Part 9

We reached here just in time to join the family at breakfast, and after a ride of eighteen miles I enjoyed the tender and fat beefsteak, with nice wheat bread and coffee, in connection with the other supplies of the table. There was such a variety of articles for breakfast, and every thing in such excellent order, that it could not have been much improved by notice of our coming. After concluding breakfast, Mr. Whitaker, Mr. Bennaton and myself, indulged a walk round the garden, where quite a variety of fruit trees were seen growing in the greatest perfection. The orange, the pine apple, and also the peach, were among the number. A specimen of the genuine tea-plant was also seen here, but there was only a few plants, and no attempt to cultivate it for use of the family or for market.

Between 3 and 4 o’clock P. M. dinner was announced, and we had a most sumptuous feast of good things. The absence of fowl of any kind was again noticed, and turkeys, ducks and chickens are evidently not so much prized here as with us. Big hominy, of the whitest and nicest form, is used here with boiled milk as a dessert; and though very different from our mode of using the article, it is very good in this way. I told Mr. Bennaton that it would be more relished if fried, or eaten with gravy, as a part of the substantials of the meal. But he said it would surprise the people in this country very much to see the canjeen, as it is here called, eaten in that mode; and I therefore conform to the custom of the land, and take it as dessert with milk or syrup.

In the afternoon we walked out to the colony of Germans, French and Portuguese, located upon this place. I counted one hundred and sixty-four tenements for families, and learned that there were thirty-six others occupied, making two hundred families. They are here engaged to gather the coffee from the fields, at fixed rates for each bushel, and have a house with a small parcel of land, upon which to grow a little corn or other articles for themselves. They live in the most saving manner, with a view to accumulate enough to buy a place and live upon it, and the interior of their houses seemed to have a scanty outfit.

MONDAY, _October 9, 1865_.

Before leaving my room this morning I asked the servant for water to take a general bath, saying, “Fraga me agua, para lavor,” to which his reply was an interrogation, “Quente ou frio?” (warm or cold,) and I said, “Quero frio,” (I wish cold.)

Thus my acquisitions in the language are beginning to avail me, and I trust in a short time to be able to make known all my ordinary wants.

We set out before breakfast to make a survey of the extensive establishment for treating the coffee, which is run by steam-power.

The first step is to remove the outer hull of the berries, and for this purpose he employs four dispolpadores, such as described at Settequéda, each being capable of hulling five hundred bushels of the crude berries in a day, making two thousand in a day when all are fully employed. Not having a supply of water sufficient to move the machinery, or to float the coffee into the apparatus, it has to be washed before going into the dispolpadores if it should be dirty, and it may then be put in while wet. After the hull is removed, the coffee grains having still their separate investment, are dried in the ample tile-covered yard that is adjoining the building. The cleaning process is conducted by two large fans, and if any of the smaller grains slip through the sieve of the fan without being entirely cleaned, they are submitted to hand sieves. Thus, all the coffee is prepared for sacking. The specimens seen in the building were entirely free from dust or any foreign matter, and the proprietor states will command from two to five cents per pound more than the rolled or pounded coffee.

The store-room contains an immense amount of uncleaned coffee, and the crop made on this place this year is reckoned at fifty thousand arrobas, or sixteen hundred thousand pounds of clean coffee. This is below the annual average crop, and Senor Vergueiro thinks the blooming trees indicate a larger yield for the next crop.

This coffee milling establishment is upon a much larger scale than that of Settequéda, but there are a number of conveniences and improvements in the latter, which the want of water does not admit here.

There is a saw-mill adjoining the coffee-mill, which is run by a separate engine of four horse-power, and performs very satisfactorily with a perpendicular saw.

In addition to these there is a cotton-gin, and packing apparatus under the same roof.

An American cotton-gin of seventy saws is run by the same engine, of eight horse-power, which works the coffee machinery. The compress or packing apparatus is a pattern which has been in use for some years in the United States, but is made upon a small scale to pack bales of ninety-six pounds for transportation upon pack-mules.

The gin and compress were brought from Santos upon wagons drawn by oxen.

The ordinary hemp bagging is used here for covering the cotton, and the sepo vine, which grows in this country abundantly, makes an admirable substitute for roping. It is very unyielding, and being smooth, with a facility for knotting, it fulfils all the indications completely and economically.

The hull of the coffee, and the cotton seed, with the refuse from the saw-mill, have constituted the fuel for the steam-engine, thus wasting the cotton seed that might be made very profitable, either by converting them into oil, or for manure. Upon bringing these matters to the attention of Senor Vergueiro, he expressed his intention to cease this destructive policy; and until he may be able to procure an apparatus for the manufacture of the cotton seed oil, he proposes to accumulate his seed, when it will be convenient to pour water upon them, if it should not rain sufficient to wet them, and thus rot them for manure.

A blacksmith shop and a woodshop are in very successful operation, making his own wagons, and machinery for all the purposes of his extensive establishment; and all of good quality.

A large and well-arranged brickyard is brought into requisition for the manufacture of brick, tiles, and earthen pipes, that are demanded about the place; and his fazenda being within itself a village, the consumption of these articles is very considerable throughout the year.

The negro quarters are adjoining the residence of the family, and enclose a large court, in the centre of which is a belfry, and a lock-up for such as become unruly. There is a hospital department, with an office, where medicine is dispensed by the physician when his visits are required.

The stables are large and well-arranged for feeding, and the stalls are substantially floored with sawed plank, while there is an upper story for hay.

A spacious and neat fowl-house has recently been constructed, connected with an open grass lot, having a supply of water for the poultry.

The old coffee-mill and saw-mill, moved by water-power, are still preserved in good running order on the place.

After dinner to-day we were supplied with fine saddle horses, and accompanied Senor Vergueiro over his wide domain of a million coffee trees and fine cotton lands. We rode rapidly over miles of winding roads through the fields of coffee, stopping here and there to examine some feature of special interest, either in the mode of management or the development of the trees. Some had been growing there for twenty-six years that still presented a vigorous appearance and afforded a good yield of coffee this season. Others that were thirty-four years old have been cut off eighteen inches above the ground, two years since, and have again put forth branches, which present all the aspects of thriving trees. They have borne a crop of coffee this season, and the blooms afford a fine prospect for another year. This is a very interesting feature in the management of the old trunks of the coffee, as the advantages of a new growth are secured in one-half the time it could be attained from a new plant. Even should the root require to be dug around and manured, it would be far preferable to the uncertainty connected with the growth of a new plant; and in lands of good quality it certainly presents great advantages.

The stumps of the cotton stalk were also seen during our ride, which had recently been cut off for the purpose of securing the growth of another crop. There is a perennial growth of the cotton plant in this latitude, from the absence of frost; and by simply cutting away the limbs in the early spring another development ensues, which produces a larger yield than the first crop; and it is supposed that it may be cut off again at the end of the second year, and produce for the third time a full crop of cotton.

Thus the risks attending the sprouting and the early growth of the plant are avoided here; and as the evidence is conclusive that the yield of the second year is superior to that of the first, the advantages for the culture of cotton in this country gives it a preference to the southern part of the United States. The additional element of slave labor here is likely to afford results that cannot be secured by hired labor in the Southern States; and so soon as the negroes have become acquainted with the proper mode of working the cotton, we may anticipate yields of this staple exceeding any that have ever been realized in the United States.

The production of cotton here already is stated to reach two thousand pounds of seed cotton to the acre; and if this is a uniform yield of good land with good culture it is a decided success. There is not so much labor bestowed upon the plant here as in the Southern States, and the hoe is the only implement employed in the culture of this, or any thing else. It will appear marvellous to our heroic cotton planters that no preparatory ploughing is done, and that not even a hoe is used in planting the seed. The process, as I observed it here, consists in a negro scratching a place in the ground with his hand, and making three or four holes with the end of a stick, into which seeds of cotton are dropped and covered with the hand. This is done at distances of two and a half feet, and sticks of wood or pieces of cane are stuck into the ground to mark the place, and by this means to preserve right lines for the rows. Note this, ye planters of cotton in the Southern States, and think how painstaking you are to develop the growth of cotton in its several stages; yet here, in Brazil, it grows and matures well without culture of any kind. If cotton can be relied upon here to yield an average crop without labor, what may be expected from proper preparation of the soil for receiving the seed, and thorough working of the ground during the early growth of the plant.

Finding that the root of the cotton remained in the ground during the winter without injury, Senor Vergueiro supposed an advantage might be gained by planting the cotton seed during the winter, so that it might sprout up and commence growing in the earliest portion of the spring. He planted accordingly a considerable piece of ground in the month of May, which is in this latitude very nearly as November in the State of Louisiana. The prospect is quite unfavorable from present appearance of the plants, and he expects to replant the land, with the exception of a small space, to test fully the experiment. Had he known how much depends upon the disappearance of all frost, and the warming of the earth under the genial suns of the spring, as a preliminary to cotton planting, in the land where experience is the guide to success, this experiment would not have been necessary to convince him that nothing could be gained by the planting of the seed in the cold season, though there might be no frost to kill the plant.

Senor Vergueiro deserves great credit, however, for the boldness and energy with which he has urged forward his improvements, and others are now profiting by his enterprise in the domain of agriculture and the arts.

He produces all the corn requisite to raise hogs for his consumption, and also for a large number of horses and mules, keeping a pack of the latter to assist in transporting his coffee to market. He cures a considerable amount of hay for the use of his animals in winter, when the grass does not grow so abundantly; and I have heard of no other person in the country who gives any attention to haymaking.

Thus we find this fazendeiro combines all the various interests that conduce to the comfort of his family and the welfare of the large number of colonists and slaves who are dependent upon him for supplies. His extensive fazenda is emphatically a self-sustaining establishment, and he lives within himself to a very large extent. He grows his own beef and mutton, as well as his hogs, and his table is always supplied with the best that is found anywhere in the country.

Of course, there are many things which must come from other parts, and he avails himself of all the importations that may render a household comfortable, or a table desirable. Though hams are not cured here, the finest was found upon his table; and though flour comes from abroad, the choice varieties of flour bread, as well as other kinds, showed the domestic management of the estimable senhora most satisfactorily.

TUESDAY, _October 10, 1865_.

We took our leave this morning of our kind friends at Ybicaba, and with a guide furnished by Senor José Vergueiro, we set out for the fazenda of Senor Rafael Paes de Barros, son of the Baron of Rerecicoba.

Our route lay through a region having a very large growth of timber, and we saw trees of eight feet in diameter, which gives twenty-four feet around the base of the trunk. The soil in this vicinity is of a dark red or purple color, and of a loose loamy consistence. It is the richest land of this country, and produces to great advantage all the crops usually planted here; yet some planters think this rich purple soil, that is known here as “terra rocha,” is not so well adapted to the culture of cotton as the land which has an admixture of sand.

We reached São Antonio, the residence of Senor Barros, about 12 o’clock, and he met us in the front yard with an open expression of hospitality, which made me feel that his words of welcome were not a mere empty sound.

After showing us his cotton house, where he had a large quantity of cotton in the seed, he took us to his recently-constructed gin-house, where the machinery is moved by water-power. He has a thirty-saw gin of American manufacture, and a small screw of his own make, which will meet his present wants; but so soon as his large force is employed in growing cotton, the appliances for preparing it for market must be greatly increased.

His experiment in the culture of cotton has been entirely satisfactory, and he considers the crop of great importance with the present high price in Rio.

The article grown here is of better quality than most of the cotton grown in the Southern States, and the fibre is not only longer and finer, but it is evidently stronger than our cotton. Some small specimens of the sea island cotton have been seen, which grew in this region of country, and they presented a beautiful silky-looking fibre; yet the size of the bolls, and the general yield of the stalks, does not afford encouragement to grow it rather than the other qualities of cotton.

Upon this fazenda there are four hundred thousand coffee trees, of which two hundred and eighty thousand are bearing fruit, and the others are young trees recently planted out.

Being invited to remain for dinner, we enjoyed a most abundant supply of the substantials, as well as the delicacies of the table.

Senhora manifested her respect by meeting us with a bow before going to her seat at the table, and though she made but few remarks during the dinner, this was simply in accordance with the recognized rôle of females in society here. A lady in Brazil is kept secluded to a great extent, and is rarely seen in a parlor with gentlemen, except they may be intimate friends of the family. When seen at the table, she is usually seated by her husband, or if he is at the end of the table her position is adjacent to the corner upon his right or left hand, and guests are seated on the opposite side.

In the case of young ladies the restrictions are still greater, and with the existing regime, I don’t understand how gentlemen become sufficiently intimate with young ladies to form a basis of marriage. Yet matrimonial alliances are here formed very early, and perhaps in part influenced by the desire of the parent to transfer the guardianship of his daughter to other hands, so that he may be relieved of the sense of responsibility. I am told that it is not uncommon for girls to be married as early as they reach the age of thirteen or fourteen years. The physical development of females in this climate is much in advance of those in colder latitudes, and they become mothers in Brazil before females in the United States are considered marriageable. Not only is their vigor of frame thus impaired, but the cultivation of their minds is in like manner arrested by the cares which must necessarily devolve upon them, and really it seems that the evil of secluding females from the freedom of society brings with it a host of other evils. If the cause be corrected, the effects will be remedied as a natural consequence.

Senor Barras very kindly proposed to furnish me letters to parties who might aid me in the prosecution of my objects, and with the assurance of his cordial good wishes we proceeded on our line of travel in the afternoon.

After a pleasant ride of three miles across the country, in which the Rio Claro was crossed, we reached the town known by the name of São João de Rio Claro. It is constructed chiefly with one-story houses, after the style of other interior towns through which we passed, yet there is more of neatness in their appearance, and in the order of the streets, than has been noted elsewhere.

We called, with a letter of introduction, upon Tenente Coronel Senor José Estaninlaus D’Oliveiro, the commandant of the national guard for this district.

He has recently proposed to give one hundred dollars to every citizen of his district who would volunteer for the active service of the war.

When my mission was explained to him, he signified his readiness to aid me, and said his house was open for me or any of my friends whenever it might suit us to stop with him. He gave us an invitation to spend the night at his house, but my object being to see as much of the country as possible, I thanked him for his kind offer, and departed with his best wishes.

In proceeding from Rio Claro we encountered the first open plains I had seen, and with a poor sandy soil; there was scarcely grass sufficient to sustain the cattle that were here and there scattered over these campo lands.

For several miles the monotony was only broken by a few huge ant-hills, that seemed to be the result of some considerable excavation of the earth, and the inquiry was naturally suggested whether the people had been digging for gold or making a well for water.

This striking contrast of barren plains, in close proximity to the richest forest lands, is a very remarkable characteristic of this section.

After passing a large area of this waste land, we reached another fazenda of Senor José Vergueiro, called Angelica, where he awaited our arrival, and repeated the kindly reception which had been extended to us at Ybicaba. This place is ten miles from Rio Claro, and consists of twenty-six thousand acres of land. Much of this large domain is campo land, of little value; and yet there is an immense body of very valuable land, a part being under cultivation in coffee, sugar-cane, cotton, corn, rice, beans, &c., while there is yet a large portion of original forest that is favorably located and of good quality.

The buildings on this place are of huge proportions, and the machinery adapted to all the practical operations of the various departments of industry. Water-power is used for a saw-mill, a grist-mill and a coffee-mill, while oxen are employed in running a wooden mill for the sugar-cane.

The facilities here for conducting the various kinds of business are not equal to those at Ybicaba, yet the basis is here for indefinite additions and improvements in the appliances, and the energy of the proprietor is likely to render all its resources available for efficient operation.

This place was formerly the family residence of the father and mother of Senor Vergueiro, and the name, Angelica, is that of his mother.

His father was a man of considerable note, and was for a time regent of the empire during the minority of the present Emperor. He has been dead several years, and this property is held jointly by the heirs, but under the control of the gentleman above-named, who expects to make it the counterpart of Ybicaba.

Upon this place there is a mill-race, four miles long, but even then the water reaches only midway the immense wheel, making it a breast-wheel, however, of immense power, by the large column of water.

All the negroes came into the house to salute their master, with the customary placing of hands together, and saying “Santa Christ,”[14] which is an abbreviation for “Louvado seja nosso senhor Jesus Christ,” that is said by almost every negro in meeting a white person.

WEDNESDAY, _October 11, 1865_.

Having enjoyed a comfortable bed for the night, we had a cup of coffee upon rising this morning, and afterwards joined Senor Vergueiro in making an examination of a very substantial and neat residence of sandstone, which has been recently erected on this place. The sandstone is procured from a quarry located upon the lands of the fazenda, and when dressed makes a very excellent wall. The general plan of the house was made by Senor Vergueiro, but the services of an engineer named Shelb have been called into requisition for the embellishments, and the result is very creditable to both. Although the building is not large, it has the lower story arranged for machinery, with a large water-wheel on the side of the house, but so covered as not to attract the attention of one taking an outside view of the building. This structure is an ornament to the place, and indicates progress in the architectural designs of the country.