decay, and their approaching extinction by the death of the few monks and nuns remaining is viewed with indifference; but the clergy take a different view of the case. They expect to inherit the revenues derived from the Church property, and they do not want to see it pass into the hands of private parties. Until ten or twelve years ago the political leaders encouraged the superstitious observances of the Church in order to secure the loyalty of the priesthood, but the growth of Liberal sentiment has been so great that the Church has been robbed of the terror it formerly inspired and of the influence which it possessed, and there has been much encouragement given to Protestants who have come into the country and engaged in missionary work.
One of the great holidays in Brazil is the feast of St. George, the patron of the empire. Each city and province has a sort of deputy patron, whose worship is duly celebrated on a particular day. Saint Sebastian has charge of the city of Rio de Janeiro, and in his honor a celebration is held once a year; but when the annual feast of St. George returns, every town and village from the northern to the southern boundary of the country has the grandest procession and demonstration of the season. This is not the same St. George who is supposed to have formerly had England under his protection, but an entirely different individual. Formerly this saint held the rank of colonel in the army, and was entitled to a yearly pay of thirty-five thousand dollars, which the priests drew for him and pretended to invest in jewels and dresses. A few years ago he used to be taken through the streets on horseback on his anniversary day, surrounded by a bodyguard—a regiment composed of the greatest swells of Rio de Janeiro, who acknowledged him as their commander, and were known as the “Imperial Order of St. George.” An old resident told me about an instance that occurred some years ago, when the attendant who had charge of the image buckled Colonel St. George’s sword on so carelessly that it dropped from his belt and wounded a priest. The aide-de-camp and the saint were both tried for the offence, and both found guilty. The officer was punished with imprisonment, and the saint fined a large portion of his salary.
The anniversary of Corpus Christi is always celebrated with great pomp in Rio, and with a procession which marches through the principal streets. At its head is usually carried an effigy of the Saviour, preceded by bands of singing priests and bearers of incense, and covered with a canopy carried by the Emperor and the Count D’Eu, his son-in-law, and the principal ministers of state. The participation of the
Emperor in this ceremony has existed from time immemorial, and is supposed to illustrate the obedience of the civil to the ecclesiastical power; but Dom Pedro hates the nonsense, and last year he declined to participate.
The money used in Brazil is liable to give a stranger the nightmare. Imagine yourself presented with a bill for thirty thousand reis after eating a dinner and drinking a bottle of wine at a café. One is apt to indulge in some expressions of astonishment, even if he is too honest to attempt an escape by the back door. But composure is restored when it is discovered that a “reis” is worth only the twentieth part of a cent, and at the present discount of Brazilian money such a bill amounts only to about seven dollars.
The book-keepers of Brazil have a hard time of it, however, as the reis is the standard value, and the long lines of figures which represent the commercial transactions of the ordinary mercantile or banking house each day are a severe tax upon the mathematical accuracy and ability of the people. For example, $1,000,000 equals about 4,000,000,000 reis, and the paper currency of Brazil represents 488,000,000,000 reis. The commercial statistics of Brazil look very formidable; but the people simplify matters somewhat by using the term millreis, which means a thousand reis.
The currency of the country consists of irredeemable paper shinplasters, the smallest denomination being five hundred reis, which is equal to about thirteen cents in gold. Nickel and copper coins are used for change below that sum, the reis being a very minute disk of copper. There is no gold or silver in circulation; and as the balance of trade has been largely against Brazil of recent years, there is not coin enough in the country to pay the interest on the public debt, and the bondholders are given bills on London.
There is no wharfage at any of the Brazilian ports; vessels are compelled to anchor out in the harbors, which are usually good, and be loaded and unloaded by means of lighters. Passengers are carried to and fro in bongoes, managed by a noisy and naked boatman, who inspires alarm in the breast of the nervous passenger, who imagines this gang of savage-looking maniacs are cannibals howling for his blood. The wardrobe of a bongo usually consists of a dilapidated straw hat and a pair of cotton drawers amputated at the thighs. These drawers are a degree farther from decency than the bathing-trunks small boys wear at the sea-side. The bongoes are shrewd fellows, and make bargains easily, but are hard to settle with when the work is done. They agree to take you and your trunk ashore for a dollar, but when you reach the custom-house they demand twice as much, with an additional dollar for Pippo, who helped carry the trunk down the gangway. People who remain on the vessel amuse themselves by throwing small coins into the water for the boatmen to dive after. If you toss a silver quarter overboard, a dozen or more will plunge after it, and one of them will have it in his mouth before it reaches the bottom.
The most noticeable thing that strikes one when he lands at one of the Brazilian ports is the extraordinary economy observed in the matter of wearing apparel. The children in the streets up to eight or ten years are usually entirely naked, playing in groups around the door-ways, and in the corners sheltered from the sun. Nearly every woman you meet has a big basket of something or other on her head, or a naked baby in her arms; the number of babies to be seen at the windows or in the streets is astonishing. The yellow-fever and other epidemics carry off a large percentage of the population every summer, but the increase from natural causes more than keeps pace with the mortality. When the girls get to be eight or ten years of age they put on a white cotton tunic, which hangs loosely from the shoulders, and the women wear a plain white chemise, with the arms and shoulders bare. The boys and men have cotton trousers or drawers, and, if they are prosperous, add a speckled shirt to their wardrobe, which hangs loosely over the pantaloons, and flaps in the breeze with cheerful négligé. A society for the encouragement of modesty among the men, women, and children of Brazil would find a fruitful field for missionary work. They act and live like animals; but the younger women show some sense of shame, and gather their scanty drapery around them as the stranger passes. Among their own kind they are as regardless of the proprieties of civilization as the mangy dogs which stretch out in the sun at their feet. The priests, under whose control they yield an absolute submission, and whose authority here is even greater than in Rome, are said to teach no lessons of chastity or modesty, but to practise a licentiousness which makes one shudder when he hears common anecdotes told.
The sun always rises and sets very suddenly in the tropics. There is no “rosy blush of morn to herald the coming of a newborn day,” and so on, nor is there a gorgeous glow in the west when the twilight comes; but old Sol gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night without any ceremony, and with a startling suddenness. You awaken at the noise of carts in the street, find it dark as midnight, with the stars more brilliant than you ever saw them at home, turn over, doze a little, and in a few moments jump up, supposing it to be noonday. The sun jumps into the air out of the darkness and drops below the horizon as if he had been shot. There are only two periods in the twenty-four hours—midnight and high noon. There is gas in most of the large towns, but it is seldom used in any except the finest modern residences. Candles or kerosene lamps throw light upon domestic circles, but there are always plenty of gas-lamps in the streets, and they light them in an odd way. One fellow goes ahead with a long stick and turns on the gas; another follows him with a torch and gives it light. Sometimes the latter stops to gossip on the corner, and the consequence is a strong odor of gas all over the town.
On every block is a policeman or watchman, whose business
is to sing out at certain intervals to inform the inhabitants what o’clock it is, and that all is well. Like the fakirs in the streets during the day, they have a most melancholy tone in their voices, and to the stranger their announcements sound like the cry of a lost soul—“Sereno-o-o-o-o-o; Sereno-o-o-o-o-o; Las diez y media y Sereno-o-o-o-o-o!”
The text-books on oratory that were used in old times gave the statement that Demosthenes could make an audience weep or laugh at will by simply uttering “Mesopotamia,” but he could not have put more pathos, more lingering agony, than the tropical policemen in these simple words—“All’s serene; all’s serene! It is a day and a half-midnight, and all’s serene!”
The stranger never fails to hear these announcements, for two very good reasons; first, because his bed is as hard as the racks upon which the Roman tyrants used to torture early Christians; and, second, it is always occupied by a colony of the most vigorous pests that ever drank human blood. At the hotels all the servants are men. They do the work of chamber-maids, cooks, porters, and dining-room waiters, wash the dishes, and everything but washing and ironing.
The Brazilian rises early in the morning, to do the greater part of his work in the cool of the day. He drinks a cup of strong coffee, eats a roll, and perhaps an egg, and then goes to his store or office, from which he returns at twelve to his breakfast—the most elaborate meal of the day. It begins with soup and ends with cheese, dulces, and coffee, like the dinner of the temperate zone. He has a fish, a chop or steak, an omelette, and a salad, but no vegetables. Then he lies down for a nap, after which, about four o’clock, he returns to business, and remains often as late as eight or nine o’clock. His dinner is a repetition of his breakfast, except that he has vegetables and a roast or fowl. He takes a walk in the plaza with his family after dinner and retires early, if he does not go to the club or gaming-table. The people are inveterate gamblers. There is no more disgrace attached to attendance upon the faro-table or the roulette-board than attends stock gambling in New York. He calls upon the Holy Mother when he tosses his chips upon the cards, and says an “Ave Maria” when he wins a stake. At every religious festival the cathedrals and churches are surrounded by gambling-booths, and the priests always go to the cock-fights after high mass on Sunday. Some of them breed game chickens, and carry them to the pit under their priestly robes.
The great problem for Brazil to solve in the future is that of labor. With the gradual emancipation of the slave the labor system of the country is becoming disorganized and demoralized. It has been demonstrated beyond a doubt, even in the minds of the most radical abolitionists, that the emancipated negroes are neither disposed nor competent to take care of themselves. They are different in this respect from the freedmen of the United States because their ignorance is much greater. Their dependence is much more absolute, and they never received the kind treatment and instruction that was enjoyed by so many of the slaves in the United States. From one end of Brazil to the other there is scarcely a negro slave, or one who has ever been enslaved, that can read and write. Their ignorance is so dense that they scarcely know anything of the work outside of the cabin in which they live; and the policy of the slave-holders, aided by the priests, has been to keep them in this condition as far as possible. As long as they have attended mass, and said so many prayers a day, the priests have been satisfied with their condition, and their owners and masters have never thought of anything but to get as much work out of them as was consistent with their strength.
The political issue in Brazil to-day, as has been the case for many years, is the abolition of slavery. Ten years ago the two political parties were as wide apart on this question as the Abolitionists and Democrats were in the United States in 1860; but the emancipation policy has been rapidly growing in favor, the necessity and justness of the movement have become almost universally recognized, and the two political parties differ only upon the measures by which the result shall be accomplished. There are very few people in Brazil to-day who, when asked the direct question, will advocate the perpetuation of human slavery; but those who have property in slaves naturally resist any movement that will deprive them of its value without some compensation.
A law was passed in 1881 which declared free all negroes and their children who should be imported into the empire after that date; but it was never executed, and in spite of it the slave-trade increased, reaching prior to 1851 enormous proportions. Fifty thousand negro slaves were imported in a single year when the trade was at its height. The effective intervention of the British Government in 1851 broke up the foreign trade, and from that time the friends of the slave in Brazil were able to make some headway against their opponents.
The first legislation enforced towards the abolition of slavery was enacted in 1871, in what was known as the “Free Birth Law,” which was framed by the Emperor himself, and adopted by Congress largely through his own personal efforts. This laid the axe at the root of the tree, and provided that human bondage in Brazil should end with the present generation. Every child born since the passage of the act is free, but the owner of its mother is required to educate and support it until twenty-one years old, being entitled to the results of its labor during the same time. The law also provided that slaves should be credited with their labor, and all service performed over and above a given maximum should be considered as a surplus and credited against the value of the slave, in order that those who had energy and ambition might in this manner earn or purchase their own freedom; and by a further provision all slaves reaching the age of sixty-five were free, but could look to their old masters for support in case they were in a condition of disability.
This law, however well intended, proved impracticable, and could not be generally enforced. Forgeries were committed upon the records of birth, both by the slaves and their masters. The latter refused, or fixed so high a valuation that very few were able to earn their freedom; they neglected to educate the children as required by law, so that even if a young man gained his freedom he was not fitted to enjoy it or exercise the right of citizenship. The old men and women were turned off the plantations to beg or find refuge in the public almshouses; and the planters, feeling no longer any interest in the health and welfare of their slaves, neglected their sanitary condition and ill-treated them. The result of the law was to demoralize the laboring element. It proved a disaster to the slaves as well as to their masters, and disturbed the political condition of the country.
There is no slave-market in Rio Janeiro, nor has there been one for several years, all the transactions in human flesh being conducted privately; but there are agents who buy and sell on commission, like the real estate or cattle dealers of the United States.
There is a small number of negroes in Brazil from Minas, a territory on the west coast of Africa, who differ from all other blacks. They are of immense frame, capable of great endurance, display a remarkable degree of intelligence, are very clannish, speaking a language among themselves unintelligible to others, and practising religious rites similar to those of Mohammedanism, from which they have never been allured by the tempting ceremonies of the Catholic Church.
As slaves the Minas natives are valued at more than double the price of ordinary negroes, and as freedmen they are useful, industrious, and excellent citizens, and will work of their own accord. No other blacks exercise the regular Yankee thrift in saving their earnings and in economizing their resources. They are ingenious as well as intelligent, and make first-class mechanics as well as laborers. These Minas have frequently purchased their freedom and returned to Africa, but those that go invariably come back to Brazil. Several instances are reported in which they have chartered vessels for this purpose, and have even brought over friends and kinsmen of their own across the Atlantic to settle in Brazil. The wisest thinkers of the country advocate the organization of immigration companies for the purpose of bringing cargoes of these people from Africa, not as slaves, but as freemen, to supply the demand for labor in the country. They are much preferable to the Chinese or the coolies as laborers, and are particularly adapted to the Brazilian climate.
There are a great many Germans going into the country, forming colonies in the interior, opening up sugar plantations, planting coffee, gathering rubber, and engaging in all sorts of agricultural employment; but the climate is so enervating that after an experience of two years the German colonist will be found by his Portuguese predecessor sitting in the shade of the fig-tree and hiring a negro to do his work. Everywhere in hot climates the people become enervated, and Brazil will scarcely form an exception to other countries in the same latitude. In the more southern provinces and on the higher levels white colonists may succeed if there is nothing but climatic differences to oppose them. There has been a small number of immigrants from the United States to the southern provinces of Brazil; and after the war a great many Confederates flooded in there for the purpose of establishing plantations and raising sugar and coffee, but their success has not been great. Most of the colonies have broken up, and the members have been scattered over different parts of the country. Some engage in one undertaking, some in another, but many have succumbed to the influences of the climate and died of fever.
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, Y.