Journal of a Voyage to Brazil: And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823Callcott, Maria, Lady
History
Journal of a Voyage to Brazil: And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823
Callcott, Maria, Lady
Brazil -- Description and travel
_2d._--I rose at daylight, and rode with Mr. N. through the estate,
while Mr. Dance, my cousin Glennie, and the two boys, went to shoot in
the marsh by the river side.
Every turn in our ride brought a new and varied landscape into view:
beneath, the sugar-cane in luxuriant growth; above, the ripening orange
and the palm; around and scattered through the plain enlivened by the
windings of the Guazindiba, the lime, the guava, and a thousand odorous
and splendid shrubs, beautified the path.--But all is new here. The long
lines of fazenda houses, that now and then take from the solitariness of
nature, suggest no association with any advance either of old or present
time, in the arts that civilise or that ennoble man. The rudest
manufactures, carried on by African slaves, one half of whom are newly
imported, (that is, are still smarting under the separation from all
that endears the home, even of a savage,) are all the approaches to
improvement; and though nature is at least as fine as in India or in
Italy, the want of some reference to man, as an intellectual and moral
being, robs it of half its charms. However, I returned well pleased from
my ride, and found my young sportsmen not less pleased with their
morning's ramble. Not, indeed, that they had shot snipes, as they
intended, but they had gotten a huge lizard (_Lacerta Marmorata_), of a
kind they had not seen before. They had seen the large land-crab
(_Ruricola_), and they had brought down a boatswain bird, a sort of
pelican, (_Pelicanus Lencocephalus_), which they proposed to stuff.
Accordingly after breakfast, as the weather was too hot to walk farther,
the bird and the lizard were both skinned, the guns were cleaned, and I
made a sketch of the landscape.
In the evening I took a long walk to a point of view whence the whole
bay with the city in the distance is distinctly seen, and on the way
stopped at a cottage, where Mr. P. who is, literally, here "king,
priest, and prophet," had some enquiry to make, concerning the health of
the indwellers: these were two negroes, who have grown old in the
service of the estate, and are no longer useful. I have seen examples of
such being freed, that is, turned out of doors to starve. Here they
would be entitled, by the rules of the estate, if not by law, to come
every day for the same allowance as the working negroes: but they do not
choose it. They indeed live in a hut, and on the ground of their master;
but they maintain themselves by rearing a few fowls, and making baskets:
so dear is the feeling of independence, even in old age, sickness, and
slavery.
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