Chapter X (10)

He dashed the tears from his eyes shamefacedly, and with a steady step marched to the edge of the trench.

"Ready!" cried Corporal Campana.

"Aim! Fire!" cried Gasparini.

A flash and report followed, and the old sergeant fell dead on his face in the trench, where Matteo pushed him with his foot to the place where he was to rest.

Zanetto continued, drawing from eleven to nineteen. Brocard, still without reading them, tore them up one after another. Twenty reached, he took the slip, lifted it above his head, and sobbed, rather than spoke, in his endeavors to conceal his emotion:

"The Sergeant-Major Gambetta!"

It was the best instructed under-officer perhaps in the regiment; calm, well knowing his duties, laborious--so useful, in fact, in the humble post he held that his superiors through pure selfishness had never proposed him for promotion. He was forty years of age at least, had received the cross as far back as 1805, and with the money of his pension relieved many a little want of his comrades.

"Ah! poor Gasparini!" he cried with a sort of mournful merriment; "if today is the day of the old growlers, it is also the day of sergeants. What is the matter, _mon capitaine?_" said he as he passed me. "You seem to be in trouble."

He was not far wrong. I was in despair. My eyes were fixed upon the mountain as if they would pierce through it, and at every changing shadow, every breath of wind which sighed among the trees, my heart bounded painfully with the hope that the long wished for guerilla was about making his appearance on the heights.

"Adieu, Zanetto! take my cross, I have no watch. Show yourself some day worthy to wear it. May it be long ere we meet again, captain. God guard you!"

He crossed himself devoutly, and walked to the trench, his hands in his pockets, bent one knee to the earth, and gave the word "Fire!"

We heard a report; Gambetta, his head shattered by the bullets, rolled like a lump of lead into the trench.

"Will those beggarly Spaniards never appear?" said I to Brocard aside. "I have had more than enough of this."

"Hush!" replied Brocard. "You do not know them yet as well as I, who have been in the peninsula since 1807. I have just discovered the whole band in the declivity yonder before us. They are climbing along above, so as to attack us in front and on both flanks at once. I have counted three hundred muskets and carbines. We will have hot enough work in a few minutes."

"God grant it! Continue, but more slowly, so that we need not kill any more."

Slowly, however, as he proceeded to tear up the names drawn, slowly as the drawing went on, number thirty at length came forth. He lifted it up to read the name, but remained for an instant silent.

"Who? who?" resounded on all sides.

{804}

"To the devil with it! Let whom it concerns read it," cried Brocard, flinging it upon the ground.

"I will wager it is I," said Polidoro, springing forward to pick it up. "Yes, it is indeed. The Lieutenant Polidoro!"

"Did you not make a mistake, Zanetto?" asked I. "I think it is only twenty-nine."

"Yes, yes, captain, it is only twenty-nine," cried a soldier. "Don't, for heaven's sake, decimate an officer."

"_Corpo di Bacco_, do you take me for a fool?" shouted Polidoro. "I counted them, and it is thirty. Come, come! Every one in his turn. No joking! Your hand, Bourdelaine. You forgive me?"

He had scarcely spoken when a signal shot was heard on the mountain, and following upon it two fierce blazes of fire crashed on our right and left and concealed our assailants in their thick smoke.

It was indeed the guerilla band the colonel had spoken of, which, augmented by some of Campoverde's men, whom the English had disembarked at the mouth of the Ebro, had filed toward the mountain, going from Cacia, below Tortosa, as far as Casserras, intending from that point to surprise us at Mora. Learning that a company was at Batea, they halted on their way in the hope of capturing us.

At the crash of the discharge, Polidoro sprang forward like a lion. The smell of battle seemed to intoxicate him. His eyes flashed fire, and his face glowed with ardor. His was a true warrior-soul.

"Captain," said he, "it is through my fault that the company is brought into this danger; let it be mine to extricate it. Give me twenty men. I know the country round, and this morning I discovered a little by-path opening on a level space, from which we can turn the enemy's right. You attack him in front; let Brocard see to his left, and in less than a quarter of an hour all that rabble will be cut to pieces or dispersed. If I remain alive, I will return and place myself at your disposal."

"If you return alive," I replied, "the colonel will decide upon your case. San-Polo foresaw this attack and ordered me not to push the execution further. Here is your sword, Polidoro, but be not rash; the colonel will not deprive himself, for any whim, of an officer with such a future as yours before him."

"I have no future, Bourdelaine," he returned gloomily. "I do not deceive myself with false hopes. Preferment is closed against me. I will die at least with honor, and bear with me the regret of my chief."

Corporal Campana had returned with his four grenadiers during this colloquy, and Matteo walked slowly in the rear.

"Five men for the advance, and fifteen more for the lieutenant," I cried to Brocard.

"All right, captain! You hold the centre and I the right, deployed as skirmishers is that it?" asked Brocard.

"Right!"

"And I?" said Matteo, confounded as Polidoro, advancing at a run to the mountain, gained some distance up its declivity without being perceived by the enemy. "Am I good for nothing, captain, but to bury my comrades?"

"Thou old graybeard! March at the head of the column," I replied, "since instead of awaiting us in their stronghold those fools have been silly enough to come down to surround us. Thou seest I did not do ill to reserve you for a better chance."

"Much obliged!" he returned. "Then we are going to cool their hot blood, captain?"

The guerilla chief, not having perceived our movement, and there only being fifty men at most before him, pressed confidently forward, never doubting that he could easily compel us to lay down our arms. We waited until part of his men had reached the foot of the mountain, and then we fell upon them in a solid column, while Brocard, his men deployed as skirmishers, attacked and drove back their left, and Polidoro, having gained his position, forced their right to retreat, shooting down all who had not rejoined the main body. {805} Suddenly I heard the drums beat the charge behind me. It was a company, led by San-Polo himself, which had taken the Batea road, and so cut off the advance-guard of the guerillas thrown forward toward Mora.

The Spaniard is brave, obstinate, and sober; inured to privations and fatigues. He will fight long and well behind a rock or a wall, but in the open field he generally lacks steadiness, and is easily discouraged if he meets an unforeseen resistance in an attack. He will disband to meet his fellows at some other point and plan some new surprise--the only species of warfare which he conducts well. This, indeed, is the result of that provincial spirit of independence, of that character of individuality, which so deeply penetrates the masses and forms the distinguishing characteristic of the nation.

The panic soon became general, and the village was filled with wounded and dead.

Those who fled from the fire of one party of our men were received upon the bayonets of another, finding no outlet through which to make their escape; about a hundred of the guerillas, however, succeeding in forcing their way toward Casserras, scattering as they went, and giving us a few parting shots. All the rest were taken. San-Polo forced his way to us, pitilessly shooting down all who refused to yield. He soon joined us, and cast his eyes toward the open trench.

"Aha!" he cried, darting a look of intelligence to me; "you are cautious, captain. You would not have the enemy know the number of your killed. How many?" asked he in a low tone.

"Two, _mon colonel_; the lot unfortunately fell upon Sergeants Gasparini and Gambetta."

San-Polo could not restrain a gesture of vexation.

"And Polidoro?"

"_Ma foi_, my colonel; he escaped well; we were going to shoot him when the skirmish commenced. He is now upon the mountain, where I can vouch he gave us some famous help."

"He is here," said Brocard, "and in a sad condition. Here are his men bringing him upon their muskets."

When he reached us, Polidoro raised his head, not without great pain, and lifting his still bantering glance to the face of San-Polo, who stood grave and motionless, he cried with an attempt at his old gayety:

"Hit, colonel, hit! I am sorry, my colonel, that you can no longer break or even put me under arrest."

"I will have chance enough to do both yet," replied San-Polo, with an affected roughness which betrayed his anxiety to encourage the wounded soldier.

"O colonel! my account is closed this time," returned Polidoro. "Six bullets through the body, and two of them at least through my lungs. 'Tis enough for one, _mon colonel_."

Then some long-banished remembrances seemed to return, and a sad smile played over his features.

"_Sancta Maria, mater Dei_." he continued, in a tone still tinged with a sort of sorrowful gayety, "_ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen_."

San-Polo threw himself from his horse, and pressed a flask of brandy to the lips of the wounded lieutenant, holding him up in his arms for a moment to help him to swallow a few drops.

"How kind you are to me!" murmured the dying man, in a scarcely audible voice; "you seem to think that, in spite of my follies, I was not so bad an officer after all. Keep, I pray you, my colonel, my sword in remembrance of me; only unfasten the sword-knot and give it to Bourdelaine. Ah! I wish you would give Zanetto fifteen francs for--the drum--I broke."

A cough interrupted him, and a bloody froth appeared upon his lips. His features were pinched with pain; he gasped; his eyes grew glassy, and, after a few slight convulsions, all that remained of Polidoro fell back in the colonel's arms.

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San-Polo took the lieutenant's sword, pulled the knot off, and hastily handed it to me; then springing into the saddle he rode off at full gallop, without speaking a word or even turning his head.

"Quick, Brocard! Mount and accompany the colonel," I said. "You know how dangerous those guerillas are even in a rout. I shall not need you until we return to Mora."

III.

"And now that I have ended," said the general after a pause, "let us talk, if you please, about the rain and the weather. It is strange," he continued, pressing his hand to his brow, "how all these memories return, at the time when, thank God, our days of joy and trouble are nearly past."

"Yours?" the government clerk hastened to reply. "You are good for twenty years yet."

There are some honest people who always speak thus to old men.

"Good! very good!" growled the general, bending over the table to pour out another wine-glass of cognac. "In twenty years I will be no more thought of than if I had never lived. To the devil with wars and those who make them."

While his daughter and son-in-law were lifting their voices in protest against such an idea, I discreetly took up the lamp, and approached the frame to examine it more closely.

"These, very probably," I said, half to myself, "are the watch of the grenadier Gasparini, the cross of the sergeant-major Gambetta, and sword-knot of Lieutenant Polidoro."

"Yes, yes," replied the general, without looking toward them; "I bought the watch and the cross from the drummer Zanetto. Poor child! The first bullet sent him to his account in the assault on Fort Olivo, the 29th of May, before Tarragona. For goodness' sake, let it alone."

I saw that my curiosity made him impatient, so I returned the lamp and took up my hat to retire.

"You are leaving us very soon, my friend," said the general.

"You know, general, that I must be home by half-past nine."

"Right. Duty before all. I hope you don't intend to put all I have said upon paper."

"You have authorized me to do so, general."

"So be it, then; but upon one condition."

"Name it."

"That you will add nothing of your own to it, as most of you men of letters do; and that you will not pervert my words."

"I will try not to do so."

------

{807}

From The Month.

Scenes From a Missionary Journey in South America.

I. Lisbon, St. Vincent, Pernambuco, Bahia.

Toward evening of the 12th of March we doubled Cape Finisterre, the north-western extremity of Spain, and saw in the misty offing a very large four masted iron screw steamer, homeward bound, and said to be from Australia. We had but once seen the Spanish coast looming through the fog several leagues off; but at sunrise on the 14th we forgot all the miseries of the previous four days, as the sea was quite smooth, the weather admirable, and a scene of unequalled beauty unrolled itself before our eager gaze. We were entering the Tagus: on our left, at the river's mouth, stood the castle of St. Julian, apparently not a very ancient or remarkable structure. We had passed in the night, also on the left, the far-famed wood-crowned hills and picturesque glens of Cintra, so beautifully sung by Lord Byron in Childe Harold. Further on jutted into the stream the yellow-walled old Moorish fortalice of Belem, so often depicted, and so worthy of it. Its many lights and shadows, as the sunlight plays on its richly sculptured front, give it a strangely quaint and old-world appearance. Its garrison, a mere company or so, appeared to enjoy a sinecure; for I beheld a single sentinel lazily pacing up and down a narrow landing-place. Others were fishing with a rod and line, and a few more washing in the stream their seemingly unique shirts, for they wore no other clothing that I could see, save a pair of white canvas trowsers. This scene I saw repeated a few weeks later in the Brazilian island of Sancta Catharina, where a squad of black soldiers were washing their shirts and trowsers in the waters of a small mountain stream. From the castle of Belem the view eastward up the river is one of the most beautiful that can be imagined, and seems at first fully to justify the pride of the Portuguese lines:

"Quem nâo tem visto Lisboa,
Nâo tem visto cousa boa."

That is, he has not seen a beautiful sight who has not seen Lisbon. The river, considerably narrowed at its extreme mouth, widens here very much, and displays on its broad surface a forest of masts. On the left hand the city rises from the water's edge up an amphitheatre of seven hills, house upon house, church upon church, filling up an irregular semicircle of considerable extent, and having for a frame the surrounding green heights, whose tender spring verdure, here and there enlivened by the blooming Judas-tree, [Footnote 299] agreeably contrasts with the dazzling whiteness of most of the edifices. To the westward of the city sits the imposing mass of the modern and yet unfinished royal palace of Ajuda; and beneath it, near the waterside, an old convent and church, whose gray weather-beaten walls seem to bid defiance to the mushroom structure above. This palace of Ajuda will probably never be finished. The finances of that puny kingdom are not, I imagine, in the most prosperous condition; and it would appear that modern royalty is as little at ease in residences fashioned upon the grandeur and magnificence of ancient days, as a beggar would be if he suddenly became the owner and tenant of a nobleman's seat.

[Footnote 299: A tree with pendulous bunches of pink flowers. It is
probably so called from its blooming about Passion-tide. Some say that
it was on a tree of this species that Judas hanged himself.]

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On the southern side of the Tagus are to be seen scattered here and there pleasantly enough among the green hills various white-walled _quintas_, or country farm-houses and villas. There is also, facing Lisbon, a small town of three or four thousand inhabitants. A little lower down toward the sea, on the same side, is the new Lazaretto, or building for quarantine--a certainly not very inviting abode, all white and yellow, without a particle of verdure or a square inch of shade about it. The harbor or bay, four or five miles wide, contains ships of almost every nation; but chiefly British, for Portugal is now little better than a colony or dependency of England. The Magdalena had no sooner cast anchor than two of the respected clergy of the English college--the college _dos Inglesinhos_, (of the dear English,) as the people call them--came on board to welcome me. I accompanied them ashore, and visited the college, situated on one of the highest spots of the city. On my way through the custom-house I saw a piece of impertinence committed by one of the underlings in the absence of his principal, which too well indicated the little respect which is now paid to the holy see in that once so Catholic kingdom. A secretary of the Brazilian nunciature, on his way to Rio, had landed with a small bag containing despatches sent by Cardinal Antonelli to the nuncio at Lisbon. Ambassadors' papers are privileged everywhere; nevertheless, in spite of the secretary's remonstrances and mine, the said underling broke open one of the sealed packets, and would doubtless have proceeded further had not Padre Pedro, of the English college, at that moment arrived, and threatened the insolent _douanier_ with the loss of his place. I don't know if the nuncio took any notice of the affair; but where could such a proceeding have taken place save in Lisbon, or perhaps in Florence?

Facing the harbor, in the Praça do Commercio, is a handsome bronze statue of one of the former kings of Portugal, whose proud and commanding attitude half recalled the times when Portugal was mistress of the seas, and her adventurous navigators pioneered the way through unknown oceans to discoveries of stupendous magnitude.

The English fathers, the Revs. ----, showed me more than ordinary politeness: one of them accompanied me to present sundry letters of introduction I had brought with me to some notable personages of the capital. I was very cordially received everywhere, and could have wished that all the Portuguese resembled these worthy representatives of former national greatness. The Marqueza de F----, among others, appeared to me the model of a hidalgo's wife, full of grace and dignity, yet of amenity and practical good sense. I was particularly struck with her fervid piety, worthy of better times. At the house of the Marquess de L----, brother to the Portuguese minister in London, I met the newly consecrated Bishop of Oporto, who, to an ardent zeal and piety, joined the precious experience of thirty years' apostolate in China as a Lazarist missionary. He has since made his voice heard to some purpose in the upper house of the Lisbon parliament, strenuously resisting and combating the antichristian measures of the Louié ministry.

Some of the churches, of course, I visited, as far at least as the shortness of time allowed. They bore for the most part traces of the magnificence and gorgeous piety of other days; but were generally ill kept, and but too empty of worshippers. The chapter mass was being chanted when I entered the Primatial church; there were very few people assisting; near the door stood some poor women with dead babes laid on benches; they did not seem to be noticed by any one.

If the exterior aspect of Lisbon is truly magnificent, a nearer view of that capital takes away all illusion. I afterward found this to be the case also with many of the Brazilian cities. {809} Nature has done wonders for most of these towns, but man seems to have made it his especial purpose to sully and disfigure everything. If we except some really very fine buildings and noble historic monuments, all in Lisbon is squalid, neglected, and ruinous. Most of the streets, rebuilt so lately as eighty years ago, after the great earthquake, are narrow, tortuous, ill-paved, and more than ordinarily dirty and fetid. The same may be said of the houses, even of palaces of great noblemen, in which, in spite of imposing architectural splendor, and traces of former sumptuousness, the olfactory sense is frequently annoyed by indescribable odors of stables or worse things. Sanitary commissions would assuredly be driven mad if at work in that city for any time. The noisy bustle of a great capital always gives, more or less, an appearance of energetic life to its indwellers; but after London, Paris, or even Madrid, Lisbon appears dead. It is the torpid metropolis of a degenerate people.

On the 21st at sunrise we cast anchor in the fine bay of St. Vincent, one of the Cape de Verde Islands, and a coaling station for steamers. It is a volcanic rock of frightful sterility, but possesses a wide, deep, and secure harbor of considerable resort for ships navigating on the African coast. Everything is brought thither from the neighboring island of Sant' Antonio--water, oranges, bananas, yams, sugar-canes, and other productions--for the place yields absolutely nothing, save a little brackish water in a couple of wells. Its sole inhabitants are a few score of starving-looking negroes, a few lean pigs, fowls, and goats. I saw, soaring high among the mountains, a kind of vulture with a large yellow beak, but wondered where that bird and its possible fellows would find anything to eat, unless it came across from the neighboring islands. For there is no sign whatever of vegetation or of wild animal life on this spot, where it is said never to rain. The soil is reddish, and perpetually calcined by the intolerable fierceness of an almost equatorial sun. He ought not to complain of heat in Europe who has once visited St. Vincent. One of my voyaging companions, the secretary of nunciature at Rio, the Rev. Monsignore ----, who had come directly from Rome, was sighing and groaning under the oppression of that fiery clime. The good man had, by some mischance, left his baggage behind, and had no other clothing to wear but a long black coat of a coarse and thick texture that would have done him fair service amidst the snows of Canada--but here in St. Vincent! He must have had a vivid anticipation of purgatory, I am sure; his distress was very comical, and he could not relieve it by lighter clothing until we reached Bahia. Far more at their ease were the dozen or two of little blacks, perfectly naked, who played on the smooth sandy shore, jumping and tumbling in and out of the waves, just like our own children in the new-mown hay at home in the summer-time.

There may be at St. Vincent four or five score of so-called houses of most wretched appearance, a set of stone-built barracks tenanted by a company or so of Portuguese soldiers, and a small fort on a hillock, overlooking and commanding the bay. Three or four sickly-looking palm-trees, brought from Portugal, endeavor to grow in front of the government house. A small church has recently been built, and is served by a black priest, who managed to raise the funds for its erection by begging on board every ship which came into the harbor. To the right on entering the harbor is a mountain of somewhat fantastic form. American imagination has found in its outline some resemblance to Washington's profile, and it has in consequence been called "Washington's Head." Right in the middle of the entrance of the bay, and darkly outlined against the frowning cliffs of Sant' Antonio, is a tall conical rock of remarkable appearance. It is a capital landmark, being seen seaward at a very great distance. {810} When we entered the harbor, we found at anchor, among other vessels, a large Federal steam-frigate, which had been there four months watching the arrival of the famous Alabama. Within the spacious bay disported two whales, mother and cub, which were pursued for several hours, but in vain, by the native fishermen.

We most gladly bade farewell to the desolate isle of St. Vincent, and fairly sailed away for the New World, yet distant from us six or seven hundred leagues. The heat now began to be terrific, especially at night in the narrow cabins; but it was moderated most days by a gentle breeze, which made lolling on deck in the evenings truly luxurious. About a day's sail from St. Vincent I first noticed shoals of flying-fish, though I believe they are to be found in a much more northerly latitude, and in another voyage I saw some off the isle of Palma. They rise from the sea, chiefly in the early morning and when the surface is freshly rippled, in flocks of ten to sixty or more, and fly close to the surface, often tipping the crest of the wavelets, and skim along with great velocity for the space of five or six hundred yards, when they plunge again into the deep, raising a speck of foam. These small fish, which are said to be of excellent flavor, are about the size of herrings, and of silvery-gray color. I once or twice saw some much larger and almost white on the coast of Brazil, between Bahia and Rio de Janeiro. They are said to be constantly pursued by the bonita, a large fish of the dolphin species, whose hungry maw they try to escape by rising out of the water. But although their flight is exceedingly rapid, their relentless enemy cuts its way through the subjacent waves with equal swiftness, and is ready for the tiny victims as they drop exhausted into the sea. There appear to be prodigious numbers of them all over the ocean; and nearer the coast of Africa the sea is sometimes covered for miles and miles with their spawn lying on the smooth surface like the duck-weed of our ponds. In this latitude, and for many days, I also noticed swimming along in the smooth transparent waters the gay-looking dorado, a large fish vividly reflecting the sun's rays from its scaly back, all over green and gold. Sharks I was anxious to see, but none appeared throughout the voyage; scared away, I should imagine, by the noise and turmoil of the paddle-wheels.

We had fallen into the region of the trade-winds, which blew steadily from the north-east, wafting us rapidly over the middle Atlantic; we were eight days reaching Pernambuco. I was surprised to meet with so few ships on the way, yet we must have crossed the high road of a great multitude of vessels outward or homeward bound. This apparent scarcity of ships gave me a vivid idea of the immensity of the ocean, on whose pathless surface so many sail wander, lost like imperceptible specks of dust on the plain. In this great solitude, life on board ship is monotonous enough, and by its wearisomeness almost justifies the snarling saying of Dr. Johnson: "Sir, I would rather be in jail than on board of a ship, where you have the confinement of a prison together with the chance of being drowned." Want of space, even in the largest vessels, the impossibility of applying one's self to serious occupation, to study, or to prayer, for want of quiet solitude, and also on account of the rolling of the ship, which greatly fatigues the head--all this makes one sigh for the end of the voyage, and find a lively interest in the most trifling occurrences--the passing of a distant sail, the flight of a bird, and so forth. It is especially in the evenings--and they are long ones in the tropics--that time appears heavy, unless one be inclined to enter into all the frivolous and noisy amusements set on foot to beguile weariness. The passengers dance, play games, improvise concerts, and especially eat and drink enormously, and almost all day long. How wearisome former sea-voyages must have been, which lasted many months, sometimes even several years! It is related, for example, in Captain Cook's voyages that some of his crew once lost their wits for joy on seeing the land they had not beheld for eighteen months.

{811}

A few degrees before we crossed the line, the sky became overcast with heavy dark clouds, which French sailors call "_le pot du noir_" and our English tars "the doldrums;" the barometer ceased to indicate any atmospheric changes. It was on the 26th, in the evening, we passed the equator, and for more than forty hours we had violent squalls and occasional tremendous downpourings, which made us all uncomfortable: for staying on deck was out of the question, and the heat below was very oppressive. Flocks of a species of large wild goose, which came flying round the ship, announced the proximity of the land; and on the 28th toward dusk we passed off the rocky and picturesque island of Fernando de Noroñha. It was at too great a distance to distinguish anything, but it is said to contain features of great natural beauty. This island is now used as a place of transportation for the convicts of Brazil. These were formerly detained in the southern island of Sancta Catharina; but that spot afforded the prisoners too many facilities of escape, being so near the mainland, and within easy reach of the foreign state of the Banda Oriental. I could collect but meagre notions concerning the number and the lot of the unhappy convicts, mostly all blacks, who have only exchanged one kind of slavery and labor for another. In most cases, when the crime committed has not been of the most heinous nature, the convict after a year or two's confinement is drafted into the army or navy. I have heard officers of both services bitterly complain of this system. The island of Noroñha is mountainous, and difficult of access.

At last, on Sunday, March the 29th, at sunrise, we touched the New World, and the Magdalena cast anchor in Pernambuco roads, about three miles from the land, for the harbor, whose entrance is narrow besides, is inaccessible to ships of large tonnage. The fishermen of this place boldly navigate in those roads, and sometimes many leagues into the offing, on strange-looking and perilous rafts made of a few crossed bamboo-sticks, somewhat resembling the catamarans used at Madras. It is inconceivable how those daring sailors are not devoured by the sharks off those flimsy machines, which the least wave upsets. It does not much concern them when this happens, for they all swim like fishes, and the tiny craft is soon put to rights again. There is, however, a tradition in the port that once upon a time a man was snatched off his dancing catamaran by a monstrous shark, which devoured him before the eyes of his affrighted companions. Pernambuco is a place of great trade, the third city in the Brazils for population and the importance of its productions: it is one of the great sugar-markets of the world. It possesses some good churches and public buildings, and a school of law, the first in the empire, where Pombalist and Jansenistic traditions have obtained much less adhesion than at Sao Paolo or Bahia. A thesis was maintained there with great applause a short time ago, which astonished all the lawyers of Brazil, namely, that the pope needed not a general council to decide infallibly any doctrine of faith; his _ipse dixit_ was sufficient; and all true Catholics ought at once to bow interiorly and exteriorly to it as to the word of Christ himself. This was probably the first time this had been so boldly proclaimed in South America since the banishment of the Society of Jesus.

The town is cut up by a number of lagoons, crossed over by bridges like at Venice; and its first aspect from the sea reminds one very much of Hamburg. There is, of course, the difference of a glowing sky and large tropical vegetation. The land lies low, and the presumption is that it must be unhealthy; but it is not so, I believe, owing to the regular sea-breezes, which greatly cool the air and dissipate the vapors. The heat cannot but be intense at times on a spot only six or seven degrees south of the line.

{812}

It is not always easy to land at Pernambuco, for the entrance of the harbor does not give more than fifteen or sixteen feet of water in the best tides; and there lies across it, and for hundreds of miles up and down and parallel with the coast, a dangerous low coral-reef, against which the mighty Atlantic waves dash with fury. This reef, which in many places barely rises above the surface, would prove an excellent defence against invasion; but it was not apparently thought sufficient in former times, for there stands on the beach to the north of the town a square bastioned fort, built by the Dutch under Maurice of Nassau when they occupied the country at the beginning of the seventeenth century. To the north of this again, on a bold rocky hill, is situated the ancient city of Olinda, so called from the exclamations of the first Portuguese discoverers when this enchanting land broke upon their sight: "O linda terra! lindos outeiros!" "O beautiful country, charming hills!" It was formerly a bishop's see and the capital of the country. It contains several churches and convents, as well as old residences of governors and magnates, of a rather massive and imposing architecture. The surrounding country is one vast forest of palm, cocoa-nut, and other trees of the torrid zone. There are many flourishing sugar and coffee plantations, surrounded by nopal and banana groves, and a multitude of superb creepers, amidst whose luxuriant growth and glowing flowers rise the white-walled houses of the owners. As we rode along, we purchased some pine-apples and mangoes of immense size and exquisite flavor. When we returned on board, numbers of Pernambuco boatmen surrounded the ship with loads of oranges and bananas for sale, as well as tame parrots and monkeys; but none of them, with the fear of the sharks before their eyes, would imitate the blacks, whom we had seen at St. Vincent diving into the sea, nine or ten fathom deep, to pick up small pieces of money which the passengers would throw in, to witness their astonishing power of swimming.

From Pernambuco to Bahia we had thirty-six hours' passage. We were not nearer the land than ten or twelve leagues, the Royal Mail Company forbidding their commanders of ships to hug the coast any closer. On the 30th of March, about noon, we met the fine steamer La Navarre, of the French Messageries Company, on its way to Bordeaux. It was crammed full of passengers, among whom I saw several Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul. These venerable religious women serve various hospitals in the Brazils--at Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, and other places. They are everywhere, I need not say, worthy of their holy founder and of their country. They have not escaped, however, in this New World the calumnies and persecutions which they have had to endure in some parts of Europe, and notably in Portugal and Piedmont. Almost the first Brazilian journal I saw contained an infamous diatribe against them; but they would very likely themselves prefer contumely to honor, as assimilating them more perfectly to their Divine Lord, the Man of Sorrows.

At a very early hour on the 31st we doubled the point which juts out on the right of the harbor of Bahia, and the ship fired a gun to announce our arrival. No description can convey a true idea of the beauty of this celebrated bay--Bahia de todos os Sanctos, that is, "All Saints' Bay." Covered to the water's edge with a glowing and gigantic vegetation, the hills which rise above the roadstead are dotted with pretty-looking villas, the residences of the city merchants. It was the commencement of what is here called winter; yet I saw everywhere a superabundance of flowers, especially of roses. Trees with strange forms, fruits yet more strange, a teeming population, two thirds of which at least was composed of negroes, the odd cries and barbarous howlings of these blacks as they hawked their wares or carried, to the number of ten or twelve together, huge burdens swung on the middle of long poles--everything was of a sort to interest a stranger. {813} Carriages there were none, or very few at least; for the city, being built on the steep slope of an abrupt cliff, has no level surface anywhere in its streets, most of which resemble very much the queer uphill lanes leading to Fourvières in the city of Lyons. The intense heat of the atmosphere made me give up the design I had entertained of visiting the town entirely on foot. I hired a kind of bath-chair, of which there are long stands about, and two stout negroes conveyed me successively to the various churches and the public garden of the city. These chairs are very ingeniously contrived to exclude the sun and admit the air, as well as to preserve absolute privacy within them. They swing on a long pole fore and aft, which the blacks carry on their shoulder; but this pole is shaped like an elongated S, to secure the sitter's equilibrium, which would be unpleasantly disturbed by the see-saw tread of the bearers. Notwithstanding the little exercise I took, an abundant perspiration ran from every pore. It was therefore with exquisite pleasure that I came to a house where for a few _vintems_ ( few pence) I could exchange my stewing state for the coolness of a shower-bath. I had previously been told to use the necessary precaution-- that is, to rub a small quantity of caixaça, or rum, over my body before coming in contact with the water.

The trade of Bahia appears considerable, and is entirely carried on in the lower town, which stretches along the water-side on the north for more than a league, nearly to the western-most point of the outer bay, crowned by a celebrated sanctuary dedicated to Nossa Señhora do Bom-Fim--Our Lady of the Happy Death. On the eastern promontory of the harbor, on the summit of a bold hill looking upon the Atlantic, is the oldest religious building, perhaps, in all South America. It is the now ruinous church built by an Indian princess, the first of her race who embraced the faith of Christ. The beach below was often hallowed by the footsteps of the venerable Father Anchieta, the apostle of Brazil, who would bare his breast to the sea-breeze to cool the ardor which consumed him for the salvation of souls, and write with a stick on the sand of the shore the beautiful Latin verses he daily composed in honor of the Blessed Mother of God. The blacks still cross themselves at the mention of Padre Anchieta's name, and the country still abounds with traces and monuments of his zeal and wonderful sanctity. The numerous churches of Bahia are generally very richly decorated, but not cleanly kept. I saw some large black rats running across the altar of one of them, most profusely adorned with gilt carving. It was a church dedicated to St. Benedict the Moor, a negro saint from Africa, a monk of the Franciscan order, who lived and died in Sicily, and it is exclusively used by the blacks. A negro priest was loitering about its precincts, and when I told him of the boldness of the aforesaid rats, "We cannot help it, Señor Padre-mestre." he answered; "their numbers are so great we cannot destroy them." The churches have no seats; the men stand round by the side walls, and the women _squat_ down on the middle wooden floor. Sometimes, and when the floor is of stone, the ladies are accompanied to church by a female slave carrying a small square carpet, which she lays down for her mistress to sit upon. I saw again here in the cathedral what I had already seen in Lisbon: on a wooden bench near the holy-water vessel close to the door lay several dead babies, shrouded up with the exception of the face, and covered with fresh flowers. The mothers were waiting hard by until a priest should come to recite the funeral prayers. I had at first mistaken these little corpses for waxen _exvotos_. Thus adorned, death had nothing sad or repulsive about it, especially when I thought that these, were the remains of little angels--_anjiñhos_ they call them in Brazil--who had flown to heaven with the purity of their baptismal innocence.

{814}

The negroes of Bahia are numerous, and the finest in the Brazils. I admire their robust frames, and the seeming indifference with which they carried almost Titanic loads beneath such a burning sun. The landing-place is a perfect Babel; these blacks are so loquacious, and they, moreover, seem to think it adds to their importance to shout as loud as their rough, powerful throats will let them. I have never heard a negro speak to another in a quiet, subdued way. Why should they, indeed? They never attain the sober sense of manhood; they are a mere set of noisy, overgrown children. We had had as a fellow-passenger by the Magdalena, as far as Bahia, a Mr. B----, a little, old Scotchman, long settled in the province of Minasgeraes, who took no small pride in exhibiting a snow-white beard almost a yard in length, and a plentiful crop of hair of the same venerable hue. A sprightly English youth, who was one of the first to land, spread the report among the blacks that we had on board the famous "Wandering Jew." Our ship was soon surrounded by a multitude of boats crammed full of woolly heads, and, when the luckless Scotchman landed, he was, to his dismay, escorted everywhere by a long procession of shouting and screaming blackies. We thought he paid rather dear for his eccentricity.

The market, which was near the landing-place, was abundantly supplied with eatables of every kind; poultry, kids, lambs, sucking-pigs, all alive, and bleating, squeaking, clucking their best; a great variety of fish and fruits; oranges of huge size, called there _seleitas_; water-melons, with the red, cool pulp; mangoes, bananas, jacas, a sort of large pumpkins which grow on tall trees, goiavas, and many more species whose mostly Indian names I cannot recollect. With the exception of oranges, limes, and pine-apples, which are superexcellent, the fruits of Brazil do not at first please a European palate. Those of Europe--owing, I suppose, to careful and scientific cultivation--attain a more delicate flavor, if they do not equal the fruits of America in size and color. The same may be said of the flowers, which, with greater size and magnificence of color and form, lack, for the most part, the exquisite perfume which our humblest flowers exhale.

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Translated.

Sayings of the Fathers of the Desert.

Some brothers came to Abbot Antony, and said: "We wish to hear a maxim from you by which we may save ourselves."

The father said: "You hear the Scriptures, that is enough for you."

"But we wish to hear something from you, father."

"You hear," replied Abbot Antony, "Our Lord saying: 'If any man strike you on the left cheek, turn even the other to him.'"

Said they, "We are not able to do this."

"If you are not able to turn the other cheek, at least bear the one blow patiently."

"We cannot do that," said they.

"If you are not strong enough for that, then do not wish to strike more than you are struck."

"Oh!" said they, "we cannot even do that."

Then the father said to his novice: "Get ready some pap for these brothers, for they are very weak." Then, turning to them, he said: "If you are not able to do even this much, what can I do for you? All that you need is prayer."

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{815}

The Two Lovers of Flavia Domitilla.

By Clonfert.