‘That Strain Again!’—‘It hath a dying fall.’—‘Auld Lang Syne, or ’tis thirty years ago.’—Aspect of Pernambuco from the Sea.—Tripartite division of the City, Recife, St. Antonio, and Boa Vista.—Note on the old town of Olinda and its new namesake, the late steamer No. 2 of this A 1 line.—March of improvement by land and sea, in respect to ships and city.—Such Brazilian progress a lesson for West Indians.—Frugality and personal activity on the one hand, prodigality and vicarial mismanagement on the other, being the real difference between the position of the planters in either place.—Sugar Manufacturing improvements.—De Mornay’s Patent Cane Crushing Mill, and its Merits.—Appreciation of the invention in the West Indies as well as Brazil.—Exports of Pernambuco to United States.—Political and Martial feeling of the Pernambucanos.—Peculiarities of the Population, soil, and produce.—Unique effects of rain and drought in the Matta.—Hygienic hints to the consumptive and the yellow feverish.—Initiation of the Railway Era, by the De Mornays, in Pernambuco.—Immense importance of the proposed line, and certainty of its success, sustained by British Capital, and specially supported by the Emperor personally, and the Brazilian executive.—Mr. Borthwick’s report on the project.—The writer’s anticipation that it will be successful, and expectation that the reader will approve of his suggestion for making it so.—Note on Planters’ life in America.

It is a trite remark, that there is probably no more permanent or abiding impression on the mind than that created by first visiting a country, whose climate, people, habits, and ideas, differ essentially from those we have been brought up with and are accustomed to regard as a part of our nature. After a lapse of more than thirty years, the sensations I experienced on my first arrival here are as fresh in my memory as if occurring only yesterday. The voyage, which occupied no less than fifty-six days; the eager anxiety for a sight of land; the first view of the foreign port and outlandish looking craft; and then the pilot coming on board with a crew of blacks, seen for the first time; the debarkation amongst strange faces of every possible shade of colour; with the curiously formed streets and singular houses, filled with a population of hues so different from that left behind—every one apparently shouting at the top of their voices; whilst hundreds of rainbow-tinted parrots, and harlequin-skinned animals, more numerous than the managerial knowledge of a boy of fifteen believed had ever appeared out of the Ark, all helped to aggravate the preternatural a perpetual din—the whole scene, as may be imagined, being such as to become indelibly engraven on such a spectator for the remainder of his life. It was a season of eager curiosity and enjoyment. ‘Youth at the prow and Pleasure at the helm’ look only to the bright side of life’s river; but neither time nor distance has since dimmed the halo that seemed then to environ the portals of this first launch into active being. Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis; still the characteristic peculiarities of a new country and new scenes remain fixed in our minds, as if no change had ever come over the spirit of our dream; and such is Pernambuco still to me, though in many respects greatly improved, altered, and enlarged, as I shall proceed to show forthwith.

Approaching Pernambuco from the main, it appears, like Venice, to rise gradually out of the waters, though, unlike the ‘Sea Cybele, fresh from ocean,’ we cannot perhaps exactly descry her ‘tiara of proud towers,’ at least in the sense applied to the mistress of the Mediterranean; but still the reality of the resemblance is quite sufficient to justify the comparison. You first discern church-steeples, domes, lofty houses, glittering in the sun; then shipping, and the general features of a commercial town, become visible. The harbour is quite a natural one, formed by a reef of coral rocks, already described as running along nearly the whole extent of the Brazilian coast, and supposed to be continued inland, where the coast projects beyond the line of the reef. At Pernambuco it has positively all the appearance of a wall some yards wide, just as if erected by the industry of man, and extending along the whole sea-front of the town, breaking off the swell of the ocean, and leaving the water in the harbour or creeks perfectly smooth, except sometimes at high water, and at periods of high tide, when the sea, finding its way over the reef, causes a little bubbling inside. The entrance is through a kind of break in the reef, which also forms the mouth of a river, intersecting the town, but not going any great distance inland;—passing through and rounding the reef, in an instant you are in smooth water, and in Pernambuco harbour. The width of the passage is not much above 200 yards, taken from the reef to the shore, and this is lined with quays and wharves, which have been much extended of late years, and a dredging-machine is now constantly at work, deepening the channels, which are influenced by the current and freshes of the river. The bar formerly allowed only of the passage of vessels drawing 14 feet, but, they say, it is now quite safe for those of 15 to 15½ feet; and hopes are entertained that it can be deepened so as to admit the largest class of vessels, which would be a boon of immense importance to the place.

The town, or city, of Pernambuco is divided into three compartments:—the first, called the Recife (literally Reef), being that directly opposite the reef, and where most of the foreign commercial firms are located; crossing a wooden bridge, is St. Antonio, inhabited chiefly by shopkeepers; and a well-built and extensive compartment further on is Boa Vista, to which you cross by another long wooden bridge, but protected with a light iron railing at the sides. The river runs under these bridges very rapidly at times, and with a snake-like course, almost insulating the two first divisions. From Boa Vista good roads branch off to the country, and a new one has latterly been made to Olinda[40] along the margin of the river, lighted with lamps, &c., a very useful and praiseworthy undertaking on the part of the government.

The town is generally well-built; lofty houses whitewashed, with red tiles, and plenty of verandahs, and windows to admit the cool breezes; and for miles in every direction, towards the interior, are comfortable villas, some very large, and constructed with considerable taste. When I first came here in 1821 only two or three carriages existed in the place, old-fashioned ones belonging to equally old-fashioned Portuguese, and I should suppose something like the ‘dormeuse’ of the Grand Prior of AlcobaÇa, so graphically described by Beckford, when he travelled with that dignitary to the grand abbey of Batalha [vide Lisbon, page 36]; now there are some 200 vehicles, of all sorts and sizes, and many very good ones for hire, besides those belonging to private individuals; and no doubt taste and luxury would be still more extended in this direction if it were not for the narrow archways through which the Recife is traversed.

In all respects, Pernambuco has been not only a thriving but an improving place, so much so that one who would visit it now for the first time could hardly believe it to be the same town of which Koster, a comparatively short time ago, said that the shops were without windows, light being admitted only by the door, and that there were no distinctions of trades, and no municipal regulations worthy of being so called. Extensive waterworks have been constructed, which bring good water some distance to the town; and doubtless, in a few years, it will be lighted with gas. A bank has been established on a safe and respectable footing; and the merchants have their news-room, as a sort of rendezvous for business, instead of an Exchange, whilst extensive quays have been formed on the margin of the rivers that would serve as models for the conservators of ‘Father Thames.’

The increased production of sugar is something marvellous; from 10,000 tons in 1821 to nearly 70,000 during the last year, with the certainty of a still further progressive increase. And this circumstance is adduced as an argument, by the old West Indian interest, to show the great injustice of our present Free-trade system, which, they say, encourages the production of slave to the detriment of free labour. In this instance, however, the assertion is quite fallacious; for the truth is, that whilst this province is the most fertile one in the empire, fewer slaves have been imported into it than into any other. There is, moreover, a large coloured population, a considerable portion of them being analogous to the yeoman class amongst us. The owners of more extensive properties are industrious and enterprising, and not burthened with debts and mortgages, as in the West Indies; they farm their own estates, so to speak, and live amongst their labourers, overcoming local difficulties that would daunt paid agents and attorneys such as swarmed in Jamaica and all the adjacent islands during the period of their prosperity. This is the secret of the well-doing of Brazil, and not the alteration in our fiscal system, although the latter has no doubt acted as a stimulus to the South American planter to increase his productions, by which he is enabled to consume more of our manufactures.

Whether we consider the frugal habits of the planters of Pernambuco, their unremitting attention to their occupation, or their enterprising disposition, we shall arrive at the conclusion that, aided by a soil and climate second to none in their powers of production, they will very soon take the lead among the sugar-producing countries; indeed, the excellent improvements introduced by them within a few years upon the old methods of manufacture will go far to give them that preËminence. Among such recent improvements I may here more particularly mention that of a very practical centrifugal machine, constructed principally of wood, and manufactured in the country. Mr. Eustaquio Vellozo de Silveira has, on his estate, Rainha dos Anjos, one of these centrifugals at work, and with the best results. A most intelligent and much respected member of the General Legislative Assembly, Dr. Domingos de Souza Leao, (to whom I had the pleasure of being introduced at a ball, in Rio Janeiro, and of dancing with his sister-in-law), ordered for his estate, Carauna, in 1851, the first mill of an entirely new patent for crushing the canes, invented by the Messrs. De Mornay. This cane mill is very simple in its construction; and the owner affirms that it gives a much more powerful pressure to the canes than the old mills. Several others on the same patent have since been put up in that province, which have proved quite successful; and it is only this year that others of the same description will be erected in the West Indies, the planters of these islands having been made acquainted with the result of the experiments in Brazil. A very large portion of Brazilian produce, both sugar and coffee, is consumed on the continent of Europe and in the United States, as appears by the returns for 1853, at the end of the chapter on Rio Janeiro.

It will thus be seen that we are not the only customers of Brazil, and that it is a mere fallacy to attribute its prosperity to our legislative measures, although the latter were acts of common justice to our growing trade with the country, as well as to our own over-taxed population. Until the West Indian Islands can exist on principles similar to those established in Brazil, it is idle to suppose that there can be any permanent or rational prosperity in connection with them.

We have said that the province of Pernambuco has long been noted as the most go-a-head and enterprising of the empire; and the same spirit that has led to these results has also been the cause of much political feeling. Several revolutions have occurred here that threatened a dismemberment of the state; the first, during the old regime of the Portuguese in 1817, followed by another very serious affair in 1824, when Manuel Carvalho assumed the dictatorship of the province; and a considerable land and sea force had to be sent there before the revolution could be repressed, the port being blockaded by the Brazilian squadron, under Commodore Taylor, for about six months. Other outbreaks have taken place, attended with much bloodshed, the last in 1848, when the town had a narrow escape from falling into the hands of a set of miscreants, who would first have pillaged and then devastated it with fire and sword; fortunately for the province, their leader, a man of talent and influence, was killed in the outskirts, of the town, and a salutary example set by the punishment of his followers. Since then the province has remained perfectly quiet, and apparently with every prospect of continuing so.

The Pernambucanos, as the inhabitants of this province are termed, have always evinced a martial spirit, commencing with their determined and successful resistance to the Dutch in the 17th century; and it was undoubtedly owing to them that that people were finally expelled. Still, this bellicose feeling is apt to endanger internal tranquillity, when turned in a wrong direction. Happily, the wish to trade and make money seems now to be the predominant sentiment, and we must hope that it will continue to influence the inhabitants.

Like all the other provinces, Pernambuco is governed by a President, selected by the Government at Rio, generally some man of influence residing in the district; and there is a provincial assembly appointed to act under him, as also a municipal and other bodies elected for the local management of the towns.

The coloured and free population of Pernambuco amounts to about 650,000, and the slave races to about 100,000; of the former, 250,000 inhabit towns, and the remainder follow agricultural pursuits. The slaves are about equally divided between town and country. There is a striking difference between the people inhabiting that part of the province nearest to the sea and those living far in the interior; and not only do the people differ in appearance and manners, but the districts differ totally in character and in climate. The sea board, in some parts as far inland as 50 miles, goes under the denomination of the ‘Matta,’ or forest country, and above that it is called Catinga, or Sertao; Catinga, is the name of a peculiar growth of herbage which there abounds, and Sertao means literally desert, applied to this district on account of the peculiar nature of the country, which, being open and unwooded, has an appearance to warrant such a name. The Sertao is, nevertheless, far from being, as the name might lead one to infer, a barren waste, but, on the contrary, the vegetation surprises even those who, born in the ‘Matta,’ have been nurtured among the wonders of the tropical vegetable kingdom. In 1846, two years of drought had driven thousands to seek for food and water in the ‘Matta,’ and had spread desolation and death among thousands of those who remained; and the cotton planters, in the hope of more abundant showers, opened and planted with fresh cotton plants new lands every year, on the first appearance of rain. But they were doomed in each successive season to disappointment, for the little moisture that fell was in each case but sufficient to make the plants germinate, until the return of hot and dry weather parched both ground and foliage. On the third year copious rain fell, and although the young plants of former years had been literally toasted, and the leaves, together with those of all the trees and grass throughout the country, had long fallen to the ground, and might be discerned in heaps where they had been whirled by eddies of wind, looking more like mounds of snuff than foliage of trees, the rain had hardly slaked the thirsty ground, when all the plants, even those longest in the ground, showed signs of vigour in green buds that developed themselves; and pasture land that had been converted into bare earth by the incessant rays of a scorching sun, was, as by magic, from one day to another, converted into fields of the most delicate verdure.

These distressing droughts in the Sertao are now of far more frequent occurrence than formerly, and they are attributable to the fatal practice of clearing and burning large tracts of timber country for the plantation of cotton and maize; for, owing to the peculiar nature of the soil, this land never again becomes wooded; and, being soon unfit for tillage, it is converted into pasture land, and devoted to the grazing of horned cattle and horses. The ‘Matta’ is not subject to a dearth of rain, because, unlike the ‘Sertao,’ it is still covered by the most magnificent forests; and what is worthy of remark is, that here, unlike the former district, the land after clearing becomes again clothed with dense wood, although of an entirely different species to that felled in the first instance. The primitive forest is called ‘Matta Virgem,’ and that of second growth ‘Capoeira.’

There is little difference in the temperature of the two districts of which we have been speaking; perhaps the sun in the ‘Sertao’ is more powerful than in the ‘Matta.’ In the shade in either place it rarely exceeds 85 degrees of Farenheit; but the average heat for the 24 hours in the ‘Sertao’ is considerably below that of the ‘Matta.’ The former, however, has a totally different climate to the latter; while that is dry, and peculiarly healthy, this is humid, and produces in natives and foreigners both remittent and intermittent fever. The ‘Sertanejos’ are a remarkably fine and healthy race; but those of the ‘Matta,’ weak and sickly.

A very singular circumstance attended the visitation of the yellow fever to the seaport towns of this province some years back; viz.:—that it proved as fatal to the ‘Sertanejos,’ who came down to the coast, as to Europeans freshly arrived by sea from cold climates. Another remarkable point about the climate of the ‘Sertao,’ and one that is deserving of the attention of English physicians is, that the most surprising relief is experienced by consumptive patients, who are sent there from the coast by the native doctors, on breathing the exhilarating air of this peculiar climate. I have heard of numerous cases of men going up apparently in the last stage of the complaint, and in a few weeks becoming quite strong, and so stout that they could not get on the clothes they had taken with them.

The most vital question affecting the development of the resources of Brazil just now is the promotion of railway undertakings. The first movement has been made at Rio Janeiro, where a short line of about ten miles opens a communication between the city and Petropolis, a thriving little establishment up the mountains, where the Emperor has a palace. Other extensive lines are projected from Rio; but as regards local advancement, that from Pernambuco, southwards, offers the strongest inducement to individual enterprise, and there is every chance of this one being at once proceeded with; for the design was conceived and the plan matured by accomplished English engineers, long resident in Brazil, though principally occupied in pursuits of the kind mentioned in connection with improvements in sugar plantations. Such plans have been revised and approved of by a distinguished consulting engineer, expressly despatched by British capitalists for that purpose from London; and on the strength of whose report (to be referred to presently) the necessary funds for all preliminaries are being advanced; and, lastly, the Imperial Government of Brazil has made the most liberal concessions on behalf of the project, in which the Emperor has personally most warmly interested himself, having examined the whole of the drawings pertaining to it with that minute, and, it might be almost said, intimate practical or professional knowledge which his Majesty, as is well known, brings to bear on all investigations of the kind, being probably the best informed prince living in the theory of scientific pursuits and in general literature, as we shall have occasion to mention when speaking of the Court of Rio in the next chapter but one.

In order to understand the difficulties of transit here, it must be borne in mind that nearly every article of import and export has to be conveyed on the backs of horses to and from the towns, as mentioned; so that the expense of transport, when the distance to be traversed is considerable, is often equal to the value of the article conveyed.

The proposed Pernambuco Railway is to have three divisions:—1st, from the city to Agua Preta, a distance of 75 miles, and comprising within its range some 300 sugar estates; 2nd, from Agua Preta to Garanhuns, a distance of 85 miles, passing through an extensive cotton district; 3rdly, from Garanhuns to Paulo Affonso, the falls of the great river San Francisco, 100 miles, a fine and extensive cattle district. The total distance would thus be 360 miles; but it is only intended to commence with the first division of the line, which will afford immense convenience to the planters and others brought within its scope, enabling them to send their produce to market at a moderate cost, and to keep the men, at present required to accompany the horses, employed in valuable labour on the spot. Moreover, the planters and their families will then travel backwards and forwards much more frequently between their estates and the city, transact their business, and make their own purchases, whilst the great internal resources of the country will be brought into play, and all will be large gainers by the facilities thus afforded. The ground is in general favourable for the construction of the railway; there are few rivers to cross, none of them deep, whilst there is a population computed at 60,000 free persons (white and coloured) and 15,000 blacks, besides some 50,000 inhabitants of villages, &c., that will be brought within the scope, without taking into consideration the population of Pernambuco itself, which is about 100,000. It is, therefore, clear that few countries possess such strong inducements for the establishment of railway communication as Brazil; for at present she is destitute of internal roads, at the same time that she teems with valuable natural productions, and a healthy vigorous population. It is, in fact, quite a virgin country in many respects, and capable of infinite developement in resources, commerce, and their natural concomitant, wealth.

Mr. Borthwick in his admirable report, in the course of which he pays a high and deserved compliment to the Messrs. De Mornay, who first broached the scheme, and subsequently most carefully surveyed the ground of the section for which they have obtained the concession, viz., from Recife to Agua Preta, says, that a grand internal communication between the capital and the most thriving provinces is of such obvious importance as to be only a question of time, and the way is pointed out by the natural facilities of the San Francisco, extending for so great a distance, and serving so large and rich a territory.

Some idea may be formed of the immense importance of the connection, by means of a railroad, of the River San Francisco, at some point above the falls of Paulo Affonco, with the seaport of the Recife, by referring to the accompanying map, showing the course of that majestic river. From the rapids, in connection with the Falls, this river is navigable to the bar of the Rio das Velhas, in the heart of the province of Minas Geraes, a distance of more than 700 miles; numerous considerable tributary rivers increase the extent of continuous navigation to nearly 2,000 miles. A large portion of the commerce of Minas Geraes, all that of Goiaz, and Matto Grosso, and much of Piauhi, Bahia, and Pernambuco, would be conveyed by this new channel, increasing, in an incredible manner, the present trade, and developing sources of wealth and profit at present totally unknown or unheeded.

The enlightened views of the Brazilian government point to an early consummation of these great arteries of prosperity and riches, so soon as political and monetary affairs in this country become settled. It has wisely undertaken to guarantee a certain per centage on the outlay necessary for making the lines, until such time as they are self-paying, of which no reasonable doubt can exist in the mind of any one who has studied the question fully and fairly. But even supposing this not to be the case, and the government had to incur a permanent guarantee for the construction of the lines, the return in other ways, and the direct and positive benefit conferred by them on the population, are too obvious to require comment. Steam navigation and railways are, as already repeatedly observed, the great desiderata of the empire of Brazil; and, in now taking my leave of Pernambuco, I devoutly hope, if ever I revisit the place, to find these potent civilizers of mankind in active operation. It must not be lost sight of by those who may be dubious as to the success of railway enterprise in such a country, that the inhabitants are a very social, travelling people; that there is a great intermingling of families in the provinces that would be sure to give rise to constant excursions by rail, to and fro, between given points; and, in fact, that all the elements of railway success are at present to be found, only awaiting the appearance of the lines which would successively call them into operation.