YUBA   COUNTY

GENEALOGICAL   NUGGETS

Round Cape Horn :

voyage of the passenger-ship James W. Paige, from Maine to California in the year 1852;

BY J. LAMSON.
BANGOR:
PRESS OF O. F. & W. H. KNOWLES.
1878

CHAPTER IV.

SATURDAY, May 22. Our friends, the boatmen, were out betimes, and took us to the city early in the morning. We had arranged a large party of ladies and gentlemen to visit the Botanical Garden, of which we had heard many glowing accounts besides those given me by the young English gentlemen yesterday. To convey our party we hired three carriages, each drawn by two mules, and driven by a man who spoke a little, a very little English, and drove through the streets near the shore of the bay for a distance of three miles or more, when we turned into the country and followed a road that wound around the base of several hills and mountains, one of which I have already spoken of as seen from the bark. It ran up into a sharp, perpendicular peak, as near as I could judge about fifteen hundred feet high. And this mountain I am told is often ascended by tourists, who reach its highest point on horseback. The scenery through which we passed was truly magnificent, and many of the houses and gardens were rich and beautiful. We stopped at a hotel near the garden, whence we walked to the garden accompanied by a very agreeable young man, a Hungarian, who spoke pretty good English, and who made himself very useful in giving us the English names of many of the trees and shrubs. The first object that met our view--and to me it was one of the greatest attractions of the garden--was two rows of palm trees planted on the edges of a broad and elevated walk, passing through the center of the garden. The trunks of these palms were of a stone gray or ash color, and showed a slight circular ridge or mark at intervals of three or four inches, where they had been encircled by the footstalks of leaves, which had fallen off as the trees increased in height. They were perfectly round, and symmetrical, and to my inexperienced eye they seemed to have been turned in a lathe, or chiseled by a sculptor. They rose to the height of thirty or forty feet, and were crowned with a great tuft of long leaves. The effect on looking through this long vista of trees was peculiar and striking, and I could scarcely resist the impression that they were the work of art, pillars of stone crowned with artificial foliage. Near this walk we saw several plats of the China tea-plant. I did not learn any thing as to its productiveness.

We passed rapidly through a great many walks, and saw groves of a large variety of trees, in all which I felt a peculiar interest, such as the cinnamon, nutmeg, sage, camphor, bread-fruit, tamarind, cocoa-nut, orange, lemon and banyan trees, and thickets of bamboo and swamps of bananas, besides a multitude of beautiful trees, shrubs and flowers, whose names we did not learn. In the center of the garden, and dividing the palm-tree walk, which I have described, into two equal parts, is a fine fountain bordered with and surrounded by a profusion of rich flowers. A little farther on we found a pretty brook running over a hard bed of sand and thickly shaded with bananas. It was just sequestered and wild enough to remind me of home and the many brooks of pure water, in which I had so often slaked my thirst in my frequent rambles in the wild woods of Maine. I was glad to find something, if only a brook, in this world of novelties, that might, perhaps, have its counterpart in my own country. But more than this, there was a little grove of cedars, which, we were told, had been imported from the United States.

I was deeply interested in the bread-fruit tree with its large half grown fruit, and its great, shining, deep green leaves, It has had a sort of romantic attraction for me ever since I read of it in early childhood in the voyages of Captain Cook. The tamarind also is very attractive, and with its broad spreading branches and brilliant foliage, is one of the most beautiful trees within the tropics. The banana is an annual plant, growing to the height of twelve or fifteen feet, with immensely long leaves from eighteen inches to two feet wide. It bears an immense cluster of fruit, sometimes several hundreds in number, each about six inches long. The pulp of the banana is covered with a thick skin, which is easily detached. I do not know what other fruit to compare it with. I found it of a very pleasant flavor when eaten with sugar and wine as we eat musk-melons, though its flavor is far inferior to that of the musk-melon.

After satisfying our curiosity with the beauties of the garden, we returned to the hotel in season for dinner. And as I shall, in all probability, never partake of another Brazilian dinner, I am tempted to give a short account of this. The company at the table consisted solely of our own party, and the young Hungarian. We sat down to a long table not less than six feet wide, which we found a very inconvenient width. There were sixteen or seventeen of us. We had a small turkey roasted with the feet, but without stuffing; neat's tongue fried in oil or something else that rendered it extremely unpalatable; fried ham and eggs strong and unpleasant; fried fish, green peas, utterly tasteless; potatoes, very small and fried in oil, and lettuce. The food was placed on the table, and we were left to help ourselves, which the great width of the table rendered very inconvenient. The carving of the turkey devolved upon me. The gentlemen watched the operation with deep interest, and had the mortification of seeing the whole of it distributed among the ladies. Turkey being out of the question with them, they turned their attention to the other dishes, of which they partook with such appetites as might be expected after a six weeks' voyage at sea. The first and principal course was speedily disposed of. The table was cleared away, and then came the second course or dessert, which consisted of two small omelets or tarts, which I thought were very good; two small loaves of sponge cake, ditto; and bananas, oranges and walnuts, of all which we left not a vestige.

The dinner passed off very pleasantly, and the bill was settled with some little trouble, in which we had to call in the assistance of our friend, the Hungarian, as none of us understood Portuguese, and the landlord was equally ignorant of English. Each article was charged separately, and the long list of items and their prices required a pretty familiar acquaintance with compound addition and with Brazilian currency, to bring the sum to a satisfactory footing. The excursion proved to be one of great enjoyment to us, and we returned to the city and to the ship, highly delighted with the day's adventure.

May 23. We had been notified that a missionary from the city would preach on board our ship to-day, and the ladies and some of the gentlemen stopped to hear him. But many of us could not resist the inclination to spend on shore the very short time of our stay at Rio, and we resolved to take an early start for the city. As we were about leaving the ship, the first mate, whose name is Atwood, an ignorant, uncouth sailor, undertook to stop us by a very winning exhortation, which he wound up by calling us a damned pack of fellows with no more manners than the heathen. I replied that Mr. Atwood was the last man in the world to whom I should go to learn good manners, and then went on board the boat.

We found, as we expected, the stores open in the city, and business transacted as it is in all Catholic countries on the Sabbath. I went into several churches, where I found but few worshipers, but they were continually coming and going, and their individual devotions occupied but a small portion of time. Some of the passengers found amusement in a cock fight. Others went to the public garden, where they found a great concourse of people, that being a place of much resort on Sundays. As I had resolved to take a walk into the country on the opposite side of the harbor, I invited two young men, T. Ladd and B. D. Morrill, to accompany me. We crossed the bay in a steam ferry-boat to the village of San Domingo. This village is built around one of the indentations, which form a prominent feature in this harbor. The principal street stretches more than a mile in a circular form around the bay, and is built upon only one side, the houses all overlooking the water, which washes a broad beach of fine white sand. Double rows of trees are planted on the street next the beach, and thickly planted trees and shrubbery, form a deep shade around each dwelling.

We took one of the principal roads, and walked into the country, going wherever curiosity or fancy directed, a hundred roads diverging to the right and left as we advanced. We passed many houses and plantations as we wound around the hills, and we stopped frequently to rest us and to examine the plants and the gardens, that invited our notice. At one place we saw a gang of slaves drilling into a quarry on the side of a hill for the purpose of procuring stone for building. The sun was beating down upon the rock with great intensity, and none but those half naked Africans could have endured the heat. Their shining backs glistened in the sun, like polished ebony. At another place we saw two slaves chained together, and digging in the earth in that condition. They had, perhaps, been guilty of insubordination or some other crime against their lawful masters!

Our first attempt to visit a plantation was unsuccessful. It was a pretty place, the house was a new and handsome one, the grounds looked inviting, and the gate was open. We entered, but had proceeded only a few steps when we were met by two large dogs destitute of hair but not of teeth, who not only disputed our further progress, but seemed disposed to take vengeance on us for our intrusion. We were not inclined to parley with them, but commenced an immediate retreat, when a slave, who happened to be near, came forward and called off the dogs. At the same moment the master of the house, a surly looking old fellow, hearing the uproar, came out from the house, and instead of inviting us in like a gentleman, as he was in duty bound, only directed us by signs to another house, where we thought he intended to intimate, we should meet with a more hospitable reception. And in this he was right. A. large and elegant mansion stood near the road. The gate was open, and we passed through, though rather hesitatingly. A negro met us with many smiles, conducted us over the grounds, broke off as many oranges from the branches of the trees as we wanted to eat and carry away, permitted me to cut an orange twig for a walking-stick, and showed us half a dozen very fine cows, which my companions pronounced fully equal to, and very much resembling, our best cows in Maine. A few small coins rewarded his civility, and we continued our walk. A little distance further brought us to a small village. We sat down to rest us for a few minutes upon some stone steps in front of a store connected with a handsome dwelling house. As we were about to continue our rambles we met a gentleman at the gateway, who saluted us in English, and invited us to sit in the shade. He talked with us of a hundred things in a few minutes. He had once resided in Virginia, and expressed himself in terms of high admiration of the government of the United States, and of unqualified disgust of the Roman Catholic religion, which was the bane of Brazil. He invited us to walk over his grounds, and as we declined eating oranges, he directed a slave to cut us some stalks of sugar-cane, the juice of which is very refreshing to a thirsty traveler. He directed our attention to a little naked "nigger baby," which lay sprawled out upon the ground, and which he said he was raising with no other motive than that of pure charity, for the animal would not half repay the cost of rearing it. Thanking him for his hospitality, we took leave, when he gave us a hearty shake of the hand, and wished us a successful voyage.

A little further on we saw an elegant mansion situated about half way up the side of a steep hill, and overlooking a considerable extent of country. It was a delightful situation, and its owner was the proprietor of a coffee plantation on the other side of the road and in front of his house. A number of blacks were at this time occupied in preparing the coffee for market.

The gateway to the grounds consisted of a square building perhaps twenty feet high. I opened the gate and went in. A walk leading to the house wound to the right, through thickets of trees up the acclivity, in the steepest portions of which were placed flights of broad stone steps.

Another walk diverged to the left, and was soon lost to the view in groves of oranges, lemons, tamarinds, and other tropical trees. Many new and beautiful plants were to be seen around the house, and every thing displayed beauty, elegance, and taste. I looked round for a few moments, but seeing no one on the grounds, I left the place.

On our return we took another road, and passed many places whose scenery deeply interested us. At one plantation we met, as usual, a smiling slave, who conducted us through the walks of a beautiful garden. Another slave, a female, soon appeared with a long stick prepared at one end like a fork to break oranges from the branches; and we were getting along very pleasantly, walking in the shade of orange, bread-fruit, tamarind, and other trees, many of which we did not know, when suddenly we saw a large party of blacks, male and female, in one of the distant walks, and saw a great commotion among them. My curiosity was excited to see the frolic, which I thought might have been an African dance or a fandango. But Morrill, who perceived a strong smell of rum in the breath of our dark cicerone, and thinking the distant scene bore a greater resemblance to an Irish riot, beat a precipitate retreat, and I followed, sorry to lose so good an opportunity for learning something of the amusements of those slaves.

Continuing our walk, we came to the bay, where we found a new road winding in one place around the base of huge, perpendicular precipices, from every interstice of which hung a variety of cactuses, vines and shrubs, while lofty palms threw up their leaf-crowned shafts from the earth below.

The road we had found was new, hard, perfectly smooth, and was decidedly the best highway I ever saw. It led direct to the town of San Domingo, almost a mile distant from the point at which we had landed, and where we speedily arrived. Recrossing the bay, we purchased a. few necessaries at Rio, and returned to the ship. We found our bark the scene of much noise and confusion, arising from the drunkenness of several of the passengers, who had just returned, having spent the day in drinking on shore. One man had become so outrageously violent and crazy, that the second mate, who had command of the ship at this time,--the captain and first mate being both absent,--was obliged to secure him by tying his hands.

May 24. We had laid in many things necessary for our comfort during the continuance of our voyage, among which were a large lot of oranges, and some bananas and cocoa-nuts. This morning, just as were about to sail, two boats laden with oranges came along-side the ship, and though we thought we had a pretty good supply of fruit, we bought both cargoes, amounting to about two thousand. They cost us from forty to sixty cents a hundred.

The North America left the harbor two days before us. We did not visit her though she lay at anchor almost within speaking distance of us. A regulation of the port prohibits the passengers and crews passing from one ship to another. It may have been a fortunate regulation for us, for we had many reports of the yellow fever being in the ship. This disease had raged very fatally in the city, but was beginning to subside, though we were told it was still rife.

Mr. Kent, our consul at Rio at this time, had removed with his family into the country, where he found a more salubrious climate than the city afforded. This was a disappointment to several of the passengers, who were personally acquainted with him, and had anticipated much pleasure in meeting him in this distant land. Mr. Kent is said to be very popular at Rio, and the interest he takes in the oppressed seamen, and the kindness and humanity he manifests towards them, have done him much credit.

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