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A summer journey to Brazil

Chapter 16: 1864 AND 1900.
By Alice R. Humphrey
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Travel Writing

About This Book

A travel narrative recounts an Atlantic voyage from North America and Europe to several Brazilian ports, offering descriptive scenes of tropical seas, coastal bays, and urban life. Separate chapters trace stops such as Pernambuco, the Rio de Janeiro region including a mountain summer resort, Santos and São Paulo, and the homeward passage. Personal observations range from consular affairs, coffee cultivation and labor, and everyday social customs to the role of the Roman Catholic Church. Appendices supply practical information on education, religious instruction, hospitals, facts about the country, and an account of recent political unrest and U.S. protection of American shipping.

1864 AND 1900.

“There is much that is discouraging in the aspect of Brazil, even for those who hope and believe as I do that she has before her an honorable and powerful career.

“There is much also that is very cheering, that leads me to believe that her life as a nation will not belie her great gifts as a country. Should her moral and intellectual endowments grow into harmony with her wonderful natural beauty and wealth the world will not have seen a fairer land.

“Every friend of Brazil must wish to see its present priesthood replaced by a more vigorous, intelligent, and laborious clergy.”—Prof. Louis Agassiz, 1864.

Eleven years of self-government and a disestablishment of the Church have brought the Brazilian nation out of an imperialism politically and a greater imperialism religiously. Within two years part of the priesthood has been “replaced by a more vigorous, intelligent and laborious clergy” in the State of São Paulo. A. R. H.