We land on slippery wooden stairs, and hurry across the blistering hot pavements of the street to rest for a few moments in the shade of the large warehouses and wholesale shops that crowd the lower town. Some of the signs are decidedly bizarre and scream as loudly for patronage as the limits of modern Frenchified Portuguese art will permit. There is none of the picturesqueness of Pernambuco, and we soon betake ourselves to one of the cog railways where, for a few cents, we are allowed to scramble into a bare little wooden passenger coach and be yanked up the steep incline by a cable that looks none too strong for its purpose. Once in the upper city, the narrow streets of commerce seem to be left behind, and we are in broader thoroughfares, with here and there a green park full of palms and other tropical plants. There are churches on every side,
some of them wonderfully decorated and most attractive. Bahia is not quite so old as Pernambuco, its foundation dating only from the middle of the sixteenth century; but it early became the religious and intellectual centre of Portuguese-America, and it is still noted for its literature and culture, although long ago passed in the race by Rio.
The glaring white sunlight throws everything into bold relief and makes the shadows seem unusually dark and cool. On the corners of the streets are little folding stands bearing a heavy load of toothsome confectionery. Their barefooted coal-black owners, clad generally in white, lean against the iron posts of the American Trolley Car System and watch patiently for the trade that seems sure to come to him who waits. On every side one sees black faces.
In fact, Bahia is sometimes popularly spoken of as the “Old Mulattress,” in affectionate reference to the fact that more than ninety per cent of its two hundred thousand people are of African descent. For over two centuries Bahia monopolized the slave trade of Brazil. Her traders continued to be the chief importers of negroes down to the middle of the nineteenth century. It is said that as many as sixty thousand slaves were brought in within a single year.
We took one of the American-made trolleys and soon went whizzing along through well-paved streets and out into the suburbs. Here villas, fearfully and wonderfully made, like the baker’s best wedding cake in his shop window, attest to the local fondness for rococo extravagance. In general, however, the principal buildings appear to be well built, and are frequently four or five stories in height.
The architecture of Bahia is decidedly Portuguese, much more so than that of Pernambuco, which still bears traces of its Dutch origin and even reminds one of Curaçao. Some of the villas in Bahia are strikingly like those in Lisbon. And there are other likenesses between the Portuguese capital and this ecclesiastical metropolis of Brazil. Both are situated on magnificent estuaries, and present a fine spectacle to the traveller coming by sea. Both have upper and lower towns, with hills so steep as to require the services of elevators and cog or cable railways to connect them. The upper town of each commands an extensive view of the shipping, the roadstead, and the surrounding country. But here the similarity ends; for Lisbon is built on several hills, while Bahia occupies but a single headland, the verdure-clad promontory which shelters the magnificent bay.
Bahia is the centre for a considerable commerce in sugar and cotton, cocoa and tobacco. These are brought to the port by land and water, but chiefly by the railroads that go north to the great river San Francisco and west into the heart of the state. There are many evidences of wealth in the city, and there is certainly an excellent opportunity for developing foreign trade. One looks in vain, however, for great American commercial houses like those which mark the presence of English, French, and German enterprise. Nevertheless the electric car line, with its American equipment, gives a promise of things hoped for. And there is a decided air of friendliness toward Americans on the part of the Brazilians whom one meets on the streets and in the shops. There is none of that “chip on the shoulder” attitude which the Argentino likes to exhibit toward the citizens of the “United States of North America.” The Brazilian appears to realize that Americans are his best customers, and he is desirous of maintaining the most friendly relations with us.
CHAPTER II
RIO, SANTOS, AND BRAZILIAN TRADE
Two days’ sail from Bahia brought us within sight of the wonderful mountains that mark the entrance to the Bay of Rio de Janeiro. As one approaches land, the first thing that catches the eye is the far-famed Sugar Loaf Mountain which seems to guard the southern side of the entrance. Back of it is a region even more romantic, a cluster of higher mountains, green to their tops, yet with sides so precipitous and pinnacles so sharp one wonders how anything can grow on them. The region presents, in fact, such a prodigious variety of crags and precipices, peaks and summits, that the separate forms are lost in a chaos of beautiful hills.
The great granite rocks that guard the entrance to the harbor leave a passage scarcely a mile in width. At the base of the Sugar Loaf we saw a fairy white city romantically nestling in the shadow of the gigantic crag. It is the new National Exposition of Brazil.
Once safely inside the granite barriers, the bay opens out and becomes an inland sea, dotted with hundreds of islands, a landlocked basin with fifty square miles of deep water.
On the northern shores of the bay lies the town of Nictheroy, the capital of the state. Its name perpetuates the old Indian title of the bay, “hidden water.” The name of the capital of the Republic, on the south side of the bay, carries with it a remembrance of the fact that when first discovered, the bay was mistaken for the mouth of a great river, the River of January.
Since the early years of the sixteenth century, Rio has been conspicuous in the annals of discovery and conquest. Magellan touched here on his famous voyage round the world. The spot where he landed is now the site of a large hospital and medical school. French Huguenots attempted to find here a refuge in the time of the great Admiral Coligny. As one steams slowly into the harbor, one passes close to the historic island of Villegagnon, whose romantic story has been so graphically told by Parkman.
Hither came the King of Portugal, flying from the wrath of Napoleon. Here lived the good Emperor Don Pedro II, one of the most beneficent monarchs the world has ever seen. And into these waters are soon to come Brazil’s new Dreadnoughts, about which all the world has been speculating, and which have made Argentina almost forget the necessities of economic development in her anxiety to keep up with Brazil in the way of armament.
An elaborate system of new docks, that has been in the course of construction for a long time, has not been completed yet; so we anchor a mile or more from the shore, not far from a score of ocean steamers and half a hundred sailing vessels. Before the anchor falls we are surrounded by a noisy fleet of steam launches, whose whistles keep up a most infernal tooting. A score of these insistent screamers attempt to get alongside of our companion-way at the same time. In addition, half a hundred row-boats attack the ladder where some of the steerage passengers