Читать книгу Brazil, the River Plate, and the Falkland Islands - Hadfield William - Страница 8

Table of Contents

Progress from Porto Grande to Pernambuco.—Steam triumphs against adverse wind.—Further Superiority of Screw over Sail.—The Argentina in a South-Wester.—Apropos of Malaria, and something sanitary about Brazil.—The yellow fever: whence it comes, and what has become of it?—Quarrels about Quarantine.—Brazil in advance of the old country in these matters.

Leaving Porto Grande, we shaped our rapid course southwards, to the Brazils, across the wide expanse of ocean lying between the two continents, and in all which prodigious waste of waters there is no port of call nearer than St. Helena, latitude, 15 deg. 55 min. S., long., 5. 44 E., unless we except the turtle-famed Island of Ascension, 800 miles N.E. of the Bonapartean place of exile, which itself is 1,200 miles from the coast of Lower Guinea. The trade winds vary a good deal in their extension towards the line, and in these latitudes commence the difficulties of a sailing ship, which has to deal with calms and variable winds, blowing from all points of the compass, until such time as it catches the south-east trade, and is carried onwards. Our course lay towards Pernambuco, a place I visited for the first time upwards of thirty years back, and where I have often been since, but never in a steamer; and only those who have experienced the difference between the two modes of propulsion, wind alone and steam, can fairly appreciate the value of the latter power. In former years, 40 to 50 days were considered an average passage to Pernambuco, lately reduced to about 30 to 35 by clipper-vessels, whilst a steamer will traverse the distance easily in 20 days, including stoppages to coal, and for any other requisite purpose. The consequence is, that numbers pass to and fro, who would never do so but for the facilities thus afforded, and which afford at the same time a further evidence of the trite truth, already frequently dwelt upon, and which will have to be still more frequently repeated, before we come to a close, that steam navigation becomes the great civilizer of the world, and brings distant nations so much nearer to our own shores.

Our run from St. Vincent to Brazil was a very hard one. Losing the trade-wind the day after that on which we left the island, it was replaced by an implacable south-wester, against which our little vessel steamed vigorously, and we could barely carry fore and aft canvas. When, after eight days’ tugging we arrived at Pernambuco, there was not an hour’s coal left, a consideration which naturally rendered all on board anxious for some short time before. We shaved close past the Island of Fernando de Noronha, showing a conical hill, very like a ship under canvas at a distance. It is a penal settlement of Brazil, and considered very healthy.

Before describing other ports of call on our way to the River Plate, let us just take a glance at the Empire of Brazil, which, from its geographical position, immense fertility and internal resources, is second only in importance to the great Empire of the West—the United States of North America. And, first, in regard to that primal consideration, health, as affected by the climate—a subject on which many years’ experience in my own person, and an attentive observation of the health of various classes of Europeans in the tropics enable me to speak with as much weight as should probably attach to the opinion of the majority of non-medical men on a medical topic; and some remarks on that head in the chapter on Pernambuco will probably be found not altogether unworthy of the attention even of the faculty.

Notwithstanding its well-known heat, in common with all other countries within the tropics, and especially a country so large a portion of which is directly beneath the equator, until within the last few years Brazil has been proverbially one of the healthiest climates in the world, and European residents could indulge almost with impunity in the pleasures and luxuries of tropical life. Unfortunately yellow fever has changed all this, and rendered the vital statistics of the harbours and cities of the empire mournful catalogues of suffering and disaster, threatening serious injury to its national prosperity, if the scourge does not soon finally depart from its shores. This, it is devoutly hoped may be the case, and fortunately seems to be so at present, as far as can be augured from the reports now continued for a considerable time. During over thirty years’ acquaintance with, and frequent residence in the country, I never experienced or heard of any existing epidemic worthy of the name, or such as could not be readily accounted for; but the aspect of things, at the period of my last arrival, had sadly indeed changed, and the dread pestilence in its ravages seemed to spare neither the hardy European mariner, the native resident, the blacks, nor indeed any class of persons brought within its influence. How or from whence this mysterious visitation had arisen it was impossible to say. Some maintain that it was brought from the coast of Africa, and is a kind of retributive punishment for the iniquitous traffic in human flesh carried on so extensively in the Brazils, until lately, that the government have shown themselves determined to put it down. But those who argue in this fashion forget that the same doctrine would apply in a thousand instances at home and abroad; that the exceptions are unfortunately more numerous than the rule which would be thus set up by human presumption for the admeasurement of the justice of Omniscience; and that it is always imprudent, to say the least of it, to attempt to interpret the causes of such dispensations of Providence by our own notions of human requirement. Others deny the fever to be either epidemic or contagious, affirming that it must be induced by some peculiar atmosphere, generated, no one knows how, on the sea coast; and it certainly is curious enough that vessels have had the sickness on board, whilst coming down the coast, before even touching at a Brazilian port. Whatever be the true cause of this affliction, it ought to teach the Brazilians a lesson not to abuse the bounties of Providence, which they enjoy in almost unexampled profusion, or neglect those means of sanitary protection which are needful even in the healthiest portions of Europe. No doubt much is required to be done in this way, and not in trying to enforce stupid quarantine regulations, which only add to suffering without arresting the arm of the devastator. Indeed, the Brazilian government has shown great good sense in eschewing the absurd formalities in question, therein again exhibiting an immense superiority of intelligence over the mother country; for at Lisbon all the antiquated and superannuated encumbrances and ceremonials are rigorously exacted, though there be not even the shadow of a pretext for enforcing them; for although a ship’s bill of health may be perfectly clean, and although the ports she last sailed from may have been long known to be uninfected, still the circumstance of their having been once tainted is sufficient warrant for the Portuguese procrastinators in exacting any amount of detention that may be agreeable to their caprice, whether the vessel be sail or steamer.