, and is intended to serve, in a modest
way, as a model of American education for Brazil.--_Dr. H. M. Lane, in
The Brazilian Bulletin._
RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN SCHOOLS.
There is much vague talk about religious teaching, its relation to
other branches, the time that can be given to it, its character, etc.
In order to show what we think about it, we venture to give extracts
from our last annual circular to the teachers of the American schools
at S. Paulo on the subject.
General considerations to which the attention of young teachers is
called:
1.--The opening of school is not a religious ceremony, but a
_devotional_ exercise. If arranged with skill it may be made so
attractive to children that none will want to miss it (thus tardiness
may be diminished); if it holds attention, it cannot fail to teach the
lesson.
2.--We may easily overestimate the value of perfunctory religious
exercises, as we may also overestimate the capacity of children to
understand formulated religious truth. The child’s perceptions are
duller in this than in other branches of knowledge, where his senses
are engaged, hence the necessity of grading it more carefully and
watching its effects more closely.
3.--Schools are not chiefly, nor primarily, to teach religion, i. e.,
to instruct in creeds. Considered in its relation to courses of study,
religious instruction is a _means_ for the development of character and
for giving a sure foundation for moral training; but, in its relation
to the pupil, it is an absolute _end_; giving to him, as he can
comprehend it, the saving truths of Christianity.
The first is directly related to courses of study and from it
definite results may be expected; the other depends upon the subtle
and immeasurable spiritual power of the Christian teacher, and no
definite results can be demanded. The first has a recognizable,
educational value and its correlates are easily found; the other has
no appreciable relation to hours of recitation or quantity of matter
and cannot enter into any plan of correlation of studies. It touches
all studies and permeates all methods, the greatest result often coming
from the least matter; its educational value, therefore, cannot be
measured.
4.--We may not safely assume that the child has received from parents
or church proper religious instruction, but we may suppose, in
nominally Christian lands, that it has some ideas, however vague and
erroneous, of God. It is the duty of the teacher to adjust these ideas
to the truth, and so relate them to the child that he may _feel sure_
that _there is a God_,--though he cannot see Him,--Who is All-wise,
All-seeing, All-powerful: who is everywhere and who loves him, the
child, personally; that God is his Heavenly Father; that the Bible is
God’s Word, sent to him, the child, and to everybody else; that God
sent His Son to save the world; that Christ is God and God is Christ;
that God made everything,--even we ourselves are the work of His hand.
These are fundamentals, and must precede all other instruction. The
clearness with which the children perceive these truths will depend
largely upon the skill and spiritual power of the teacher.
5.--The teacher should carefully avoid lecturing little children on
religious subjects. Do not let the idea that the Bible is a Protestant
book get a foothold in the school. The three things essential to
religious teaching are: 1.--The Holy Bible, God’s Word. 2.--Sacred
Song. 3.--With very small pupils, in fact with any pupils, the most
important factor is the _Christian teacher_, who works through personal
influence, contact, example of Christian living and doing--(slow to
anger and quick to forgive). Every child must be made to feel that the
teacher is interested _in him personally_; and the teacher must watch
closely the child’s growing power to appreciate spiritual things.
6.--The Bible furnishes abundant material for all grades of religious
instruction, from the kindergarten to the college. It abounds in
romantic and intensely interesting episodes calculated to excite the
imagination, interest the young and fix the attention,--if the teacher
have the skill to adapt it to the demands of the child, as he is
obliged to adapt other branches of school work.
7.--Every Christian teacher should be a diligent student of the Bible,
particularly the New Testament. Very little formal instruction can be
given in religion in the lower primary grades, much, however, is taught
by _seeing_ the conduct and _feeling_ the touch of the teacher who has
heard the “follow Me” spoken to Andrew and Simon.
8.--No revival or pulpit methods, no pressure of an emotional kind is
to be made in any department of the school to induce children to become
Protestants. Protestantism is not to be lauded nor Romanism attacked.
The Word of God is a cure for all false beliefs and a sure guide to
right living.
The above precedes the specific directions for the organization of
the work in the different grades,--selections of Scripture, hymns,
Bible narrative, etc., and is enough to show the principles on which we
proceed.--_Dr. H. M. Lane._
FACTS ABOUT BRAZIL.
Brazil is one-fifteenth of the habitable world, one-fifth of both
Americas, three-sevenths of South America. It is larger than the United
States and her territories (leaving out Alaska), and fourteen times
as large as France. It has a coast-line of nearly five thousand miles
and possesses forty-two seaports, among which are the largest and best
of the world. Within these limits are found the unexplored and almost
boundless _selvas_ of the great Amazonian basin in the north, a large
slice of the rich _pampas_ in the south, and by far the largest of the
three great elevated masses that constitute the bulk of the continent,
in the center. These table lands, well watered, well timbered and
possessing a climate unparalleled in the tropic regions of the earth,
represent about four-sevenths of the whole country. As a rule the high
plateaus are of exceptional salubrity. These broad areas of fertile
farming land, rich pastures and almost inexhaustible supplies of
timber and minerals are rendered easily accessible through the natural
highways furnished by the three great river systems--the Amazon on the
north, the La Plata on the south, the San Francisco in the center. The
Amazon, among its numerous affluents and tributaries, numbers twenty
rivers larger than the Rhine, and it holds in its mouth an island
larger than Switzerland, almost as large as England.
The material resources of Brazil are almost incalculable. The range of
its productions embraces the products of both the temperate and torrid
zones--the cereals, cattle, sheep, horses, cotton, sugar, coffee, rice,
rubber, drugs, dye-stuffs, precious metals, iron and other minerals.
The climate of Brazil is varied, and on the whole very favorable. Being
on the eastern side of the continent, it is milder and more healthful,
even on the coast, than the corresponding latitudes on the west coast
of Africa, which lies just opposite, across the South Atlantic ocean.
The northern parts are always warm; yet the natives there prefer their
own climate to that of even Rio de Janeiro, where the variation is
quite sensible, though not very great. The part which lies in the south
temperate zone enjoys a delightful climate, will produce the grains,
fruits, etc., of the north temperate zone, and is well suited for
emigrants from the north of Europe.
The mineral resources of Brazil are unquestionally very great, but so
far unimproved to any useful extent, save precious stones and gold. The
conditions for sustaining an immense population everywhere abound, when
once properly developed and improved.
Brazil was discovered about A. D. 1500, and was soon after taken
possession of by the Portuguese, and continued to be a colony of
Portugal till 1822, when it was declared independent, under the title
of the Empire of Brazil. In 1889 it revolted and became a republic,
adopting a constitution and system of government similar to our own.
It is divided into twenty States and a neutral district, where its
capital, Rio de Janeiro, is situated.
[Illustration: THE BLACKS OF BAHIA]
The white population of Brazil is chiefly of Portuguese extraction;
and hence the Portuguese element prevails in the institutions of
the country, in the customs and habits of the people, and in every
department of life. The civilization, though in general less advanced
than in the more favored portions of Europe and the United States, is
still European.
The language of the country is the Portuguese, a sister language to the
Spanish, but clearly a distinct language. It is a beautiful language,
and has been appropriately styled the eldest daughter of the Latin.
It is compact, expressive, flexible, and well adapted for oratory and
literature.
THE SAMARITAN HOSPITAL AT S. PAULO.
A more homelike or comfortable looking refuge for sick humanity than
this pretty red-brick building, built on the edge of one of the
deep ravines that make S. Paulo so picturesque, it is difficult to
imagine. It must be almost a pleasure to be a guest at such a place
and be looked after by the pleasant, sympathetic English nurses. The
hospital is a cosmopolitan undertaking, built and supported chiefly by
English, American and German residents of S. Paulo and Santos under
the direction and management of Dr. Strain and a staff of competent
professional English nurses, who make life within its walls something
to be looked back to with a positive pleasure instead of horror. The
hospital, when completed, will consist of large wards for men, women
and children, private rooms for patients, bath rooms handsomely tiled
and fitted with the most approved sanitary appliances.
The new ward will be styled the “Victoria” Ward, and its cost be
entirely defrayed by the subscription raised on the occasion of the
Queen’s Jubilee.--_Brazilian Review._ 1898.
The hospital had its origin in the Presbyterian Mission of S. Paulo.
The first contribution to its funds was from an humble but devout
Chinese member of the church who, besides leaving in his will a small
sum of money for the founding of a Protestant hospital, bequeathed
to it a house and lot. Under the laws of the Empire the government
confiscated the house, but the money was held by the Mission and
finally turned over to the committee organized to build the hospital.
The hospital has enlarged its borders and widened its work to embrace
all who need its services, of whatever nation or creed.--_Brazilian
Bulletin._
BRAZILIAN NAVAL REVOLT ENDED BY UNITED STATES PROTECTION OF HER OWN
MERCHANT-SHIPS.
THAT FAMOUS SCENE AT RIO, WHEN THE DETROIT THREATENED TO SINK TWO OF
GAMA’s SHIPS.
Rio de Janeiro, Feb. 8, 1894.--The first gun fired with warlike intent
by an American war ship at another ship within thirty years was fired
from the Detroit early on the morning of January 29 at the insurgent
Brazilian ship Trajano in this harbor. A second shot was fired a few
minutes later at the Guanabara, another insurgent Brazilian lying not
far from the one first assaulted. Some of the facts of this incident
were told in _The Sun_ on the next day after they occurred, but the
whole story will be found of interest even at the date when this can
be published after transmission to New York by mail.
The trouble which made the firing necessary arose unexpectedly early in
the last week of January. For some time before that date Admiral Gama,
the insurgent leader, had been in communication with Admiral Benham
with a view of enlisting the services of the American Admiral as a
mediator in compromising the fight that had been wasting the substance
of the nation for more than four months. So far as any one could see,
Gama was sincere in saying that he desired peace and would make all
honorable concessions to obtain it. Peixoto’s Government was notified
of these negotiations, and in answer a promise to submit propositions
for peace was obtained. But before the Government had had sufficient
time for deliberation in the matter several Captains of American
merchant vessels made application to Admiral Benham for protection from
the fire of the insurgents while en route to the piers to discharge
cargoes. The insurgents had notified the merchantmen that if they
attempted to go to the piers to discharge cargo they would be fired
upon.
This matter was brought to the attention of Gama when, as a private
citizen, he called on Benham to talk over the propositions for
compromise. Gama explained his position at length. He did not wish, he
said, to prevent the American ships from discharging their cargoes;
he wanted only that they discharge into lighters while moored in
the bay in order that he might inspect their cargoes and search for
munitions of war destined for the Government. He added that this
right had been conceded to him by all the foreign naval commanders
theretofore--Captain Lang, the British senior officer, Captain Picking,
the American senior officer before Benham’s arrival, and others, had
united in prohibiting the landing of even a search-light intended for
Government use, and the machine had in consequence been sent around to
Santos and landed. Gama, in short, claimed the right to blockade the
port of Rio on the ground that he was the Brazilian master afloat--that
the Government could not function to any extent whatever on the waters
of the bay.
To this position Benham at once objected. He piled up all the laws
and decisions in Admiralty bearing on the subject, and proved that
an insurgent to whom belligerent rights had not been accorded could
not lawfully interfere with the movements of foreign ships within any
harbor. It was not intended that the American ships should cross any
line of fire, or serve as a bulwark for Government troops. It was
stated that they would assume the risk of damage from fire when at
the piers if Government troops took refuge behind them, and all risk
of damage from stray shot. The contention was for freedom of movement
and freedom from search at the hands of an unrecognized insurgent, no
matter what their cargoes.
To the plain statements of authorities, to the bearings of Admiralty
decisions, and to the friendly arguments of the American Admiral the
insurgent Admiral remained impervious. It therefore became necessary
for Admiral Benham to say plainly that the American merchant-ships
should go freely about the harbor as their Captains might wish them to
do, and that any interference with such movements would be resisted
with force. Because Benham was affable and courteous, as it now
appears, Gama did not believe force would be used, and so reiterated
the threat to fire on the first American ship that tried to go to the
piers.
It was on Sunday, Jan. 28, that the issue was joined verbally. Admiral
Benham acted decisively and at once. The Captains of the various
American naval ships in the harbor were called on board the flagship
“San Francisco” and were instructed immediately to prepare their ships
for action at daylight the next morning, that being the hour when the
American merchant-ships wanted to start for the piers.
At 5 o’clock that evening the work of stripping ship began on the white
squadron. The transformation thus wrought was remarkable. With their
awnings spread, their boats at the davits, and their bunting aloft,
they had seemed to tower out of the water, and the English officers had
jocosely remarked that more beautiful targets could scarcely be found.
And so they seemed as the sun went down. But with the break of day not
an awning or a stanchion or a boat davit was in sight to obstruct the
view or the sweep of the long black guns, and the wall-sided ships had
shrunk down into the semblance of tigers ready to spring.
Apparently the insurgents had anticipated and were ready to fight. The
white steam was hissing from the safety valve pipes on the “Aquidaban”
and the “Tamandare,” lying well up the bay above Vianna Island, and
the chains of their anchors had been hove short, ready for tripping on
an instant’s warning. The crews of the “Trajano,” the “Guanabara,” and
the fleet of armed tugs had been augmented by almost the entire force
garrisoning Cobras and Villegaignon. The “Liberdade,” with her little
blue ensign fluttering from the flag halliards on the main, showing
that Admiral Gama was on board, was also under steam and, with the
“Trajano” and the “Guanabara,” was lying just north of Enchados Island
and within pistol shot of the trim Yankee bark “Amy,” one of the number
that wished to go to the piers to discharge.
Away to the north of these lay the Yankee barkentine “Good News,” a
handsome craft, too, but not alone, for one of the swift Brazilian
coasters, the “Parahyba,” which Mello had seized and armed, was at
anchor not far away with steam up and crew at the guns; so, too, the
bark “Agate” was guarded by one of these armed steamers as she lay
at anchor in the merchant fleet. With the American fleet stripped
for battle, with the American merchant-ships under the guns of the
insurgent fleet, and with the crews of all on deck and ready for
action, the picture on the bay as daylight came was one to thrill every
spectator.
At 6 o’clock sharp the “Detroit,” with Capt. W. H. Brownson on the
bridge, got up her anchor and steamed slowly in toward the city,
heading through between Enchados and Cobras islands. As if this had
been a signal prearranged for the occasion, two of the insurgent tugs
left the vicinity of the “Liberdade,” Gama’s flagship, and started in
toward the north part of the city, where shipping piers are. They at
once opened fire on the soldiers stationed at intervals behind sand
bags on the bulkheads. It had been and still is the custom of these
tugs to so assault the north littoral of the city, but on that morning
they were making a live line of fire against the piers, which the
American ships had no right to cross.
Fortunately, as it appeared, the “Detroit” on getting her anchor to
the hawse pipe found it badly fouled, and here was an ample excuse for
proceeding slowly. She did so. She did not want to go with the Yankee
clippers to the piers at a time when the act would interfere with a
legitimate, if useless fight. For about half an hour the tugs swept up
and down the beach, pouring a hail of Nordenfeldt projectiles on the
piers, and then a bullet from a soldier’s rifle struck and killed the
nephew of Admiral Gama, a young officer on one of the tugs, and both
drew off though the fire was kept up until they were a mile away, among
the merchant-ships.
Then when the last shot had been fired and the smoke of the fight was
still hanging low over the smooth water of the bay, the “Detroit” came
slowly around Enchados Island and ranged up starboardside to starboard
and within sixty yards of the “Trajano” as she lay at anchor. Every
man was at his post on the Yankee cruiser, the gunners standing behind
their shotted guns, now glancing over the sights and then up toward the
bridge at Captain Brownson in anticipation of an order to fire. Without
a word or move on either ship the “Detroit” passed on, while the
sailors on the “Amy” started away in a yawl to carry a line to a ship
at anchor, that they might warp their ship on its way to the piers. As
these sailors pulled away a marine on the “Trajano” leveled his musket
and fired a shot over their heads. Then two of the heaviest insurgent
tugs began to get into position for ramming the white Yankee.
At that moment a tiny blood-red roll of bunting hung just beneath
the San Francisco’s truck--the signal for all the American fleet to
begin the battle--and a Yankee quartermaster with a strong hand held
the halliards, eager to fling the signal to the breeze. The moment the
shot was fired Captain Brownson turned to the gunner, who stood at a
six-pounder, and ordered him to fire into the “Trajano,” striking her
at the water line six feet abaft the stern. The gunner misunderstood
the order and fired across the “Trajano’s” bow. Thereat Captain
Brownson hailed the insurgent vessel.
““Trajano,” ahoy!” he shouted. “If you fire again I will return the
fire, and if you persist I will sink you.”
It was a critical moment. The accidental discharge of one of the
“Trajano’s” guns by the excited crews that stood behind them would have
left Captain Brownson no alternative. The “Trajano’s” guns were modern
rifles, and they were aimed at the Yankee. The shot would have gone
clean through the “Detroit,” and the “Detroit” would have replied with
a broadside at a range of but sixty yards; and then, with helm hard
aport, she would have run in between the “Trajano” and the “Guanabara,”
out of range of their guns and where she could have riddled their hulls
with her rapid-fire guns and swept their unprotected decks with the
wicked man-killers called the secondary battery.
Happily, as is known, the shot was not fired, although the insurgents
were still ugly. Instead a blank shot was fired to leeward as a
protest. To this no attention was paid.
Turning to the bark “Amy.” Captain Brownson saw that her sailors had
been intimidated somewhat by the shot fired over them.
“You go ahead,” he shouted to them, “and I’ll protect you.”
So the sailors rowed on with the warp line, while the “Detroit” steamed
slowly ahead until she began to lap the hull of the “Guanabara.” Here,
as on the “Trajano,” the crew stood ready at their guns--four six-inch
rifles.
“Aim at the “Guanabara,” ordered Captain Brownson, and at the word the
“Detroit’s” four broadside and two pivot rifles swung around from the
“Trajano” as though moved by one man and pointed their muzzles at the
old insurgent cruiser. Then turning to the insurgent crew, Captain
Brownson told them to be right careful what they did, for even an
accidental shot would be considered as intentional. He finished his
warning by waving his hand at a gun’s crew that showed exceptional
nervousness and told them they had better get away from the gun
entirely.
The crew of the “Guanabara” were Brazilians to a man, and they did
not understand English. But they were looking at short taw into the
muzzles of guns that were eloquent in appearance, if silent, and when
Brownson’s hand was waved they didn’t stop to argue or even shrug their
shoulders; they went away.
The “Detroit” steamed on until clear of the “Guanabara” and then turned
square across her stern and stopped. She now had the two insurgent
ships that threatened the “Amy” where she could rake them fore and aft
and sink them in five minutes. The “Liberdade” with three small rifles
was near by, and the tugs had their noses well pointed, but should the
insurgent Admiral still wish to fight, the “Detroit” would not need
any help. The other members of the white squadron could look after the
monitor “Aquidaban” and the armed merchant ships.
Although Admiral Gama did not want to fight, he was like a boy who
was sulky enough to need a whipping. Seeing the sailors of the “Amy”
carrying out the wharf line he ordered a blank shot from a cannon
fired at them from the “Guanabara.” As this was plainly only a matter
of form, Captain Brownson replied with a musket. A member of the crew
fired a bullet into the “Guanabara’s” stern.
Then a launch was lowered and a junior officer sent to Admiral Gama to
say that while there was no wish to take active steps, the American
merchant ships would be protected in going to the piers, that any shots
fired at them would be returned, and that if shooting were persisted
in the insurgent ships would be sunk. In reply Gama sent word that if
he was fired on by the American ship he would instantly surrender the
whole fleet to the American Admiral. On hearing this Captain Brownson
sent the cadet back to say that the “Guanabara” had been fired on and
hit. The haste with which the cadet was sent on this mission makes
the American colony here think that the Yankee naval sailors were to
a man willing to have Gama surrender, that they might get away from
the yellow fever port. But, as was cabled to _The Sun_, Gama did not
surrender. He would have been glad to do so, but his enthusiastic
youngsters and his British backers would not let him.
Of the British backers more will be told at another time, but there
was one man mentioned in the cable of whom something should be said
now. This is G. M. Rollins of New York. Rollins has been a mystery to
the English-speaking people of the port. He came here on the steamer
“Wordsworth” about December 1. He lived on the “Wordsworth” for a
time, and then moved to the “Vandyke,” a hulk owned by the Lamport &
Holt line, and used as a warehouse. Here he lived with “the manager
off shore” of the line. In some way he got acquainted with Gama and
the two became good friends. It was on this account that Gama opened
negotiations for a compromise with the Government through Admiral
Benham. When people learned this, there were many wild conjectures
about Rollins. These conjectures were the wilder because Rollins did
not choose to tell people why he came here, and, further, because he
said he was authorized by Mr. Taylor of the New York _Herald_ to send
letters to that paper, while the _Herald’s_ special representative
published a note in _O Paiz_ saying that Rollins was a fraud.
Rollins tried to get the American barks to remain out in the bay, and
promised them the free use of a tug and lighters if they would do so.
At first they agreed to this, but afterward went to the piers. Rollins
would have supplied Lamport & Holt lighters and tugs had they remained,
and it is guessed that Gama would have paid the bill through Rollins.
To fully understand the result of Admiral Benham’s action it should be
said that until the “Detroit” opened the way the port was practically
blockaded to all commerce save that of the regular liners. Ships had
been lying in port four months, waiting opportunity to discharge and
load. Gama had all of the tugs of the harbor, save two belonging to the
Lamport & Holt line, one to Wilson, Sons & Co., one under the German
flag, and one that was captured by the British naval fleet when Boyton
tried to blow up the “Aquidaban” with it. This last was used as a
British war-ship tender, but occasionally towed a merchant ship. The
line’s tugs were naturally to be had by other ships, but rarely and at
high prices. Lighters were equally scarce. Gama would not let the ships
go to the piers, and was in this supported by the foreign war ships so
long as Captain Lang of the British ship “Sirius” dominated the foreign
fleet.
The coming of Benham changed all this. The Yankee barks led the way to
the piers--led at the head of a great procession. The ships of other
nations locked yardarms and crushed fenders that they might get into
the line. Time has been when the American flag and the American naval
fleet have been jeered and scoffed at in foreign ports, and American
citizens insulted because they were Americans. I have seen that done
myself, but the next day after the “Detroit” ranged up along the
insurgent fleet to demonstrate that the American ships could not be
fired on with impunity, I saw the flag of Great Britain dragged in the
dirt of the Praça “Harmonia” and denounced as “the red rag of Brazilian
rebels.” I saw British ship captains look on, and I heard one say,
while others applauded:
“That’s right. By God, if you want protection after this you must apply
to the Yankees.”
JOHN R. SPEARS,
Special Correspondent of the _N. Y. Sun_.
The official report of the U. S. Navy Department states that the
cruiser “New York,” under command of Captain J. W. Phillip, cleared for
action to sustain the “Detroit” if necessary.
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
IN BRAZIL AS A STATE CHURCH
AND AS RELATED TO PROTESTANTISM.
(From the _New York Tribune’s Special Correspondent_
at the establishment of the Republic in 1889.)
Rio, December 29. The church bells of Rio make a great clangor on
Sundays. If religion were a thing of sounding brass, this great city
would have cause to be known as one of the centers of Christianity.
There is a jangling chime in the Lapa dos Mercadores, and there are
bells great and small, harsh and shrill, resounding from hill to hill
and echoing back from the outermost mountains. The Church is the
oldest of Brazilian institutions. On the Castello there is a church,
once the cathedral, with a portion of its walls as old as 1567. The
cornerstone of the Capella Imperial, now the cathedral, was laid
as far back as 1761. The Candelaria, the largest and most costly
church in Rio, has been under construction since 1775. The crumbling
church of the Franciscan friars on San Antonio was begun in 1700, the
Gloria, overlooking the harbor, was built in 1714, and the Rosario
about the same time. Many of the monasteries and convents, which are
now practically abandoned under the operation of Imperial laws, date
back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The churches are
not only of great antiquity, but they have been built in the main by
lay brotherhoods employed in works of mercy. No other South American
city has so many hospitals and asylums in active operation. The
Misericordia alone cost $1,750,000 and accommodates 1,200 patients.
The lay confraternities have done and are still doing a magnificent
work of mercy in Rio, and are imparting to religion elements of
practical philanthropy which command respect and admiration. But old
and useful as the Church is, and loud as is the summons to the faithful
from belfry and tower this summer morning, religion seems to have
little vitality in the Brazilian capital. It has lost its hold upon
the intelligent and educated classes. An American who contrasts the
listless and perfunctory celebration of mass in the churches here
with the same religious service in New-York churches of that faith is
shocked and amazed. What is devotional there is the most mechanical
mummery here. The priests have the appearance of worldly men earning a
good living in religious trade. The very altar-boys, as I have watched
them here, seem to be cutting up pranks with unseemly levity in the
holy places.
A single Sunday in Rio will go far toward convincing any thoughtful
observer that one of the best things that could happen for the
Church in Brazil would be the same rough shaking-up which political
institutions are receiving. I write in no spirit of intolerance or
hostility to Roman Catholicism. It is the comparison which I have
made here and in other coast towns between the Church as it is found
in the United States and in Brazil that compels the conclusion that
the abrogation of the establishment as a State religion would be of
inestimable benefit to Christianity. If the country has required
thorough-going processes of revolution, so has the Church. The
separation of Church and State would tend powerfully to promote a
revival of religion. Roman Catholicism is purest, strongest and more
active as a religious force where it is separated from the State, and
where Protestantism is arrayed against it, as in the United States. It
is corrupt, weak and least useful where it is a State establishment, as
in Brazil, and where Protestantism does not come into serious rivalry
with it. The most sincere Catholic here would have reason for rejoicing
if the Provisional Government were to proclaim a separation of Church
and State. There would then be signs of resurrection among these gilded
tombs of religion.
What has impaired the influence of the Church in Brazil has been the
corrupt and scandalous life of many of the clergy. This is not a wanton
Protestant charge. It is the sorrowful admission of faithful Catholics
themselves. The evil has been one of long standing. When Dom Pedro
II. was in his infancy, Antonio Diogo Feijo was Regent of the Empire.
He proposed as a good Catholic a measure for sanctioning the marriage
of the clergy, and compelling the Papal authorities under menace of
disestablishment to allow its enforcement. When the measure failed,
he wrote a book entitled _Celibao Clerical_ or _Clerical Celibacy_ in
defense of his position, with many detailed statements of fact. The
book was burned by order of the ecclesiastical authorities, but a copy
of it was found in a village of San Paulo not long ago, and an edition
of 5,000 copies was immediately reprinted. The immorality which this
devout Catholic Regent denounced in his day still defiles the influence
of the Church in Brazil. Some of the most active politicians here are
known to be the sons of priests. Celibacy is too often only a cloak for
immorality here. Good Catholics frankly tell you that this is one of
the open scandals of their Church.
This is a time when there is real educational work to be done in
Brazil. A nation is to be trained for self-government and citizenship.
Old things have passed away. New social and political conditions are to
be created. The Church should have a great part in this work of making
a nation. It should be breaking the bonds of superstition, ignorance
and medievalism. It should be teaching men and women by the example
of its own clergy to lead pure and incorrupt lives. It should be
leavening the whole lump of Brazilian republicanism. If the Church were
disestablished and the clergy purified and reformed, it would be one
of the grandest and most useful results of the revolution. For, in the
long run, no nation in its political life and aspirations can get above
the level of the religion which it believes or affects to despise.
1864 AND 1900.
“There is much that is discouraging in the aspect of Brazil, even for
those who hope and believe as I do that she has before her an honorable
and powerful career.
“There is much also that is very cheering, that leads me to believe
that her life as a nation will not belie her great gifts as a country.
Should her moral and intellectual endowments grow into harmony with
her wonderful natural beauty and wealth the world will not have seen a
fairer land.
“Every friend of Brazil must wish to see its present priesthood
replaced by a more vigorous, intelligent, and laborious clergy.”--PROF.
LOUIS AGASSIZ, 1864.
Eleven years of self-government and a disestablishment of the Church
have brought the Brazilian nation out of an imperialism politically
and a greater imperialism religiously. Within two years part of the
priesthood has been “replaced by a more vigorous, intelligent and
laborious clergy” in the State of São Paulo. A. R. H.
JOHN T. MACKENZIE.
JOHN THERON MACKENZIE, the founder of Mackenzie College at S. Paulo,
Brazil, was born in the town of Phelps, Oswego County, N. Y., July 27,
1818.
He traveled extensively in the Old World and his attention was
constantly attracted to the ignorance, superstition and poverty of
the masses in Italy, and the lack of Christian culture in what should
have been the most Christian of all countries. This spectacle of a
lapsed Christianity affected him deeply, and he determined to honor
his father’s memory and satisfy his own convictions by establishing,
somewhere, a College where the Bible should be the foundation of
education. After at least one unsuccessful attempt to carry out his
idea in Europe, he heard of the work that was being done by the
Protestant College at S. Paulo, Brazil, shortly after the fall of
the Empire; a staunch American, his heart went out to the youngest
of American Republics, and he saw, at once, the value to the nascent
Republic of having its youth grounded in a knowledge of God’s Word.
Without special solicitations on the part of the College, he offered
spontaneously to the Trustees of the Protestant College the sum of
$50,000 with which to erect a building “to be known as Mackenzie
College,” and to be maintained as an institution of “learning based
on the Protestant Bible, where in each department shall be daily and
properly taught the teachings of Jesus Christ and his Apostles as
recorded in said Bible.” Of this sum only $42,000 was received. While
the College was in course of construction, its founder was stricken by
apoplexy and died September 17, 1892.
Transcriber's Notes:
Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.
Perceived typographical errors have been changed.
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