A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam', Our Home on the Ocean for Eleven Months. Brassey Annie
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both melodious and picturesque.
The wind dropped at about 10 p.m., and we had an unpleasant amount of roll during the night, sails flapping, spars creaking, and booms swinging as if they would pull the masts out of the vessel.
Monday, August 14th.—This morning we saw a small schooner ahead, and thinking from her manoeuvres that she wished to speak us, we made our number and ran towards her. We soon found out, however, that she was a whaler, in chase of two large grampuses. She had two men on the look-out in the cross-trees, in a sort of iron cage; and though she was of much smaller tonnage than the 'Sunbeam,' she carried five big boats, one of which, full of men, was ready to be lowered into the water, the instant they had approached sufficiently near to the whale or grampus. These seas used formerly to abound with whalers, but they are now much less numerous, the seasons having been bad of late.
To-night the stars were especially brilliant, and we spent some hours in trying to make out their names. Vega, our polar star for some time to come, shone conspicuously bright, and the Southern Cross could be seen to great advantage.
Wednesday, August 16th.—We had a fine fair breeze all day, and at 5 p.m. there was a cry from the mast-head of 'Land ahead!' Great excitement immediately prevailed on board, and Tom and Captain Brown rushed, for about the twelfth time, to the foretop to see if the report was true. They were soon able to announce that Cape Frio was visible on the port bow, about thirty-five miles distant. After even a fortnight at sea, an indescribable sensation is produced by this cry, and by the subsequent sight of the land itself. When we came up on deck this evening, after dinner, we all gazed on the lighthouse on the still distant shore as if we had never beheld such a thing in our lives before. The colour and temperature of the water had perceptibly changed, the former from a beautiful, clear, dark ultramarine to a muddy green; innumerable small birds, moths, locusts, and grasshoppers came on board; and, having given special orders that we were to be called early the next morning, we went to bed in the fond hope that we should be able to enter Rio harbour at daybreak.
Thursday, August 17th.—'L'homme propose; Dieu dispose.' Steam was up at midnight, but by that time it was blowing half a gale of wind from the south-west, with such a steep short sea that the screw was scarcely ever properly immersed, but went racing round and round in the air with tremendous velocity, as we pitched and rolled about. Our progress was therefore at the rate of something rather under a mile an hour, and at daybreak, instead of entering the harbour of Rio, as we had hoped to do, we found ourselves close to Cape Frio.
About 8 a.m. matters mended, the wind moderating and changing its direction slightly; so that, under steam and sail, we were soon going along the coast at the rate of four or five miles an hour. The surf was breaking with a loud roar upon the white sandy beach, while the spray was carried by the force of the wind far inland, over the strip of flat fertile-looking country, lying between the sea and a chain of low sugarloaf-shaped mountains, parallel with the shore, and only a short distance off.
Our course lay between the mainland and the islands of Maya and Payo, where the groves of bananas and other trees looked very miserable in the wind. The tall isolated palm-trees, whose elastic stems bowed readily before the fury of the blast, looked, as they were twisted and whirled hither and thither, like umbrellas turned inside out. Passing the false Sugarloaf mountain, as it is called, we next opened out the true one, the Gavia, and the chain of mountains beyond, the outlines of which bear an extraordinary resemblance to the figure of a man lying on his back, the profile of the face being very like that of the late Duke of Wellington. As the sun sank in gorgeous splendour behind these hills, I think I never saw a grander or more beautiful sight; though the sky was so red and stormy-looking that our hopes of a fine day to-morrow were but faint.
Before entering the harbour, a bar had to be crossed, which is a dangerous operation all the world over. The skylights and hatches were fastened down, and those of our party who did not like being shut up below took their places on the bridge, where, for the first time since we left England, it felt really quite cold. As we advanced, the beautiful harbour, with its long rows of glittering gas-lights, extending for miles on either side of the bay, and illuminating the city and suburbs, gradually became visible. On our left lay the two islands, Rodonda and Raza, on the latter of which is situated a lighthouse. The wind was blowing off the land when we reached the bar, so that, after all our preparations, there was hardly any sea to encounter, and the moment we were over, the water on the other side was perfectly smooth. A gun and a blue light from Fort Santa Cruz, answered immediately by a similar signal from Fort Santa Lucia, announced our arrival, and we shortly afterwards dropped our anchor in the quarantine ground of Rio close to Botafogo Bay, in the noble harbour of Nictheroy.
After dinner it rained heavily, and continued to do so during the whole night.
CHAPTER IV.
RIO DE JANEIRO.
The sun is warm, the sky is clear, The waves are dancing fast and bright, Blue isles and snowy mountains wear The purple noon's transparent light.
Friday, August 18th.—The clouds still hung heavy on the hills, or rather mountains, which surround the bay, occasionally descending in the form of torrents of rain, and hiding everything from our view.
Early in the morning we weighed anchor and steamed up the bay to the man-of-war anchorage, a much pleasanter situation than the quarantine harbour, where we had brought up last night. About 9.30 a.m. the health officers came on board, and half an hour later we had a visit from the custom-house official, who required Tom to sign and seal a declaration upon oath that he had no cargo on board, and not more coal than we absolutely required for our own consumption.
About eleven o'clock we put on our mackintoshes and thick boots, and, accompanied by an interpreter, who (together with several washerwomen) had suddenly made his appearance on board, rowed ashore, pushing our way through crowds of boats laden with fruit and vegetables. The landing-place was close to the market, at some broken-down steps, and was crowded with chattering negroes, of every shade of colour. The quays seemed covered with piles of fruit and vegetables, discharged from the boats, the principal produce being sugar-cane, bananas, and oranges. Each side street that we came to was a little river, which had to be crossed, or rather forded, after paddling through the mud in the main thoroughfare.
Our first visit was to the post-office—'no letters'—then to the British Consulate—'no letters'—and finally to the Legation, but there was nobody at home there; so we set off for the Hôtel des Etrangers, to breakfast. Our way lay through the straggling suburbs of the city for about two miles, and as we drove along we could see and admire, despite the heavy rain, the magnificent groves of palm-trees, and the brilliancy and beauty of the tropical vegetation in the various private and public gardens that we passed.
After breakfast we returned to the Legation, where we were most kindly received, but, much to our regret, no letters were forthcoming. We next paid a visit to some of the shops in the Rua do Ouvidor, for the sale of imitations of flowers, made from the undyed feathers of birds, and a large number of the more expensive varieties of ordinary artificial flowers, each petal consisting of the entire throat or breast of a humming-bird, and the leaves are made from the wings of beetles. They are very rare and beautiful, their manufacture being quite a spécialité of this city. The prices asked astonished us greatly; the cost of five sprays, which I had been commissioned to buy, was 29l., and the price of all the others was proportionately high. But then they wear for ever. I have had some for nine years, and they are as good now as when they were bought.
Saturday, August 19th.—Though far from brilliant, the weather improved, and we were able to enjoy occasional glimpses of the beautiful scenery around us.
Mr. Gough and Mr. O'Conor breakfasted with us on board, and we afterwards proceeded in a 'bond' to the Botanical Gardens, about