Part 2

Stuart, J. esq. St. Vincent-lane, Glasgow.

Stubbs, Thomas, esq. 16, Lad-lane.

Stwewardson, Thomas, esq. Adelphi.

Sydebotham, Charles, esq. Liverpool.

Symonds, John, esq. Old Jewry.

T

Thompson, W. esq. _M.P._ 12, Gloucester-place, Portman-square.

Tate, W. esq. Old Jewry.

Taylor, Thomas, esq. 7, Back-square, Manchester.

Taylor, J. esq. Bradford-house, Bolton.

Taylor, James, esq. Liverpool.

Tennant, John, esq. Henry-street, Liverpool.

Thomas, J. W. esq. Liverpool.

Thomas, W. esq. 1, Cateaton-street.

Thompson, J. esq. 44, Old Change.

Thorp, J. T. esq. Lord Mayor, London.

Thorp, Dr. King-street, Manchester.

Tinkler, W. esq. Putney, Surrey.

Tootal, Henry, esq. Manchester.

Townend, W. esq. Manchester.

Tristram, H. esq. 138, Leadenhall-street.

Turner, George, esq. Liverpool.

Turner, Brade, and Co. Messrs. Liverpool.

V

Varty, William, esq. Bishopsgate-street.

W

Waterhouse, Nicholas, esq. Liverpool.

Wemyss, General, 19, Cumberland-street.

Whalley, John, esq. 11, Bow Church-yard.

Wheeler, Samuel, esq. Surrey-square.

Wiegbers, J. esq. 23, Finch-lane.

Wilkinson, E. esq. Long Room, Custom-House.

Wilkinson, Thomas, esq. 8, Fitzroy-square.

Wilkinson, Robert, esq. Islington.

Wilde, James, esq. Manchester.

Williams, B. and T. Messrs. Manchester.

Williams, Thomas, esq. Liverpool.

Williamson and Watson, Messrs. Dublin.

Willis, Daniel, esq. Liverpool.

Wilson, Crighton, and Co. Messrs. Manchester.

Wilson, R. esq. Clement’s Lane.

Wilson, Thomas, esq. Staple Inn.

Wilson, Samuel, esq. Aldermanbury.

Windus, Thomas, esq. Stoke-Newington.

Winstanley, W. esq. 10, Paternoster-row.

Wingate, J. esq. 190, Trongate, Glasgow.

Wood, Philip, esq. Russell-square.

Woodhouse, W. esq. Liverpool.

Worthington, Thomas, esq. Mosley-street, Manchester.

Wright, George, esq. Birmingham.

Wright, Edmund, esq. Manchester.

Wright, H. esq. Ingram’s Buildings, Glasgow.

Wrighton, A. esq. Moor’s Place, Hope-street, Glasgow.

Wybergh, John, esq. Liverpool.

Wylie, John, esq. Liverpool.

Y

Yates, John, esq. Manchester.

[Illustration:

=A MAP= of the =BRAZIL= _Designed by Ja^s. Henderson From the Materials of his HISTORY of the BRAZIL._]

AN

HISTORICAL, GEOGRAPHICAL, AND COMMERCIAL, ACCOUNT

OF THE

BRAZIL.

CHAPTER I.

_Voyage from England to Rio de Janeiro._

On the 11th of March, 1819, I took my departure, in the brig _Echo_, Captain Henderson, from the River Thames, and on the 18th, after contending with adverse winds, arrived in Portland Roads, where we took shelter till the 21st. On our departure from thence we were favoured with a fair wind for only a short period; and on the 24th it opposed us from the westward with such violence, that it rendered our attempts to beat out of the Channel abortive. We were in consequence obliged to submit to the only alternative of running for safety to Falmouth Harbour, and remained there till the 2d of April. Perhaps few situations can be conceived more irksome than this. To a mind made up for departure, every delay is deemed a misfortune in proportion as the object in pursuit is of desirable attainment, and especially in the consideration of its prolonging the time that is to re-unite us to those we love best. A light breeze from the north-east enabled us to clear the Channel on the 3d.

This part of a voyage from England, though trifling in point of distance, is regarded by sailors as pregnant with impending dangers and difficulties, the Channel being so situated that the prevailing westerly winds, at certain seasons of the year, render the egress extremely intricate. The constant anxiety of the captain and crew till we passed the Islands of Scilly, contrasted with the happy security which they then evinced, were proofs of the importance they attached to it. The feelings of Englishmen on quitting the British shores must be various, and, in many instances, exquisitely interesting in pensive reflections. As for myself, the animated attachment for my native land and those so dear to me left behind produced a melancholy, heightened by the surrounding oceanic scene, which, on the other hand, was alleviated not only by a humble reliance upon that Almighty, in whose paternal hands is the greater or less share of happiness of all his creatures, but also by the hope of a successful issue attending the voyage--

“Hope that whispers promised pleasure, And bids the lovely scenes at distance hail.”

We were favoured with a propitious breeze, which continued steady, at the rate of seven, eight, and nine miles an hour. On the 12th, we passed between the Island of Madeira and the African coast: the vicinity of the former, although we did not see it, was announced by the appearance of sea gulls, the only birds I had hitherto noticed, excepting one swallow and the mother cary’s chicken, not unlike the former at a distance, but rather larger, having white feathers above the tail and under the belly, the rest of a brownish cast. It is said to hatch and carry its young on the water, and is seen, I understand, in every part of the Atlantic as well as the Indian and Pacific Oceans. We met with the swallow in about 40° north latitude and 15° west longitude; it made several attempts to alight upon the vessel, but was prevented by the dog; apparently fatigued, it continued its flight in a northerly direction. This is a phenomenon attending the migration of those birds, favouring the opinion that they visit some southern or tropical climate, during the cold season in England, and is opposed to the hypothesis advanced by some of their immersion in ponds, and by others of their taking refuge in old walls and ruins. That they assume such a state of torpitude as the first would infer is very improbable.

On the morning of the 14th of April, we discovered the high peaks of three of the Canary Islands at a great distance, Grand Canary bearing south-west, and Lanzarote and Fortaventura south-east. The world of waters which had hitherto, from its varied and sometimes terrific agitation, filled the imagination with awe, was now changed into a pacific, but grand expanse, that soothed and absorbed the mind with its tranquil magnificence; and the weather, which had been cold and gloomy, was changed into a balmy mildness and enlivening sunny clearness. Towards the evening, we came close up to the north-west side of Fortaventura, a long island, exhibiting a rugged tumulous combination of peaks and mountains, rising irregularly one over another, of the most barren and cheerless aspect. In vain the sun extended his genial rays over its sterile wastes, where no salutary plant appeared to take root, or the least verdure to quicken. With the assistance of the glass, I could not discover one single hut or human being along the whole face of it. There is a small port on the opposite side, where the produce, as well as that of Lanzarote, is barilla. The wind having changed, a passage could not be accomplished round either end of this island. The signal of “about ship” was given, and we stood for some hours to the northward. Pursuing a southerly course again next day, we came, at noon, close up with land, which, during the morning, a thick haze had obscured. The sun now bursting forth, presented to our view the island of Grand Canary, with its town of Palmas, furnishing a contrast of a very pleasing nature to the island already mentioned. Its romantic and commanding peaks of immense altitude had their tops concealed in clouds, which the lustre of the sun seemed unable to dispel. Its amphitheatre of mountains, adorned with lively patches of green from their very summits, fertilized by increasing cultivation, and in the most luxuriant verdure, down to the verge of the sea, concurred, with the town of Palmas, and a large village extending some distance along the parterre, with detached houses in the same direction of an elegant appearance, to render the scene peculiarly animating and lovely. The town of Palmas, which does not appear large, and the harbour, which is capacious and safe, are commanded by batteries, stationed along a range of mountains to the north of the town. Teneriffe and most of the other islands draw their supplies of corn and cattle from Grand Canary. As we proceeded along its shores, and before the close of the evening, we perceived that its cultivation was not general. The next day, the Peak of Teneriffe was indistinctly seen through the clouds that hung upon the horizon; the height, for which it is so celebrated, is apparently diminished by the elevation of the circumjacent mountains. A north-east trade wind now wafted us forward with considerable rapidity, rendered more agreeable by the delicious weather and salubrious atmosphere diffused around. The familiar and accustomed possession of the prime bounties of nature must be always gratifying to those whose senses and whose imagination are even in tolerable vigour; but to an Englishman, blest with a sound constitution, and over whom the vicissitudes of life had not, as is too often the case, cast a mantle of despondency, to deaden present pleasure and darken future prospects, and who had so recently emerged from a dreary atmosphere, the enjoyment of this, to him, new-born paradisaical climate, resembled more a feeling of sudden and happy enchantment, than an elemental and natural delight, with which Providence had blessed a particular portion of the globe.

On the 22d, we made the Cape de Verd Islands, and took our course betwixt the islands of St. Anthony, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, and St. Nicholas, to the westward, Sal and Bonavista being to the eastward of us. The isle of Sal is frequented by the Americans for salt, which is collected upon it.

On the 23d, we ranged along the north-east side of St. Yago, the largest of the Cape de Verd Islands, but it was so completely enveloped in opaque clouds, that we could see no object distinctly upon it. It is, I believe, more verdant than any of the others, possessing groves of cocoa-nut trees, and bananas. The volcanic wastes of the island of Mayo, lying to the eastward of St. Yago, were not obscured by a single cloud, and the industry of man did not appear in any part of it to have subdued the sterility of nature. It was completely bare of vegetation, except an impoverished brushwood. I could only discover two or three solitary cocoa-nut trees; notwithstanding, at the end of this island nearest to us, there was a small town, possessing some apparent neatness, but without a single tree or any shelter to refrigerate the scorching rays of the sun. I observed a flag projecting from a window, which probably was the house of the governador: there was not an inhabitant to be seen, they were, no doubt, indulging in a _sesta_. The officers of a British ship of war, who had just come to anchor off the town, were preparing to go on shore, and might perhaps rouse some of them from their lethargy. This was a ship of about 20 guns, and we imagined she belonged to the Sierra Leone or African station, in which those islands might be included. No fortifications were visible any where, and it may be inferred, that the mother country regards so little the importance of those islands, that no precautions were ever adopted for their defence. The fogs by which they are usually obscured are attributed by some to vapours arising from the salt lakes; but as the same general law may be supposed to govern such condensations of fog, common to them as well as to the Canaries and other islands of a high elevation, I should be more disposed to think that they originate in the profuse exhalations in those latitudes, and in the increased power of attraction attached to the volcanic materials of which those accumulated masses of land are composed, thereby more effectually drawing around them this gloomy mantle. And, although I am not informed as to the circumstance, it is probable that the density and quantum of haziness are much greater when the sun is in the northern tropic, and diminishes as he recedes towards the southern. From the Cape de Verds, the same favouring gale continued to swell our sails. In traversing this tropic, the heavens present the most beautiful and romantic pictures, and the ocean some of its gayest inhabitants for contemplation. It is here the rapturous scene of the celestial spring. Towards the evening’s sun especially, the firmament is seen glowing with purple, orange, and every beauteous, delicate, and rich colour, of such transparency and matchless brilliancy, that cannot be imagined, as it is never seen in a northern latitude. The diffusion of such an infinite variety of warm tints and other hues, mingled in elegant groups, around the whole horizon, enhances the vigorous power of the sapphire back-ground, or rather the rich blue ethereal canopy to which they form a deep edging, or grand and resplendent fringe. In vain would the most accomplished artist attempt its delineation; he could only look up with admiration and amazement, and, lost in wonder, the hand would be found to refuse guidance to his pencil.

“For who can paint like nature? Can Imagination boast, In all her gay creation, hues like hers?”

When the beautiful and sublime scenes I have ineffectually attempted to give a faint idea of, fade away in the shades of night, and are succeeded by the glory of the stellar hemisphere, turn the eye to the deep, and a blaze of marine illuminations, frequently seen around the ship, in some degree compensates for their loss. This effect is occasioned by the small blubber fish floating near the surface, and Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like these. The brilliant appearance, in these waters, of the bonita, albacore, pilot fish, &c. is only surpassed by the extraordinary change and rapid suffusion of delicate colours succeeding each other during the dying moments of the dolphin. The flying fish are seen in large numbers, taking their flight from the water, alarmed by the approach of the vessel, or the pursuit of the dolphin and other fish, to which they are a prey. The nautilus, commonly called by sailors “the Portuguese man of war,” moves on in slow majesty, with its sail above the water, and secure from the attacks of its neighbours by its poisonous qualities: it lowers and erects its sail at pleasure, which is something like the slice of a large lemon, only that the rind is of a pinkish hue, and the other parts nicely shaded. Here also is the shark, which may be called the destroying demon of the ocean, skulking “about, seeking whom he may devour,” with understood horror of purpose both by man and the marine inhabitants. His approach is soon announced by a general hue and cry from the sailors, who are among his deadliest foes. All are instantly up in arms. Their animated and entire devotion to their purpose, in which every feeling is interested, can scarcely be equalled by the pleasurable emotions of a sportsman at the moment a fox is breaking cover. Every artifice is used by throwing out pieces of pork at the end of ropes, which he voraciously follows to the side of the ship; the weapons of death are ready; and, after striking him, and a struggle ensuing to get him on board, if, by any effort of his strength, he break away, which I have seen, great is the sullen vexation and disappointment shown by the crew. He is usually accompanied by three or four pilot fish, about the size of a whiting: they are extremely beautiful, and appear in the water as if fastened upon his back, near the head.

On the 23d of April, in 12° 34′ north latitude, I was, for the first time in my life, under a vertical sun, now by degrees moving through the northern tropic, and gradually dispensing his benign influence to the regions of the north.

On the 1st of May, in 2° north latitude, and 22° west longitude, an officer from the _Rockingham_, Captain Waugh, a free trader from the East Indies, boarded us, to solicit some trifles they wanted, and particularly newspapers, which their passengers, including some ladies, he stated, were extremely desirous to see. There was a peculiar pleasure in having even a transient intercourse with a ship at sea, and being enabled to relieve, in any degree, their wants. The social feelings, the fellow sympathies of man, were revived with renewed vigour by the idea of our having, on the wide and solitary ocean, been mutually so long separated from our own proper element and exposed to the perils of the deep, and by the new sight of our countrymen, after having been confined to the view only of those within the compass of the few yards that enclosed the space of the brig. It increased the kindly emotions in the awakened thoughts of absent country, and especially of the dear family circle of home.

“Home! There is a magic in that little word! It is a mystic circle that surrounds Pleasures and comforts never known beyond The hallow’d limit.”

About this time we lost the north-east trade wind, which was succeeded by calms and squalls, that detained us seven or eight days near the Line. Nothing can be experienced in a voyage much more unpleasant than this vicissitude of weather. The irksomeness of a calm near the equator is rendered almost insupportable by the ardent rays of the sun; every one seems to languish: several, and often many hours drag heavily on, while the vessel makes no progress, and only experiences a disagreeable motion by the heaving of the glassy ocean, its surface not being in the least ruffled by a breath of air. In the mean time, an elemental war is brooding. A black and pitchy cloud is seen awfully and slowly moving on, with fury in its train; all is alarm; with haste the sails are lowered. The sullen langour of the atmosphere is succeeded by the “maddening tempest,” so suddenly and with so little warning, that sometimes, before every precaution can be taken, the sweeping impetuosity lays the vessel instantaneously upon her side, and, in that situation, she is hurried forward with immense velocity. These conflicting winds are as quickly followed by solid torrents of rain. In a short period, all is tranquillity again, and the returning sun, in burning radiance, annihilates the last breeze that feebly curled the face of the ocean. The same scenes alternately present themselves. During the night these sudden squalls are the most dangerous, as their approach cannot be so well ascertained.

On the first day that we were becalmed, notwithstanding the advances we occasionally made by the transient operation of those gusts, we found our latitude 1° 43′ north, and the preceding day it was only 1° 23′. This can only be accounted for by the strong northerly currents now prevailing here; and hence it would appear, that the same invariable law of attraction governs them as well as the winds. The squalls I have mentioned also came from the south and south-east, and the winds beginning at this time to blow here, issue from the same quarter, in consequence, no doubt, of the sun being in the northern tropic. If he creates a vacuum in his vicinity by the rarefaction of the air, which induces a great influx from the southern and northern hemispheres of the atmosphere, in like manner the exuberant evaporations from the sea may produce a rushing of the waters to supply what is lost (_pro tempore_) by vapours. Various causes, however, operate to prevent an uniform appearance in this respect, such as the occasional counter-attraction of the moon and other celestial bodies, of continents and other lands, as well as a prevailing repulsive power in nature. Still if those effects could be minutely followed through their various ramifications, it might be found that the winds and currents originate in the combinations I have ventured to suggest. Is it not possible, that the calms near the equator at this period may arise from the equally poised contention of the south-east and north-east winds meeting, and that the former, in the sun’s march through the northern tropic, will gradually gain upon the latter in extent of dominion proportioned to the sun’s declination, and _vice versa_ as he recedes through the southern tropic, or, more properly speaking, in the earth’s oblique revolution round the sun? The rust, which at this time constantly showed itself upon my razors, was probably owing to some peculiar corrosive properties in the atmosphere, or it might have arisen from some saline moisture insinuating itself every where imperceptibly.

But to attempt to comprehend or explain the extraordinary operations in the grand work of nature, in this and other latitudes, has in many instances baffled the keenest sagacity and most laborious research. Secondary causes of the phenomena in nature are often beyond the clearest ken of human intellect, how then are the faculties of the mind bewildered in the contemplation of the great First Cause! How lost and absorbed in adoration of the Divine source, the essence of all those wonderfully diversified appearances! The hand moves the pen with which I now write; I can trace the power that impels it--the cause of this effect, to the immediate impulse only, that is, to the muscles in the arm, that, arising thence, connect themselves with the hand. But can I go back any further? Can I ascertain what it is that produces this admirable power in the muscles, this secondary cause? Reason here discovers its confined limit as to remoter and efficient causes, but, bounding at once over these concealed regions of knowledge, sees and acknowledges the great original source of all finite existence, and in the power of thinking, and in the movement of his bodily frame, man feels that

“It is the Divinity that stirs within him.”

He has an undeniable and practical evidence of the existence, power, and goodness of an invisible and eternal Being, from whom all creation has emanated.

On the 6th of May, we crossed the Line in 23° west longitude. The calms and squalls were succeeded by cloudy weather and light breezes from the south and south-east, which in a few days assumed the steadiness of the trade wind, but not accompanied with that beautiful serenity and brightness of sky, which we experienced whilst in the north-east trade wind. Neptune and his wife Amphitrite did not make their appearance; or, to speak without mythological allusion, the usual ceremonies on crossing the Line were not observed, owing, I presume, to the fatigue and exhaustion sustained by the sailors, in consequence of the variable weather.

[Illustration:

_On Stone by C. Shoosmith from a Sketch by Ja^s. Henderson._ _Printed by C. Hullmandel._

VIEW OF THE WESTERN SIDE OF THE BAY OF RIO DE JANEIRO, FROM THE SUGAR LOAF MOUNTAIN TO THE CITY.]