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CHORA MENINAS—THE PLACE OF THE WAILING CHILDREN.

Note to the Second Illustration.—Domestic Life among the Brazilian Planters.—Chora Meninas, the place represented in the second of the larger sketches in this chapter on Pernambuco, is in the environs of the city of the Recife, situated at an angle formed by two high roads, both leading to localities much liked by the foreign merchants, and consequently selected by them for their country residences. The road shown in the engraving leads to the Magdalena Bridge, over the river Capibaribe, beyond which the Sitios, or country houses, thickly scattered on either side, with their mango, bread-fruits and orange trees, and their fragrant flowery shrubs, convey to the stranger most pleasing sensations as he rides leisurely past them. The other road turn to the right of Chora Meninas, and passing the Manguinho, leads to the Ponte d’Uchoa, the other locality much frequented by foreigners. The two places lie, indeed, in the vicinity of the same river, the Capibaribe, the one on the right bank, and the other on the left. Chora Meninas means, literally, the Place of Wailing Infants, an appellation given to it from the spot having been the scene of much bloodshed in a civil conflict in times gone by, when the children of the slain filled the air with their lamentations over the bodies that strewed the ground. The edifice shown in the sketch was once the dwelling house of the owner of a sugar factory situated on that spot, and the chapel was erected by the planter. The buildings are old, and it is many years since the plantations of canes have been discontinued there, as suburbs of the increasing city of Pernambuco have encroached upon the lands. No vestige even now remains of the out-buildings, once destined for the manufacture of the sugar. The dwelling and chapel are built in the ancient Portuguese style, and exhibit signs of Moorish architecture in various parts. The house is a very good sample of many to be found upon the old sugar estates that are in the hands of rustic proprietors, who are very far behind in all those things that indicate an advanced state of civilization. The low roofs, the small unglazed windows, situated under the very eaves of the building, the lean-to roof over a long veranda, the unceiled rooms, the uninhabited ground-floor, partly used for store rooms, and partly abandoned to toads and serpents, and to the sheep and goats, which, as well as a decrepid ox or two, will, at times, enter by the doorless apertures to procure shelter from the heavy tropical rains,—all are characteristics of many of the residences of the less educated planters, who were born and bred to the occupation of cane-planting, as their fathers and grandfathers were before them. If some old and comfortless brick building does not exist upon the estate, you will find the planter domiciled in an edifice of his own constructing. It will then consist of but few rooms, all on the ground-floor. These will not be ceiled, neither will the partition walls be carried up to the roof, so that in one apartment everything is overheard that passes in the others. Often has the writer of this note had to occupy for the night one of these small partitions, without even a window or aperture to admit the light, and has had to listen to many a curtain lecture, while lying on a camp bedstead or stretcher, rolled up in a piece of printed calico in his uncomfortable dormitory. The following is a specimen of many occurrences of the kind that may be witnessed by a traveller when quartered at such plantations.—Wife. Zuza, have you bolted the strangers in? Planter. No, I forgot it; but never mind. Wife. Never mind, indeed! but I do mind. Gertruda! Black Girl. Nhora! (meaning senhora). Wife. Get up, and bolt the door in the passage leading to the stranger’s room. Black Girl. Nhora, sim, (meaning, sim, senhora.) Pause, during which the stranger hears somebody in his room, and heavy articles being moved across the floor, and he asks who is there? Wife. Gertruda, you baggage! what are you doing? Why don’t you bolt the door? Gertruda. There are some things in the way, and I can’t shut it.—A pack saddle, two panniers full of dried beef, and half a cask of salt cod-fish have been lying near the door, inside the unfortunate stranger’s room, the aroma from the beef and fish being more intolerable than any one not having slept under similar circumstances can possibly conceive. At last the impediments are removed, the door is heard to close, the bolts are drawn, and the stranger would compose himself to sleep, in spite of what has passed, of beef and fish, but he is still irritated by the lady avowing to the unfortunate slave that she is a shameless hussy, and that a dozen blows with the palmatorio in the morning will no doubt improve her morals and her agility.

The meals and other domestic arrangements on these plantations are of a piece with the dwelling. The dinner is served to the stranger and the male members of the family only, and consists of broth and a portion of the contents of the above-mentioned panniers, with perhaps the addition of a little fresh beef; but this, having been several hours on the fire to make the broth, is not easily separated from the other. This dish fills a plate to the very outside, and is well piled up, and another plate equally well filled with pirao, made of manioc flour, mixed with some of the broth, and formed into an unctuous sort of pudding. Besides these two dishes, which constitute the most important part of the meal, there will be a plate containing some of the contents of the cask baked on the embers, and two small plates, one containing bruised chili peppers, lime juice, and broth, as sauce for the beef, and the other some of the peppers, oil, vinegar, raw small onions, and garlic sliced, as sauce for the cod fish. Dessert will consist of bananas, Dutch cheese, and guava, potato, or other sweets. All help themselves with their own knives and forks, when they have such things, sometimes the guest only being supplied with them, because he is a foreigner. In the latter case the rest help themselves with the apparatus nature gave them. It is done thus: each has a plate near him, and the meat, pirao, and sauces remain in the middle of the table. They draw from the dish a portion of the meat which they lay in their respective plates; this is subdivided by hand. With the ends of the fingers each then scoops out a piece of pirao, about as big as a hen’s egg, a shred of the beef is laid into the hot sauce and withdrawn; and the two having been a little worked up together with the ends of the fingers and the palm of the same hand until they are tolerably incorporated, the elongated bolus is conveyed to the mouth and swallowed in a manner that would probably astonish a Neapolitan macaroni eater, and certainly astounds everybody else who witnesses it for the first time.

The class of Brazilians of whose mode of living the foregoing conveys a slight idea is fast disappearing before the rapid strides that civilization is making in the country. The majority of the planters of the present day are intelligent, and free from most of the prejudices inherited from the old Portuguese settlers. Many of the landed proprietors live in large, well-built houses, keep excellent tables, and, indeed, are generally of high acquirements, some having received a university education, and mixed in the first circles in Europe, and at the court of Rio Janeiro, assimilating in a great measure to the squatters in Australia, or the landowners in New Zealand, many of whom, as is well known, consist of cadets and collateral branches of the noblest and most ancient families of the United Kingdom.

The hospitality of the Brazilians to strangers, and their attentions particularly to Englishmen, when travelling in their country, are remarkable. They have got the notion that all Englishmen imbibe wine, brandy, and beer largely; and it is unfortunately but too true that what they have witnessed during their intercourse with our islanders in some measure warrants the conclusion they have come to. They always expressed the greatest astonishment when the writer refused to take wine except at dinner; and when they found that he never took their new harsh rum, or worse liqueurs, they exclaimed ‘Nao hé Inglez!’ When a man is very drunk they say he is Bem Inglez; and a dram they call, huma baieta Ingleza—an English wrapper. Some further particulars relative to domestic life among the planters, and among various grades of the Brazilians, will be found in a note somewhat similar to this appended to the chapter on Bahia; but, as partially helping to complete the foregoing picture of a Brazilian interior and menage, I select the following from a German work published in the course of the present year, entitled ‘Reise nach Brasilien,’ by D. Hermann Burmeister, the original of which I have not seen, and am therefore indebted to a review in the ‘Athenæum,’ of last month, for a translation of the extract:—

At sunrise, the family is awake. The servant, or (where there is none) the housewife lights the fire, and boils the coffee, which, though prepared in a peculiar manner, is always excellent. The raw sugar and the unroasted berries are stirred together and roasted in a covered pan, so that when the sugar melts and cools it forms a tough mass with the berries. A spoonful of this is pounded in a mortar and put into a linen bag. Boiling water is then poured upon it, cups are held underneath, and the beverage is ready. Coffee-pots are not used, but the cups are made separately, and handed about on a salver: they are small, and without handles. Milk is only added in the morning; in the evening the coffee is taken without it. The hour for breakfast is ten o’clock; black beans, porridge (angù), dried meat, meal (farinha), bacon (toucinho), cabbage, rice, and even a fowl, when the entertainment is of a superior kind, are served up. Everyone eats what he pleases, the same plate being used at once for everything. The host and his guests sit at the table to their meal, while the wife remains without, and looks on, eating apart. When these have finished, the slaves and servants take their turn. Now come the occupations of the day. The wife goes to her work, that is to say, she mends her own, her husband’s, and her children’s clothes, while the man goes out to walk, or to game, or to gossip on the highway. At three or four o’clock, there is a fresh repast of the same kind as the other. They eat heartily, drinking water either alone, or mixed with a little brandy, and soon after dinner take a cup of coffee. After this comes the period of repose, during the hottest hours of the day, and then comes another walk, which generally lasts till late at night. Between five and six o’clock, the ladies call upon their friends, accompanied by a black female servant. Some families take a third meal between seven and eight o’clock, but this is an exception.

INTERIOR OF THE MILL HOUSE OF THE ‘CARAUNA’ SUGAR ESTATE, IN PERNAMBUCO, BELONGING TO DR. DOMINGOS DE SOUZA LEAO; SHOWING DE MORNAY’S PATENT CANE MILL.