From the Arrival of the Fleet at Rio de Janeiro,till its Departure for the Cape of Good Hope;with some Remarks on the Brazils.
Brazil is a country very imperfectly known in Europe.The Portugueze,from political motives,have been sparing in their accounts of it.
Whence our descriptions of it,in the geographical publications in England,are drawn,I know not:that they are miserably erroneous and defective,is certain.
The city of St.Sebastian stands on the west side of the harbour,in a low unhealthy situation,surrounded on all sides by hills,which stop the free circulation of air,and subject its inhabitants to intermittents and putrid diseases.It is of considerable extent:Mr.Cook makes it as large as Liverpool;but Liverpool,in 1767,when Mr.Cook wrote,was not two-thirds of its present size.Perhaps it equals Chester,or Exeter,in the share of ground it occupies,and is infinitely more populous than either of them.
The streets intersect each other at right angles,are tolerably well built,and excellently paved,abounding with shops of every kind,in which the wants of a stranger,if money is not one of them,can hardly remain unsatisfied.
About the centre of the city,and at a little distance from the beach,the Palace of the Viceroy stands,a long,low building,no wise remarkable in its exterior appearance;though within are some spacious and handsome apartments.The churches and convents are numerous,and richly decorated;hardly a night passes without some of the latter being illuminated in honour of their patron saints,which has a very brilliant effect when viewed from the water,and was at first mistaken by us for public rejoicings.
At the corner of almost every street stands a little image of the Virgin,stuck round with lights in an evening,before which passengers frequently stop to pray and sing very loudly.Indeed,the height to which religious zeal is carried in this place,cannot fail of creating astonishment in a stranger.
The greatest part of the inhabitants seem to have no other occupation,than that of paying visits and going to church,at which times you see them sally forth richly dressed,en chapeau bras,with the appendages of a bag for the hair,and a small sword:even boys of six years old are seen parading about,furnished with these indispensable requisites.Except when at their devotions,it is not easy to get a sight of the women,and when obtained,the comparisons drawn by a traveller,lately arrived from England,are little flattering to Portugueze beauty.In justice,however,to the ladies of St.Sebastian,I must observe,that the custom of throwing nosegays at strangers,for the purpose of bringing on an assignation,which Doctor Solander,and another gentleman of Mr.Cook's ship,met with when here,was never seen by any of us in a single instance.We were so deplorably unfortunate as to walk every evening before their windows and balconies,without being honoured with a single bouquet,though nymphs and flowers were in equal and great abundance.
Among other public buildings,I had almost forgot to mention an observatory,which stands near the middle of the town,and is tolerably well furnished with astronomical instruments.During our stay here,some Spanish and Portuguese mathematicians were endeavouring to determine the boundaries of the territories belonging to their respective crowns.Unhappily,however,for the cause of science,these gentleman have not hitherto been able to coincide in their accounts,so that very little information on this head,to be depended upon,could be gained.How far political motives may have caused this disagreement,I do not presume to decide;though it deserves notice,that the Portuguese accuse the Abbee de la Caille,who observed here by order of the King of France,of having laid down the longitude of this place forty-five miles too much to the eastward.
Until the year 1770,all the flour in the settlement was brought from Europe;but since that time the inhabitants have made so rapid a progress in raising grain,as to be able to supply themselves with it abundantly.
The principal corn country lies around Rio Grande,in the latitude of 32deg south,where wheat flourishes so luxuriantly,as to yield from seventy to eighty bushels for one.Coffee also,which they formerly received from Portugal,now grows in such plenty as to enable them to export considerable quantities of it.But the staple commodity of the country is sugar.That they have not,however,learnt the art of making palatable rum,the English troops in New South Wales can bear testimony;a large quantity,very ill flavoured,having been bought and shipped here for the use of the garrison of Port Jackson.
It was in 1771that St.Salvador,which had for more than a century been the capital of Brazil,ceased to be so;and that the seat of Government was removed to St.Sebastian.The change took place on account of the colonial war,at that time carried on by the Courts of Lisbon and Madrid.
And,indeed,were the object of security alone to determine the seat of Government,I know but few places better situated in that respect than the one I am describing;the natural strength of the country,joined to the difficulties which would attend an attack on the fortifications,being such as to render it very formidable.
