Chapter XIV: Wandering in Minas Geraes (2)

Down in the valley near the town there is a native diamond-cutting establishment, a capacious old barn of a building with the immense rough-hewn beams of olden times and two long double rows of “wheels” run by water-power on which the stones are “cut.” Strictly speaking, a diamond is not “cut” at all; it is ground—_lapidar_ or “stoning” they call it in Brazil. Disks of the best grade steel, about a foot in diameter, move round and round at a moderate rate of speed. Rough diamonds are first chipped off by hand to the general shape desired; then they are set into a bed of lead and solder so that one facet may be ground down, after which they are removed at a forge, resoldered, and ground on another facet. The “wheels” must be polished down and filed in slight ridges every two or three weeks, a task that takes about one day, and they are rented at 12$ a month to the individual _lapidarios_, both men and women, largely of negro blood, who work for themselves, either “cutting” diamonds for others or speculating with such as they can buy themselves. A day is the average time consumed here in “cutting” a one-carat diamond, at a cost of about 7$, the chips and diamond dust left over bringing the ordinary income up to 65$ a week.

Diamond buyers of all nationalities journey to Diamantina, and the town expressed surprise and often incredulity to hear that I had not come to purchase a few “parcels” for speculation. “Everyone” buys diamonds, yet no one pays the state export tax on them, if one may believe local opinion. This would have to be paid if the stones were sent out legally by express, but when a buyer has collected a “parcel”—in Portuguese it is _partida_—he finds some man bound for Rio and says to him, “If it isn’t too much trouble just hand this little package to —— and Co.,” thereby defrauding both the railroad and the politicians. The men who deal in diamonds in the place of their origin no more wear them than do the men who dig them. Old buyers who have handled the precious stones all their lives are not only plainly dressed but have none of the tendency toward personal adornment so widespread among Brazilians. Two American diamond-men I met had huge blacksmith hands on which a ring would have looked absurd, and the only diamonds one sees in Diamantina are those offered for sale in “parcels” or show-windows, or those worn by an occasional tenderfoot.

Newcomers have sometimes been deceived by this state of affairs. A few years ago there arrived in Diamantina a German with a conviction of his own wisdom and superiority over common mortals, who, with an air implying that the thought had never occurred to anyone else, let it leak out that he was buying diamonds. An old negro wandered up to the hotel in an aged shirt and trousers, a ragged hat, and bare feet, and shuffling in a halting, diffident way into the German’s room, told him that he did not know what the two diamonds he carried wrapped in a scrap of paper were worth, but that he would sell them cheap. The German paid him about half the market price for them and asked him if he had any more, adding with a wink that any transactions they might make would be kept a secret. The poor old negro said he thought he could find a few more about his hut or in the river or among his friends, and for a month or six weeks he continued to slouch into the hotel, until he had sold the wise German about a pint of diamonds for a mere song of fourteen or fifteen _contos_, say $5,000. Then the Teuton, highly pleased with himself, packed up and took the down train from Curvello, smuggling his untold riches out of the state without paying the export duty—and discovered when he reached Rio that every one of the fine diamonds the poor ignorant old negro had sold him so cheaply were what are known in the trade as “fourths,” or worse, full of knots and gnarls as a century-old olive tree and worth at most some 50c a carat for cutting glass. A bit later, the poor innocent old negro having occasion to go down to the capital and talk with the senator whose political boss he was in Diamantina, blew into Rio in the frock-coat and patent leathers he wears when not doing business with gullible strangers, with a real six-carat diamond dazzling from his little finger and two or three more shouting from his shirt front and, meeting the worldly-wise German on the Avenida, raised his fifty-dollar imported Panama hat with true Brazilian courtesy, and invited him to come in and have a drink for old times’ sake.

One evening my hospitable host of the hotel dragged me over to the cinema he owned, where I found a crowded house come to see what to Diamantina was a brand new romance of their own color, called “A Cabana do Pae Thomaz,” in other words, “The Cabin of Uncle Tom.” It was all too evident, however, that there was nothing to be gained by bringing our show so far inland, for the negroes had little to spend and the railway charges are naturally high to those who can find no excuse for not paying them. Meanwhile I had opened negotiations for a journey on horseback, or even on foot, across to the railhead of the line out of Victoria, which would have brought me out well up the coast on my journey north. A native _camarada_ familiar with the trail offered to rent me a horse or a mule for the journey, with saddle and spurs, for 3$ a day. This seemed reasonable. It would make the trip across come to about 20$? Yes, but it takes _two_ animals. Why’s that? You must have a guide, or at least a man to bring back the horses. Ah, then that makes 6$ a day instead of 3$? Yes—ah—and then of course you must pay the man. How much? Oh, 3$ a day, the same as the other animals. Ah, then that makes 9$ a day, and seven days would be.... No, say ten days. But why ten days? Because in this season that is the least you can depend on. In other words the trip would cost me 90$, nine times ten? No, it would be nine times twenty, or 180$. Eh, what twenty days? Why, the man and the horses would have to come back, wouldn’t they? _Sacramento_, I suppose so, unless I could chloroform them when I got there. So then 180$ would cover _all_ the expenses? All, completely all—er—that is, of course, you would have to feed the animals and the man on the trip, and it might be much more than ten days, and—er.... And no doubt there would be a tip to the man and the animals, and perhaps a third horse needed when he caught sight of my valise, and of course the government officials here and along the way would come in for their customary graft, and there would be the stamp-tax on each horseshoe, unless they were mule-shoes, in which case no doubt it would be doubled, and a tax on each bray the “burros” might emit en route, and—whereupon I gave him a warm handshake and bade him good night, saying I would think it over and wire him from Bagdad in 1946, and thus eventually got him out of the room. In short, I had come to understand at last why people travel by rail in Brazil, even though their bones are racked on the warped and twisted roadbeds, their movie-magnate garments turned into sieves by burning cinders from the straining locomotives, and there is a tax on every corner of a railway ticket.

All Diamantina was down—I mean up—to see us off, just as they are at the same early hour three times a week. The distance-blue piles of earth lay heaped up into considerable hills where a clearer atmosphere disclosed wider horizons, hung on all sides with fantastic heaps of clouds, that increased the sense of being on the top of the world. On the several days’ trip southward I met a strange man, a _juiz de dereito_, or district judge, from Serro back in the hills, who refused to ride on a government pass or to accept one for his son, whom he was taking to the medical school in Rio, declaring that there was “much abuse” in such matters by government officials! At Burnier, where we changed to the broad gauge, I got a berth to the capital. Though the car was the familiar American Pullman, the slovenly government employees had discarded most of the small conveniences. The aisle was as carpetless as the floors of Brazil, the berth net had long since been turned into a hammock for the brakeman’s baby, the mattress was thin and hard as a Brazilian wooden bed, and the sleep I did not get as we creaked and jounced through the endless low hills explained why sleeping cars and night trains are not more popular in the mammoth republic of South America.

When I returned from the washroom next morning, “Tut” stood dressing beside the opposite berth. They had played in Palmyra the evening before and managed to pack up in time to catch the night train. Carlos had had his hat stolen in the preceding town and “Tut” had been bitten by a dog while walking out to pay his respects to the English-speaking miners near Ouro Preto; otherwise things had gone well—except for one other personal mishap to “Tut.” While buying his ticket for the sleeper he noted that the berths were divided into “_leitos inferiores_” and “_leitos superiores_.” Now why should he take an inferior berth when he had been working hard, and Linton paid the bill anyway? He took a _leito superior_. Unfortunately, in the matter of berths, the Portuguese word _superior_ means “upper”!

By seven the day was already brilliant and hot, for we were down off the great plateau I was never to climb again, and the familiar suburbs of Rio were rumbling past. I dropped off as we drew into the yards, knowing from experience how long a process it is to get into the station, and diving out through a hole in the railway wall, I hurried away up the Rua Mattoso to the home of our theater contractor. He surprised me by saying that times had grown so “brutally hard” in Rio, to say nothing of the brutal heat of midsummer, that it would not be worth while to play there at all, but that we could finish our sixteen days with him at his theater in Nictheroy.

The ferry that carried us across the bay was crowded with newspaper men and photographers, and the gunboat _Sergipe_ lay close off the state capital with its guns trained on the public buildings. Inquiry disclosed the fact that there was not a new mutiny, but that a revolution was expected in Nictheroy during the day.

Nilo Peçanha, son of a former president of Brazil, had been elected president of the State of Rio de Janeiro for the term to begin with the new year; but, as so often happens in South America, the opposition party still in power was determined to give the office to their own defeated candidate. This was one Lieutenant Sodré, an army man of similar caliber to the celebrated “Dudu” and having the same backing. With the aid of the outgoing state president he had “acquired” arms and ammunition from the federal stores in Nictheroy and was preparing to take office by force, having picked up large numbers of _Carioca_ crooks and gunmen and scattered them among the various cities of the state to stifle opposition. Peçanha, on the other hand, had applied to the Supreme Court for a habeas corpus, giving him the office that was being stolen from him, and after considerable dodging and hesitation the national president had decided to lend federal armed force to uphold the Supreme Court decision in favor of Peçanha.

Mere orders from the federal government mean little in the life of a Brazilian state, however, and Nictheroy was seething on the brink of anarchy when we landed. Sodré, it seemed, had had himself sworn in as president by the state assembly early that morning and had sent word to that effect to the president of Brazil. He could not gain admission to the state presidential palace, but with the support of the state police and the outgoing authorities he did take over the presidential offices. Then suddenly, some three hours later, a cry of “Viva Peçanha!” had resounded through the police barracks, the policemen had taken it up and, headed by two sergeants, threatened to kill the officers unless they joined in also, and the entire state police force on which the rebel had depended swung over to the other side, looted the stolen ammunition, and took to rushing about town shouting and firing in the air.

This was the condition in which we found the state capital. The firemen had joined the police, and auto-trucks crammed full of excited shouting negroes and half-negroes in uniform were rushing about town at top speed, all but overturning at every corner. The lower classes, having likewise filled themselves with cheap _cachaza_, had joined the general uproar of noise, irresponsibility, and probable violence, and the streets were swarming with _populares_ shouting “Viva Peçanha!” “Viva o Salvador do Povo!” and similar nonsense in maudlin drunken voices, while Sodré sent hurriedly to the national president demanding “guarantees” for his personal safety.

Residence in South America, however, teaches one that revolutions are by no means so dangerous on the spot as they are in the armchairs of those who are reading about them afar off, and we serenely continued our preparations for the evening performance. Desultory shooting, street brawls, and the surging of masses of drunken _populares_ continued throughout the day and for several days thereafter, while the shouting, shooting truckloads of police and firemen continued dizzily to round corners, each time more nearly resembling the drunken brute into which the tropical languor of negro militarism is apt to degenerate in times of crisis or popular excitement. But it was, on the whole, a good-natured rather than a blood-thirsting brute, and though what Brazil calls “persons of most responsibility” kept out of sight, we common mortals, including not a few women, walked about town attending to our business as usual. Once a ragged, drunken mulatto _popular_ came into the _leitería_ in which I was quenching my thirst with a glass of ice-cold milk, walked bellowing and reeling past me and two men at another table up to a little messenger-boy of fourteen, and ordered him to shout “Viva Peçanha!” The proprietor dared not protest, for the police were all drunk and the _povo_ more than likely to take the ragamuffin’s part; but when the latter finally staggered out again the shopkeeper raised his hands to heaven and demanded to know why the fellow had picked on the boy and not, for instance, pointing at me, on “_o senhor_ over there.”

The “Cinema Eden” was right on the waterfront, though the only paradise in sight was the view of Rio piled up into massive banks of white clouds across the emerald bay and the marvelous sunset and steel-blue dusk which spread over its unique, nature-made sky-line as we opened our doors. The near-revolution was still surging through the streets, though a few sober soldiers of the regiment of federal troops that had been landed were riding about town in street-cars, with ball-loaded muskets ready for action. Peçanha had been sworn in that afternoon, surrounded by a swarm of other perspiring politicians in wintry frock-coats and silk hats, but the national president had concluded to avoid any responsibility in the matter by calling a special session of congress to decide between the rival candidates, instead of carrying out the decision of the Supreme Court—“which,” perorated Ruy Barboso, “is what our constitution orders and what is practiced in the United States,” two equally convincing final arguments. Though we were the only theater open the house was not crowded. “Persons of most responsibility” preferred to remain at home, and the _populares_ were plainly in most cases without the price of admission, even had the revolution not promised a more exciting show outside. I took charge of the door in person, not at all certain but that the _povo_ might try to force itself in en masse. Once, during our part of the program, a mighty explosion shook the town like an earthquake and shooting sounded under our very windows; but as the stampede for the door started I barricaded the immense exit and “Tut” went on calmly running an amusing film known as “College Days,” and before it was ended the volatile audience had quieted down again. The explosion, it turned out, was of a great deposit of powder on one of the many islands in the bay, nearly twenty miles away.

Our receipts for the first section were so poor that we cut out the second and went home for a moonlight dip in the sea just outside our waterfront rooms in the charming residential district of Nictheroy. But it was the last day of the year, with a crushing heat after the splendid air of the plateau, and the soft wind that was now sweeping across the bay drew me back for a last glimpse of Rio in the throes of New Year’s Eve. The city lay a vast irregular heap of lights, here in dense clusters, there strung out along the invisible lower hills, all cut sharp off at the bottom by the endless row of them along the Beira Mar. The Avenida was densely crowded, and getting more so. Newspapers had erected booths covered with artificial flowers and colored lights, several police, fire department, and military bands were scattered along the great white avenue, and a constant, unbroken procession of automobiles crept up one side and down the other, pretty girls perched on the backs of the seats and on the furled covers, all filled with the “respectable families” whose plump and physically attractive ladies are rarely seen in the streets after dark on any other day in the year. I was caught where the confetti fell thickest, but there was little rowdyism and no unpleasant din, though paper ribbons spun across the lighted sea of faces and perfumed water was squirted into them in that good-natured and outwardly courteous way with which the Latin-American softens the perpetration of his most hilarious, carnival-time tricks.