It is two days from Pernambuco to Bahia. The ship does not keep in sight of land, for coast currents are not safe.
I remember well our anchoring in 1895, in the great bay—Bahia means bay—surrounded by bluffs on which the bright-colored buildings of the city show to fine advantage. The fleet of little boats rowed out the mile to meet us. The Presbyterian missionary friends we had known so pleasantly in our own land, the Chamberlains and the Kolbs, were in one of them and we no longer felt unknown and far away.
Mr. Chamberlain said, "We came out to see you and Bishop Granbery."
"The Bishop is not on this ship," we replied. But persistent investigation discovered him, his wife, and the Secretary of the Foreign Mission Board of the Methodist Church South in the "second-class." The quarters located over the screw had kept them miserable from the constant vibration and seasick the entire voyage, so they were thoroughly used up.
Whoever has read "The Bishop's Conversion"[2] will appreciate the story. Most merchants "economize some other way." There are differing views of this economy among missionaries, and individual needs should enter into the decision, but the nervous system should be strong to endure the perpetual motion of the screw.
[2]Published by the Methodist Concern.
That half-day in Bahia harbor with our friends was a taste of missions at short range. Their flourishing school had just closed. It was a new venture with Miss Laura Chamberlain for principal. The last day of school had been a memorable one, visited by parents who sent their children with fear and trembling, but who came to see the ending with pride and astonishment. The secular papers had commented unrequested on the high quality of instruction—a brave deed there where Protestantism had no friends. The Brazilian owner of a great factory in a suburb had been present and proposed to pay the expenses of such a school among his employees if "we" could provide such teachers. How we all planned! How worth while it seemed to live! to plan schools for a great state in which only sixteen in a hundred could read! even if it were only for two schools, "ours" and the factory owner's.
Mr. Chamberlain had just returned from his first long journey in the saddle away, away into the interior of the state, and found material for Gospel teaching which filled him with enthusiasm—the sturdy "cowboys," men clad in leather, of fine physique and stamina. "Rough Riders" were not then renowned, but Mr. Chamberlain's prophetic eye saw his men as they might be and longed to get plenty of help and be at work to realize the vision.
The religious history of the state of Bahia has been making since that day, but not without persecution. A third school was planted, and grew, out on the nearest edge of "the interior" at the cattle-market, Feira St. Anna, in spite of warnings of priests and Romish fanatics, with Christine Chamberlain as principal teacher, beloved by the children and admired by their parents, who needed such goodness, efficiency and magnetism as hers to overcome their fear of a Protestant school. Now the burning torch which was beginning to lighten that dark spot has been taken away to the land where there is no more night. Both Miss Chamberlain and her Brazilian assistant, Noemi, have died of fever, contracted while going through an unsanitary part of Bahia on a visit of friendly inspection to that "factory school." And the factory school is like a green bay tree. The patron was warned that it might cost him his friends and even his great business, but he has been determined to accomplish such instruction for his people in spite of the fact that the Bible was to be used as freely as any text- He is a convert to modern (Christian) education.
Pretty Bahia seems more nearly in a comatose state than the other Brazilian cities you have heard described so freely on the steamer. You gather that there is less intelligence, more superstition, less brpublic spirit, more fevers, less elegance of speech and courtesy of manner. Your steamer does not wait long enough for you to verify these impressions. You only climb the bluff in an elevator, go in a bond to see pretty suburban residences, passing consular offices with their national colors. You come back through the narrowest of streets, and stop at one church "of Our Lady," and have a hurried look within. It is old-looking, bare and dirty to your eyes, and the image of the little Christ in His mother's arms shocks you by its ugliness and frippery. Hung about are waxen imitations of arms, legs, heads, etc., with sores and various ailments depicted on their surfaces. You recognize them as the offerings you have heard about, and to be found in many churches, of sufferers who plead with the Mother of Our Lord to heal their diseases. Time and dust do not make these objects more pleasing to the eye.
Back again you row to the ship and dine, then go on deck. Forget the few unpleasant things you saw ashore, remember the palms and the colors, and give yourself up to the pleasure of the soft night-air and that great crescent of lights—electric and gas—from the water's edge to the height of the bluff, with the lighthouse shining nobly at the point.
Some new passengers have come for the south, one coffee-merchant, from Boston, you are told; the others all Brazilian. You have never met people more courteous than this Brazilian Senator and his wife, but their manners are very conservative compared with their countrymen, who are now taking leave of each other after a champagne party given down in the dining-saloon by those about to sail. The men literally embrace each other, in true Brazilian style, patting each other's shoulder-blades, and their kissing is on both cheeks. A criticism I once heard there of an average gentleman of the United States was, "He had no manners whatever. Why, he did not even know enough to shake hands." So from now on you must have your hand ready, and soon learn bom dia, good-day, to say to every one you really meet.
A little over two days and you are about to enter the famous harbor of Rio de Janeiro. Deeply serrated mountains form the coast, with varying altitudes from one to four thousand feet, and the city of four hundred thousand people is so crowded by these precipitous heights that it must wind its way up several valleys and over the lesser hills with at least two cog-wheel railr to the upper levels. These items have been told you by some new friends you have made on the ship, who are generous with all they know; and one man even brings you a paragraph he has copied from the Encyclopedia Britannica, which says: "The Bay of Rio de Janeiro has been the subject of poetic panegyric ever since it was discovered; and the traveler who comes to it after a voyage round the world seems as susceptible to its charm as if it were his first tropical experience. This bay is the very gate to a tropical paradise. There is nowhere so bold a coast, such a picturesque cluster of mountains, such a maze of inlets and outlets, such a burst of all-pervading vegetation. The actual entrance between Fort Sao Joao and Fort Santa Cruz is 1700 yards wide. Within there are fifty square miles of anchorage, or even more for vessels of light draught, the bay having a width varying from two to seven miles, and stretching inland from the sea for sixteen miles. Its coast line, neglecting minor indentations, measures sixty miles. Such a sheet of water would be beautiful anywhere; but, when on all sides it is surrounded by hills of the most varied contour, the beauty is enhanced a thousandfold. Its surface is broken by a large number of islands from Governor's Island, six miles long, down to the little clusters." This man, by the way, started from England for the round trip of the "Nile," making altogether a two months' voyage. He has a large state-room, with , mostly of science and reference.
For seventeen days you have heard of Rio, and Rio, and Rio, on deck and at table; for many of your companions live there or are eager to see it for the first time. You are up by six o'clock to lose none of the early morning view. The ship is nervous among the shore currents outside the harbor, then makes one great plunge over the bar, whereat all the old residents laugh familiarly, and glides in stately quiet within the smooth harbor.
You have had your early black coffee, so stay with all the rest to take in the exquisite beauty. Seeing is better than being told. Your lungs drink in the soft air. Your eyes drink in the forms and colors. Here is the old Sugar Loaf, sheer rock a thousand feet up out of the water, a sharp cone, gray, softened by green mosses, the sentinel of the city. There is the city built to the water's edge, with sharp hills in the midst, crowned each with a church, "built in Jesuit style." The groups and alleys of the royal palms are tall and straight, some of them a hundred feet in height, your neighbor says.
The ship anchors not unduly near another ship. There are many others, warships and sailing vessels and steamers, "tramps" and "regular liners." In an incredibly short time a fleet of launches and row-boats surround you, and happy are you if you, too, find some one there to meet you. Here is an Englishman to meet the gentle wife and troop of little children he sent "home" a year ago to build up in cold weather. You look the other way at the bank clerk sent to meet two new recruits, and at the manager of an American coffee firm who comes to meet the man who is to be his substitute while he goes "home" for six months' change. But perhaps you are most interested to see the Scotchman who has come for his bride, for she has been such a cosy, little body all the way down. She sailed "in care of the captain," brought her wedding dress, her wedding cake and requisite legal papers along, has been everybody's helper and nobody's trouble, and finally has the nickname of Sammy, which is short for good Samaritan. She will have a Brazilian civil marriage service first, then the chaplain of the Church of England will perform a religious one, and three weeks after she lands the British consul will marry the couple a third time and the notice can be recorded "at home." England does not intend to countenance runaway marriages. At the end of the third service you may telegraph your good wishes to "the Bride of the Nile."
The American knows the Rio Secretary of the International Young Men's Christian Association, and invites him to the steamer breakfast, of which nearly all now partake, both passengers and visitors. You and your husband are invited to be of the party to go ashore in that launch, and spend the day till four o'clock sight-seeing. You are advised to spend your nights in Petropolis; for it is beautiful up there, and a slight risk to stay down in the city at night on account of "the fever."
You prove during that first day in Rio that the narrow streets are lined with really interesting stores containing goods quite beautiful, but very expensive. You see French clothes and fine diamonds; brilliant birds, stuffed; and humming-birds set in gold for jewelry; feather flowers of the most beautiful colors, made from the natural, undyed plumage of tropical birds—crimson, pink and snow-white rose buds, pale pink morning-glories, scarlet coffee-cherries, all with green feather foliage. Such blossoms would not suffer in your bonnet if you wore them in the rain, but no one does it.
You stop a moment at the large music-store, having its own and foreign publications, and there catch the first strains of a Brazilian Tango, the dance of Spanish rhythm which you find quite new and fascinating. You will hear this same rhythm many times before you leave Brazil, but will not find it used for dancing.
You visit the large and elegant library building, containing they say one hundred and twenty thousand volumes, but see no readers. It was of royal origin long ago.
You go to see the new Young Men's Christian Association Building, the only one in Brazil, while your guide, Mr. Myron Clark, from Minneapolis, tells you the demand upon it in this port, and you wish it were not such a struggle to raise money for it. "The foreigners" are quite ready to contribute to the English hospital, for any of them may need its care; but the use of a Y. M. C. A. is not familiar to many of them. How shall it get the money it deserves?
You go to see the National Art Gallery and find a few good pictures of local feeling or history, but otherwise the work of artists who have studied in Paris. You have climbed one precipice of five hundred feet by the "Plano inclinado," looked down over the brilliant city flecked with palms, and followed the substantial aqueduct "built by the Jesuits" long ago, which brings water into town from the heights, over arches at first low, but rising about a hundred feet across one valley. The masonry is stuccoed, moss-grown, fern-draped; the water pure and refreshing. You ascend to the top of Corcovado, twenty-five hundred feet high, by another cog-wheel railr and find a little shelter-house at the peak from which you see the wonderful view of city, bay, other mountains and ocean bathed in light; then hurry down to get the "barca," the large fine ferry-boat which takes you ten miles across the bay on your way to Petropolis. It leaves at four in the afternoon. How you love that sail in the soft air across that beautiful bay! You look forward to the great Organ Mountains up which you will soon be climbing, and wonder what harmonies came from those giant fluted pipes when the morning stars sang together. You have good company, English, German and American in addition to the Brazilian. Too soon you are in the train which speeds along the few level miles, then dismembers and climbs the heavy grade in sections. You will never forget the outlook from these windows and wonder if so much beauty has existed all these years known to so few.
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