Wanderings in South America Part 8

The balconies, too, are of a dark and gloomy appearance. They are not, in general, open, as in most tropical cities, but grated like a farmer's dairy window, though somewhat closer.

There is a lamentable want of cleanliness in the streets. The impurities from the houses, and the acc.u.mulation of litter from the beasts of burden, are unpleasant sights to the pa.s.sing stranger. He laments the want of a police as he goes along; and when the wind begins to blow, his nose and eyes are too often exposed to a cloud of very unsavoury dust.

When you view the port of Pernambuco, full of s.h.i.+ps of all nations; when you know that the richest commodities of Europe, Africa, and Asia are brought to it; when you see immense quant.i.ties of cotton, dye-wood, and the choicest fruits pouring into the town, you are apt to wonder at the little attention these people pay to the common comforts which one always expects to find in a large and opulent city. However, if the inhabitants are satisfied, there is nothing more to be said. Should they ever be convinced that inconveniences exist, and that nuisances are too frequent, the remedy is in their own hands. At present, certainly, they seem perfectly regardless of them; and the Captain-General of Pernambuco walks through the streets with as apparent content and composure as an English statesman would proceed down Charing Cross. Custom reconciles everything. In a week or two the stranger himself begins to feel less the things which annoyed him so much upon his first arrival, and after a few months' residence he thinks no more about them, while he is partaking of the hospitality and enjoying the elegance and splendour within doors in this great city.

Close by the riverside stands what is called the Palace of the Captain-General of Pernambuco. Its form and appearance altogether strike the traveller that it was never intended for the use it is at present put to.

Reader, throw a veil over thy recollection for a little while, and forget the cruel, unjust, and unmerited censures thou hast heard against an unoffending order. This palace was once the Jesuits' college, and originally built by those charitable fathers. Ask the aged and respectable inhabitants of Pernambuco, and they will tell thee that the destruction of the Society of Jesus was a terrible disaster to the public, and its consequences severely felt to the present day.

When Pombal took the reins of power into his own hands, virtue and learning beamed bright within the college walls. Public catechism to the children, and religious instruction to all, flowed daily from the mouths of its venerable priests.

They were loved, revered, and respected throughout the whole town. The illuminating philosophers of the day had sworn to exterminate Christian knowledge, and the college of Pernambuco was doomed to founder in the general storm. To the long-lasting sorrow and disgrace of Portugal, the philosophers blinded her king and flattered her Prime Minister. Pombal was exactly the tool these sappers of every public and private virtue wanted. He had the naked sword of power in his own hand, and his heart was as hard as flint. Ho struck a mortal blow, and the Society of Jesus throughout the Portuguese dominions, was no more.

One morning all the fathers of the college in Pernambuco, some of them very old and feeble, were suddenly ordered into the refectory. They had notice beforehand of the fatal storm, in pity from the governor, but not one of them abandoned his charge. They had done their duty, and had nothing to fear. They bowed with resignation to the will of Heaven. As soon as they had all reached the refectory, they were there locked up, and never more did they see their rooms, their friends, their scholars, or acquaintance. In the dead of the following night, a strong guard of soldiers literally drove them through the streets to the water's edge.

They were then conveyed in boats aboard a s.h.i.+p, and steered for Bahia.

Those who survived the barbarous treatment they experienced from Pombal's creatures were at last ordered to Lisbon. The college of Pernambuco was plundered, and some time after an elephant was kept there.

Thus the arbitrary hand of power, in one night, smote and swept away the sciences; to which succeeded the low vulgar buffoonery of a showman.

Virgil and Cicero made way for a wild beast from Angola! and now a guard is on duty at the very gate where, in times long past, the poor were daily fed!!!

Trust not, kind reader, to the envious remarks which their enemies have scattered far and near; believe not the stories of those who have had a hand in the sad tragedy. Go to Brazil, and see with thine own eyes the effect of Pombal's short-sighted policy. There vice reigns triumphant, and learning is at its lowest ebb. Neither is this to be wondered at.

Destroy the compa.s.s, and will the vessel find her far-distant port? Will the flock keep together, and escape the wolves, after the shepherds are all slain? The Brazilians were told that public education would go on just as usual. They might have asked Government, who so able to instruct our youth as those whose knowledge is proverbial? who so fit as those who enjoy our entire confidence? who so worthy, as those whose lives are irreproachable?

They soon found that those who succeeded the fathers of the Society of Jesus had neither their manner nor their abilities. They had not made the instruction of youth their particular study. Moreover, they entered on the field after a defeat, where the officers had all been slain; where the plan of the campaign was lost; where all was in sorrow and dismay.

No exertions of theirs could rally the dispersed, or skill prevent the fatal consequences. At the present day the seminary of Olinda, in comparison with the former Jesuits' college, is only as the waning moon's beam to the sun's meridian splendour.

When you visit the places where those learned fathers once flourished, and see with your own eyes the evils their dissolution has caused; when you hear the inhabitants telling you how good, how clever, how charitable they were-what will you think of our poet laureate for calling them, in his "History of Brazil," "Missioners, whose zeal the most fanatical was directed by the coolest policy"?

Was it _fanatical_ to renounce the honours and comforts of this transitory life, in order to gain eternal glory in the next, by denying themselves, and taking up the cross? Was it _fanatical_ to preach salvation to innumerable wild hordes of Americans, to clothe the naked, to encourage the repenting sinner, to aid the dying Christian? The fathers of the Society of Jesus did all this. And for this their zeal is p.r.o.nounced to be the most fanatical, directed by the coolest policy. It will puzzle many a clear brain to comprehend how it is possible, in the nature of things, that _zeal_ the most _fanatical_ should be directed by the _coolest policy_. Ah, Mr. Laureate, Mr. Laureate, that "quidlibet audendi" of yours may now and then gild the poet, at the same time that it makes the historian cut a sorry figure!

Could Father n.o.brega rise from the tomb, he would thus address you:-"Ungrateful Englishman, you have drawn a great part of your information from the writings of the Society of Jesus, and in return you attempt to stain its character by telling your countrymen that 'we taught the idolatry we believed!' In speaking of me, you say, it was my happy fortune to be stationed in a country where _none_ but the good principles of my order were called into action. Ungenerous laureate, the narrow policy of the times has kept your countrymen in the dark with regard to the true character of the Society of Jesus; and you draw the bandage still tighter over their eyes by a malicious insinuation. I lived, and taught, and died in Brazil, where you state that _none_ but the good principles of my order were called into action, and still, in most absolute contradiction to this, you remark we believed the _idolatry_ we taught in Brazil. Thus we brought none but good principles into action, and still taught idolatry!

"Again, you state there is no individual to whose talents Brazil is so greatly and permanently indebted as mine, and that I must be regarded as the founder of that system so successfully pursued by the Jesuits in Paraguay; a system productive of as much good as is compatible with pious fraud. Thus you make me, at one and the same time, a teacher of none but good principles, and a teacher of idolatry, and a believer in idolatry, and still the founder of a system for which Brazil is greatly and permanently indebted to me, though, by-the-bye, the system was only productive of as much good as is compatible with pious fraud!

"What means all this? After reading such incomparable nonsense, should your countrymen wish to be properly informed concerning the Society of Jesus, there are in England doc.u.ments enough to show that the system of the Jesuits was a system of Christian charity towards their fellow-creatures, administered in a manner which human prudence judged best calculated to ensure success; and that the idolatry which you uncharitably affirm they taught was really and truly the very same faith which the Catholic Church taught for centuries in England, which she still teaches to those who wish to hear her, and which she will continue to teach pure and unspotted, till time shall be no more."

The environs of Pernambuco are very pretty. You see country houses in all directions, and the appearance of here and there a sugar plantation enriches the scenery. Palm-trees, cocoa-nut trees, orange and lemon groves, and all the different fruits peculiar to Brazil, are here in the greatest abundance.

At Olinda there is a national botanical garden; it wants s.p.a.ce, produce, and improvement. The forests which are several leagues off, abound with birds, beasts, insects, and serpents. Besides a brilliant plumage, many of the birds have a very fine song. The troupiale, noted for its rich colours, sings delightfully in the environs of Pernambuco. The red-headed finch, larger than the European sparrow, pours forth a sweet and varied strain, in company with two species of wrens, a little before daylight. There are also several species of the thrush, which have a song somewhat different from that of the European thrush; and two species of the linnet, whose strain is so soft and sweet that it dooms them to captivity in the houses. A bird, called here _sangre do buey_ (blood of the ox), cannot fail to engage your attention: he is of the pa.s.serine tribe, and very common about the houses; the wings and tail are black, and every other part of the body a flaming red. In Guiana there is a species exactly the same as this in shape, note, and economy, but differing in colour, its whole body being like black velvet; on its breast a tinge of red appears through the black. Thus nature has ordered this little tangara to put on mourning to the north of the line, and wears scarlet to the south of it.

For three months in the year the environs of Pernambuco are animated beyond description. From November to March the weather is particularly fine; then it is that rich and poor, young and old, foreigners and natives, all issue from the city to enjoy the country, till Lent approaches, when back they hie them. Villages and hamlets, where nothing before but rags were seen, now s.h.i.+ne in all the elegance of dress; every house, every room, every shed become eligible places for those whom nothing but extreme necessity could have forced to live there a few weeks ago: some join in the merry dance, others saunter up and down the orange groves; and towards evening the roads become a moving scene of silk and jewels. The gaming-tables have constant visitors; there, thousands are daily and nightly lost and won; parties even sit down to try their luck round the outside of the door as well as in the room:-

"Vestibulum ante ipsum primisque in faucibus aulae Luctus et ultrices, posuere sedilia curae."

About six or seven miles from Pernambuco stands a pretty little village called Monteiro; the river runs close by it, and its rural beauties seem to surpa.s.s all others in the neighbourhood; there the Captain-General of Pernambuco resides during this time of merriment and joy.

The traveller who allots a portion of his time to peep at his fellow-creatures in their relaxations, and accustoms himself to read their several little histories in their looks and gestures as he goes musing on, may have full occupation for an hour or two every day at this season amid the variegated scenes around the pretty village of Monteiro.

In the evening groups sitting at the door, he may sometimes see with a sigh how wealth and the prince's favour cause a b.o.o.by to pa.s.s for a Solon, and be reverenced as such, while perhaps a poor neglected Camoens stands silent at a distance, awed by the dazzling glare of wealth and power. Retired from the public road he may see poor Maria sitting under a palm-tree, with her elbow in her lap and her head leaning on one side within her hand, weeping over her forbidden banns. And as he moves on, "with wandering step and slow," he may hear a broken-hearted nymph ask her faithless swain,

"How could you say my face was fair, And yet that face forsake; How could you win my virgin heart, Yet leave that heart to break?"

One afternoon, in an unfrequented part not far from Monteiro, these adventures were near being brought to a speedy and a final close: six or seven blackbirds, with a white spot betwixt the shoulders, were making a noise, and pa.s.sing to and fro on the lower branches of a tree in an abandoned, weed-grown, orange orchard. In the long gra.s.s underneath the tree, apparently a pale green gra.s.shopper was fluttering, as though it had got entangled in it. When you once fancy that the thing you are looking at is really what you take it for, the more you look at it the more you are convinced it is so. In the present case, this was a gra.s.shopper beyond all doubt, and nothing more remained to be done but to wait in patience till it had settled, in order that you might run no risk of breaking its legs in attempting to lay hold of it while it was fluttering-it still kept fluttering; and having quietly approached it, intended to make sure of it-behold, the head of a large rattlesnake appeared in the gra.s.s close by: an instantaneous spring backwards prevented fatal consequences. What had been taken for a gra.s.shopper was, in fact, the elevated rattle of the snake in the act of announcing that he was quite prepared, though unwilling, to make a sure and deadly spring. He shortly after pa.s.sed slowly from under the orange-tree to the neighbouring wood on the side of a hill: as he moved over a place bare of gra.s.s and weeds, he appeared to be about eight feet long; it was he who had engaged the attention of the birds, and made them heedless of danger from another quarter: they flew away on his retiring; one alone left his little life in the air, destined to become a specimen, mute and motionless, for the inspection of the curious in a far distant clime.

It was now the rainy season, the birds were moulting; fifty-eight specimens of the handsomest of them in the neighbourhood of Pernambuco had been collected, and it was time to proceed elsewhere. The conveyance to the interior was by horses; and this mode, together with the heavy rains, would expose preserved specimens to almost certain damage. The journey to Maranham by land would take at least forty days. The route was not wild enough to engage the attention of an explorer, or civilised enough to afford common comforts to a traveller. By sea there were no opportunities, except slave s.h.i.+ps. As the transporting poor negroes from port to port for sale pays well in Brazil, the s.h.i.+ps' decks are crowded with them. This would not do.

Excuse here, benevolent reader, a small tribute of grat.i.tude to an Irish family, whose urbanity and goodness have long gained it the esteem and respect of all ranks in Pernambuco. The kindness and attention I received from Dennis Kearney, Esq., and his amiable lady, will be remembered with grat.i.tude to my dying day.

After wis.h.i.+ng farewell to this hospitable family, I embarked on board a Portuguese brig, with poor accommodation, for Cayenne in Guiana. The most eligible bedroom was the top of a hen-coop on deck. Even here, an unsavoury little beast, called bug, was neither shy nor deficient in appet.i.te.

The Portuguese seamen are famed for catching fish. One evening, under the line, four sharks made their appearance in the wake of the vessel.

The sailors caught them all.

On the fourteenth day after leaving Pernambuco, the brig cast anchor off the island of Cayenne. The entrance is beautiful. To windward, not far off, there are two bold wooded islands, called the Father and Mother; and near them are others, their children, smaller, though as beautiful as their parents. Another is seen a long way to leeward of the family, and seems as if it had strayed from home, and cannot find its way back. The French call it "l'enfant perdu." As you pa.s.s the islands, the stately hills on the main, ornamented with ever-verdant foliage, show you that this is by far the sublimest scenery on the sea-coast, from the Amazons to the Oroonoque. On casting your eye towards Dutch Guiana, you will see that the mountains become unconnected, and few in number, and long before you reach Surinam the Atlantic wave washes a flat and muddy sh.o.r.e.

Considerably to windward of Cayenne, and about twelve leagues from land, stands a stately and towering rock, called the Constable. As nothing grows on it to tempt greedy and aspiring man to claim it as his own, the sea-fowl rest and raise their offspring there. The bird called the frigate is ever soaring round its rugged summit. Hither the phaeton bends his rapid flight, and flocks of rosy flamingos here defy the fowler's cunning. All along the coast, opposite the Constable, and indeed on every uncultivated part of it to windward and leeward, are seen innumerable quant.i.ties of snow-white egrets, scarlet curlews, spoonbills, and flamingos.

Cayenne is capable of being a n.o.ble and productive colony. At present it is thought to be the poorest on the coast of Guiana. Its estates are too much separated one from the other by immense tracts of forest; and the revolutionary war, like a cold eastern wind, has chilled their zeal and blasted their best expectations.

The clove-tree, the cinnamon, pepper, and nutmeg, and many other choice spices and fruits of the eastern and Asiatic regions, produce abundantly in Cayenne.

The town itself is prettily laid out, and was once well fortified. They tell you it might easily have been defended against the invading force of the two united nations; but Victor Hugues, its governor, ordered the tri-coloured flag to be struck; and ever since that day the standard of Braganza has waved on the ramparts of Cayenne.

He who has received humiliations from the hand of this haughty, iron-hearted governor, may see him now in Cayenne, stripped of all his revolutionary honours, broken down and ruined, and under arrest in his own house. He has four accomplished daughters, respected by the whole town. Towards the close of day, when the sun's rays are no longer oppressive, these much-pitied ladies are seen walking up and down the balcony with their aged parent, trying, by their kind and filial attention, to remove the settled gloom from his too guilty brow.

This was not the time for a traveller to enjoy Cayenne. The hospitality of the inhabitants was the same as ever, but they had lost their wonted gaiety in public, and the stranger might read in their countenances, as the recollection of recent humiliations and misfortunes every now and then kept breaking in upon them, that they were still in sorrow for their fallen country: the victorious hostile cannon of Waterloo still sounded in their ears; their Emperor was a prisoner amongst the hideous rocks of St. Helena; and many a Frenchman who had fought and bled for France was now amongst them begging for a little support to prolong a life which would be forfeited on the parent soil. To add another handful to the cypress and wormwood already scattered amongst these polite colonists, they had just received orders from the court of Janeiro to put on deep mourning for six months, and half-mourning for as many more, on account of the death of the Queen of Portugal.

After a day's journey in the interior is the celebrated national plantation. This spot was judiciously chosen, for it is out of the reach of enemies' cruisers. It is called La Gabrielle. No plantation in the western world can vie with La Gabrielle. Its spices are of the choicest kind; its soil particularly favourable to them; its arrangements beautiful; and its directeur, Monsieur Martin, a botanist of first-rate abilities. This indefatigable naturalist ranged through the East, under a royal commission, in quest of botanical knowledge; and during his stay in the western regions has sent over to Europe from twenty to twenty-five thousand specimens in botany and zoology. La Gabrielle is on a far-extending range of woody hills. Figure to yourself a hill in the shape of a bowl reversed, with the buildings on the top of it, and you will have an idea of the appearance of La Gabrielle. You approach the house through a n.o.ble avenue, five hundred toises long, of the choicest tropical fruit-trees, planted with the greatest care and judgment; and should you chance to stray through it after sunset, when the clove-trees are in blossom, you would fancy yourself in the Idalian groves, or near the banks of the Nile, where they were burning the finest incense as the Queen of Egypt pa.s.sed.

On La Gabrielle there are twenty-two thousand clove-trees in full bearing. They are planted thirty feet asunder. Their lower branches touch the ground. In general the trees are topped at five-and-twenty feet high; though you will see some here towering up above sixty. The black pepper, the cinnamon, and nutmeg are also in great abundance here, and very productive.

While the stranger views the spicy groves of La Gabrielle, and tastes the most delicious fruits which have originally been imported hither from all parts of the tropical world, he will thank the Government which has supported, and admire the talents of the gentleman who has raised to its present grandeur, this n.o.ble collection of useful fruits. There is a large nursery attached to La Gabrielle, where plants of all the different species are raised and distributed gratis to those colonists who wish to cultivate them.

Not far from the banks of the river Oyapoc, to windward of Cayenne, is a mountain which contains an immense cavern. Here the c.o.c.k-of-the-rock is plentiful. He is about the size of a fantail-pigeon, his colour a bright orange, and his wings and tail appear as though fringed; his head is ornamented with a superb double-feathery crest, edged with purple. He pa.s.ses the day amid gloomy damps and silence, and only issues out for food a short time at sunrise and sunset. He is of the gallinaceous tribe. The South-American Spaniards call him "gallo del Rio Negro" (c.o.c.k of the Black River), and suppose that he is only to be met with in the vicinity of that far-inland stream; but he is common in the interior of Demerara, amongst the huge rocks in the forests of Macous.h.i.+a; and he has been shot south of the line, in the captains.h.i.+p of Para.

The bird called by Buffon _grand gobemouche_ has never been found in Demerara, although very common in Cayenne. He is not quite so large as the jackdaw, and is entirely black, except a large spot under the throat, which is a glossy purple.

You may easily sail from Cayenne to the river Surinam in two days. Its capital, Paramaribo, is handsome, rich, and populous: hitherto it has been considered by far the finest town in Guiana; but probably the time is not far off when the capital of Demerara may claim the prize of superiority. You may enter a creek above Paramaribo, and travel through the interior of Surinam, till you come to the Nacari, which is close to the large river Coryntin. When you have pa.s.sed this river, there is a good public road to New Amsterdam, the capital of Berbice.

On viewing New Amsterdam, it will immediately strike you that something or other has intervened to prevent its arriving at that state of wealth and consequence for which its original plan shows it was once intended.

What has caused this stop in its progress to the rank of a fine and populous city remains for those to find out who are interested in it; certain it is that New Amsterdam has been languid for some years, and now the tide of commerce seems ebbing fast from the sh.o.r.es of Berbice.

Gay and blooming is the sister colony of Demerara. Perhaps, kind reader, thou hast not forgot that it was from Stabroek, the capital of Demerara, that the adventurer set out, some years ago, to reach the Portuguese frontier fort, and collected the wourali-poison. It was not intended, when this second sally was planned in England, to have visited Stabroek again by the route here described. The plan was to have ascended the Amazons from Para and got into the Rio Negro, and from thence to have returned towards the source of the Essequibo, in order to examine the crystal mountains, and look once more for Lake Parima, or the White Sea; but on arriving at Cayenne, the current was running with such amazing rapidity to leeward, that a Portuguese sloop, which had been beating up towards Para for four weeks, was then only half-way. Finding, therefore, that a beat to the Amazons would be long, tedious, and even uncertain, and aware that the season for procuring birds with fine plumage had already set in, I left Cayenne in an American s.h.i.+p for Paramaribo, went through the interior to the Coryntin, stopped a few days in New Amsterdam, and proceeded to Demerara. If, gentle reader, thy patience be not already worn out, and thy eyes half closed in slumber, by perusing the dull adventures of this second sally, perhaps thou wilt pardon a line or two on Demerara; and then we will retire to its forests, to collect and examine the economy of its most rare and beautiful birds, and give the world a new mode of preserving them.

Stabroek, the capital of Demerara, has been rapidly increasing for some years back; and if prosperity go hand in hand with the present enterprising spirit, Stabroek, ere long, will be of the first colonial consideration. It stands on the eastern bank at the mouth of the Demerara, and enjoys all the advantages of the refres.h.i.+ng sea-breeze; the streets are s.p.a.cious, well-bricked, and elevated, the trenches clean, the bridges excellent, and the houses handsome. Almost every commodity and luxury of London may be bought in the shops at Stabroek; its market wants better regulations. The hotels are commodious, clean, and well attended.

Demerara boasts as fine and well-disciplined militia as any colony in the western world.

The court of justice, where, in times of old, the bandage was easily removed from the eyes of the G.o.ddess, and her scales thrown out of equilibrium, now rises in dignity under the firmness, talents, and urbanity of Mr. President Rough.

The plantations have an appearance of high cultivation; a tolerable idea may be formed of their value when you know that last year Demerara numbered seventy-two thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine slaves. They made about forty-four million pounds of sugar, near two million gallons of rum, above eleven million pounds of coffee, and three million eight hundred and nineteen thousand five hundred and twelve pounds of cotton; the receipt into the public chest was five hundred and fifty-three thousand nine hundred and fifty-six guilders; the public expenditure, four hundred and fifty-one thousand six hundred and three guilders.