Part 1

[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.