Part 5 (2/2)

The International Hotel is the favorite resort of strangers, and is situated a couple of miles from the harbor. It is surrounded by beautiful trees and flowers, the golden oranges weighing down the branches nearly to the ground by their size and abundance, while the young blossoms fill the air with their delicate perfume,--fruit and blossoms on the tree at the same time. The garden is thronged by household pets, and contains a s.p.a.cious aviary. The monkey tribe is fully represented; gaudy winged parrots dazzle the eye with impossible colors. One partakes here, in the open air, of the refres.h.i.+ng viands amid the songs of birds, the occasional scream of the c.o.c.katoo, the cooing of turtle-doves, and the fragrance of a profusion of tropical flowers. The native servants are well-trained, and there is a French chef. We were told that this attractive place had once belonged to a very wealthy Brazilian, a planter, who had come to grief financially, and as the house was offered for sale, it had been purchased for one fifth of its original cost and adapted to hotel purposes. While enjoying our fruit at dessert, a somewhat similar experience was recalled as having taken place at Christiania, in Norway, where visitors enjoy the meals in a sort of outdoor museum and garden, surrounded by curious preserved birds mingled with living ones, the latter so tame as to alight fearlessly upon the table and await any choice bit guests may offer them.

We shall not soon forget the very appetizing dinner of which we partook, amid such attractive surroundings, in the gardens of the International Hotel at Pernambuco. One fruit which was served to us is known by the name of the loquat. It is round, dark yellow, and about the size of a Tangerine orange,--a great favorite with the natives, though it is mostly stone and skin, and tastes like turpentine.

This city is often called the Venice of Brazil, but why, it is difficult for one to understand. It is only poetical license, for there is not the first actual resemblance between the two cities. True, there are several watercourses, and half a dozen bridges, intersecting this Brazilian capital. One would be equally justified in calling the frail catamarans which are used by the fishermen in these waters, gondolas. This singular craft, by the way, consists of four or five logs of the cork-palm tree, confined together by a series of strong las.h.i.+ngs, no nails being used, thus securing a necessary degree of elasticity. One end of the logs is hewn down to a smaller size or width than the other, thus forming stem and stern, while a single thick plank serves as a keel. There are no bulwarks to this crazy craft,--for it can hardly be called anything else,--the whole being freely washed by the sea; but yet, with a rude mast carrying a triangular sail, and with a couple of oars, two or three fishermen venture far away from the sh.o.r.e; indeed, we encountered them out of sight of land. A couple of upright stakes are driven into the logs, to hold on by when occasion requires. It is really wonderful to see how weatherly such a frail affair can be, and how literally safe in a rough seaway. The boatmen who navigate these catamarans (they are called here _janguardas_) manage to keep the market of Pernambuco abundantly supplied with the strange, fantastic fish which so prevail along the Atlantic coast in equatorial regions.

We have seen a craft very similar to these catamarans in use off the Coromandel coast, between Madras and the mouth of the Hoogly River, which leads up to Calcutta. Here the natives manage them in a sea so rough that an ordinary s.h.i.+p's boat, if exposed, would surely be swamped.

The Madras catamaran consists of three pieces of timber, mere logs twelve or fourteen feet long, securely bound together with ropes made from the fibre of the cocoanut palm. Nails are no more available here than in the former crafts we have named. No nails could withstand the wrenching which this raft is subjected to. The middle log is a little longer than the two outside ones, and is given a slight upward turn at the end which forms the prow. No sail is used, but two fishermen generally go out with each of these rafts, propelling them with broad-bladed paddles, used alternately on either side. Of course the natives who navigate these crafts are naked, with the exception of a breech-cloth at the loins. They are very frequently thrown off by the sea, but regain their places with remarkable agility. They manage also, somehow, to secure their fis.h.i.+ng gear, and generally to bring in a remunerative fare from their excursions. Strange as the catamaran is, it must yet be described as breezy, watery, and safe--for amphibious creatures. There is one enemy these fishermen have to look out for, namely the shark, both on the coast of Madras and South America. It is more common to say when one is lost that the sharks got him, than it is to say he was drowned.

The reef so often referred to, forming the breakwater opposite Pernambuco, is about forty feet in width at the surface, and is the marvelous architecture of that tiny coral builder which works beneath these southern seas. When it has reared a pyramid reaching from the far bottom of the ocean to the surface, its mission is performed and it dies. It lives and works only beneath the surface of the sea; atmospheric air is fatal to it. The pyramids of Egypt cannot compare with these submerged structures for height, solidity, or magnitude. One is the product of a creature of such seeming unimportance as to require microscopic aid to detect its existence; the other are monuments erected by ancient kings commanding infinite resources; the former being the process of nature in carrying out her great and mysterious plan; the latter, the ambitious work of men whose very ident.i.ty is now questionable. If we were to enter into a calculation based upon known scientific facts, as to how many thousands of years were required for this minute animal to rear this ma.s.sive structure, the result would astonish the average reader.

On approaching Pernambuco from the sea, the first object to attract the eye is the long line of snow white breakers, caused by the incessant swell of the sea striking against the firmly planted reef with a deafening surge, breaking into foam and spray which are thrown forty feet and more into the air. As we drew near for the first time, the extended line of breakers was illumined by the early morning sun, making fancy rainbows and misty pictures in the mingled air and water. We were escorted by myriads of sea-birds, whose sharp cries came close upon the ear, as they flew in and about the rigging. Behind the reef lay the comparatively smooth waters of the harbor, dotted here and there by tiny white sails, curious-shaped coasting craft, rowboats, and steam tugs, while the background was formed by a leafless forest of tall s.h.i.+ps'

masts which lined the wharves, and partially screened the low-lying capital from view.

We have remained quite long enough at this city of the reef, and now turn southward towards the more attractive port of Bahia.

In running down the coast, the Brazilian sh.o.r.e is so near as to be distinctly visible, with its surf-fringed beach of golden sands extending mile after mile, beyond which, far inland, rise ranges of forest-clad hills, and beyond these, sky-reaching alps. It is often necessary to give the land a wide berth, as at certain points dangerous sandbars make out from it far to seaward; but whenever near enough to the coast to make out the character of the vegetation, it was of deepest green and exuberantly tropical. With the exception of one or two small towns, and an occasional fisherman's hamlet, the sh.o.r.e presented no signs of habitation, being mostly a sandy waste adjoining the sea, where heavy rollers spent their force upon the smooth, water-worn, yellow beach.

CHAPTER VII.

Port of Bahia.--A Quaint Old City.--Former Capital of Brazil.--Whaling Interests.--Beautiful Panorama.--Tramways.--No Color Line Here.--The Sedan Chair.--Feather Flowers.--Great Orange Mart.--Pa.s.sion Flower Fruit.--Coffee, Sugar, and Tobacco.--A Coffee Plantation.--Something about Diamonds.--Health of the City.--Curious Tropical Street Scenes.

Bahia,--p.r.o.nounced Bah-ee'ah,--situated three hundred and fifty miles south of Pernambuco, is the capital of a province of the same name in Brazil, and contains nearly two hundred thousand inhabitants. It is admirably situated on elevated ground at the entrance of All Saints Bay,--_Todos os Santos_,--just within Cape San Antonio, eight hundred miles or thereabouts north of Rio Janeiro. The entrance of the bay is seven miles broad. For its size, there are few harbors in the world which present a more attractive picture as one first beholds it on entering from the open Atlantic. The elevated site of the city, with its close array of neat, white three and four story houses, breaks the sky-line in front of the anchorage, while the town forms a half moon in shape, extending for a couple of miles each way, right and left. Near the water's edge, on the lower line of the city, are many substantial warehouses, official establishments, the custom house, and the like.

Between the lower and the upper town is a long reach of green terraced embankment, intense in its bright verdure. Probably no other city on the globe, certainly not so far as our experience extends, is so peculiarly divided.

A sad episode marked our first experience here. We came to anchor in the harbor, according to custom, at what is known as the Quarantine. About a cable's length from us lay a large European steams.h.i.+p, flying the yellow flag at the fore. She came into port from Rio Janeiro on the previous evening; five of her pa.s.sengers who had died of yellow fever on the pa.s.sage were buried at sea, while two more were down with it, and were being taken to the lazaretto on sh.o.r.e, as we dropped our anchor.

Probably they went there to die. This was naturally depressing, more so, perhaps, as we were bound direct for Rio Janeiro; but as we now came from a northern port with a clean bill of health, we were finally released from quarantine and permitted to land. It is late in the season--last of May--for this pest of the coast to prevail, but the year 1891 has been one of unusual fatality in the South American ports, and none of them have been entirely exempt from the scourge, some showing a fearful list of mortality among both citizens and strangers. We were conversant with many instances of a particularly trying and sad nature, if any distinction can be made where death intervenes with such a rude hand. Victims who were in apparent good health in the morning were not infrequently buried on the evening of the same day! But we will spare the reader harrowing details.

Americus Vespucius discovered Bahia in 1503, while sailing under the patronage of Portugal, and as it was settled in 1511, it is the oldest city in the country, being also the second in size, though not in commercial importance. The excellent harbor is so s.p.a.cious as to form a small inland sea, the far-reaching sh.o.r.es of which are beautified by mingled green foliage and pretty villas stretching along the bay, while the business portion gives evidence of a growing and important foreign trade. This deduction is also corroborated by the presence of numerous European steams.h.i.+ps, and full-rigged sailing vessels devoted to the transportation of merchandise. The buildings are generally of a substantial appearance, whether designed as residences or for business purposes, but are mostly of an antique pattern, old and dingy. Though the city is divided into the lower and the upper town, the latter two or three hundred feet above the former, it is made easily accessible by mechanical means. A large elevator, run by hydraulic power, is employed for the purpose, which was built by an energetic Yankee, and has been in successful operation several years, taking the citizens from the lower to the upper town, as we pa.s.s from bas.e.m.e.nt to attic in our tall North American buildings. Between the two portions of Bahia there are streets for the transportation of merchandise, which wind zigzag fas.h.i.+on along the ravine to avoid the abruptness of the ascent. Besides these means, there are narrow stone steps leading upwards to the first level, among the tropical verdure, the deep green branches and leaves nodding to one from out of narrow lanes and quiet nooks. There is still another way of reaching the upper town, namely, a cable road, of very steep grade, one car ascending while another descends, thus forming a sort of counterbalance. By all these facilities united, the population manage very comfortably to overcome the topographical difficulties of the situation.

Though there are few buildings of any special note in Bahia, the general architecture being quaint and nondescript, still the combined view of the city, as we have endeavored to show, is of no inconsiderable beauty.

We approached it from the north, doubling Light House Point in the early morning, just as the rising sun lighted up the bay. Seen from the harbor, the large dome of the cathedral overlooks the whole town very much like the gilded dome which forms so conspicuous an object on approaching the city of Boston. The dark, low-lying, grim-looking fort, which presides over the quarantine anchorage, is built upon a natural ledge of rock, half a mile from the sh.o.r.e of the town, and looks like a huge cheese-box.

In the upper portion of Bahia the streets are narrow, and the houses so tall as to nearly exclude the sun when it is not in the zenith. They are built of a native stone, and differ from the majority of South American dwellings, which are rarely over two stories in height, and generally of one only. We have heard it argued that it is advantageous to build tropical cities with narrow streets, so as to exclude the heat of the sun's rays and thus keep the houses cooler. This is not logical. Wide avenues and broad streets give ventilation which cannot be obtained in any other way in populous centres. Narrow lanes invite epidemics, fevers, and malarial diseases; broad thoroughfares give less opportunity for their lodgment. A beehive of human beings, crowded together in a narrow s.p.a.ce, exhausts the life-giving principle of the surrounding atmosphere, but this is impossible where plenty of room is given for the circulation of fresh air.

These tall houses of Bahia have overhanging ornamental balconies, which towards evening are filled with the female portion of the families, laughing, chatting, singing, and smoking, for the ladies of these lat.i.tudes smoke in their domestic circles. Narrow as the streets of Bahia are, room is found for a well patronized tramway to run through them. No one thinks of walking, if it be for only a couple of hundred rods, on the line of the street cars. All of the civilized world seems to have grown lazy since the introduction of this modern facility for cheap transportation.

Bahia was the capital of Brazil until 1763, during which year the headquarters of the government were removed to Rio Janeiro.

This is a sort of New Bedford, so to speak, having been for more than a century extensively engaged in the whaling business, an occupation which is still pursued to a limited extent. Whales frequent the bay of Bahia, where they are sometimes captured by small boats from the sh.o.r.e. It is supposed that the favorite food of this big game is found in these waters. There was a time when the close pursuit by fis.h.i.+ng fleets fitted out in nearly all parts of the world rendered the whales wary and scarce. The catching and killing of so many seemed to have thinned out their number in most of the seas of the globe. Then came the great discovery of rock oil, which rapidly superseded the whale oil of commerce in general use. Thereupon the pursuit of the gigantic animal ceased to be of any great moment, while there was oil enough spontaneously pouring out of the wells of Pennsylvania, and elsewhere, to fully satisfy the demand of the world at large. Being no longer hunted, the whales gradually became tame and increased in numbers, so that to-day there are probably as many in the usual haunts of these leviathans in either hemisphere as there ever were. The briefest sea voyage can hardly be made without sighting one or more of them, and sometimes in large schools.

There is a portion of the elevated section of Bahia which is called Victoria, a really beautiful locality, having delightful gardens, attractive walks, and myriads of n.o.ble shade trees. From here the visitor overlooks the bay, with its islands and curving sh.o.r.e decked with graceful palms, bamboos, and mango groves; upon the water are numerous tiny boats, while white winged sailing s.h.i.+ps and dark, begrimed steamers unite in forming a picture of active life and maritime beauty.

In the distance lies the ever green island of Itaparica, named after the first governor's Indian bride, while still farther away is seen range after range of tall, purple hills, multiplied until lost in the distance.

A few grim looking convents and monasteries, which have gradually come into the possession of the government, are now used as free schools, libraries, and hospitals. There is a medical college here which has a national reputation for general excellence, and many students come from Rio Janeiro, eight hundred miles away, to avail themselves of its advantages, receiving a diploma after attending upon its three years'

course of studies. From subsequent inquiry, however, not only here but in Rio and elsewhere, we are satisfied that the science of medicine and surgery stands at a very low ebb throughout this great southland.

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