Exploring and Travelling Three Thousand Miles Through Brazil from Rio de Janeiro to Maranhão: With an Appendix Containing Statistics and Observations on Climate, Railways Central Sugar Factories, Mining, Commerce, and Finance ... |
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amidst amongst animals appeared arrived banks Barbacena beans billhook birds bixo Brazil Brazilian bright Burity bush cachaça camp campos Capella Nova cattle cerrado Chico clouds coffee cold colour covered dark day's deep dense district door farinha farm fazenda feet fever flowers foliage forest grass green grey ground head hills houses huge João Juiz de Fora labour land light look maize mandioca masses Mesquita miles milreis Minas Minas Geraes mist morning mule night pacas palms Parãopeba passed Picada Pirapora pleasant Porteira Portuguese railway rain rancho ride Rio de Janeiro Rio São Francisco river road roças rocks rough scene Senhor Serra Sertão side sight slopes snake soil steep stream street summit surrounded surubim taboleiros Tocantins trees trunks valley vegetation venda verandah village wind woods yards yellow
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Page 174 - Mart.), isa powerful narcotic. The Composite Carqueja (Baccharis, Nardum rusticum, Mart.), with triangular elongated leaves and whitish buds at the angles, is a bitter tonic, aromatic and antifebrile, much used in German-Brazilian beer. I need hardly say that nothing can be purer than the perfumed air of these Campos ; its exhilaration combats even the monotony of a mule journey, and the European traveller in the Tropics recovers in it all his energies, mental and physical. The mornings and evenings...
Page 24 - ... sculpture ; and hence we see even in the churches, instead of real works of art, only ornaments overloaded with gold." Music, however, is cultivated in Rio with considerable enthusiasm and success. " The Brazilian," says this traveller, " like the Portuguese, has a refined ear for agreeable modulation." The guitar here, as in the south of Europe, is the favourite instrument, and the national songs which are sung with this simple accompaniment, are partly of Portuguese origin, partly native productions....
Page 175 - ... to the dim horizon, to the very boundaries of Heaven. In the excitement and enthusiasm of the moment, I left the path and galloped up to the summit of the nearest wave crest, and there stood for the space of full five minutes, with chest expanded and arms outstretched, inhaling the glorious breeze that came sweeping over the plains direct from the Atlantic. I felt like a prisoner just released from his dungeon. For thirteen months I had not known what it was to feel a breath of air on my cheek...
Page 6 - ... charming hills, where cypress-groves overshadow the graves of the Moslim, and the blue belt of the Bosphorus, skirted by serais, hissars, and innumerable little hamlets, animating the whole scene, winds beautifully between Asia and Europe. Even Constantinople did not transport me so much as the first view of Rio de Janeiro. Neither Naples, nor Stamboul, nor any other spot I have seen on earth — not even the Alhambra— can compare with the strange and magic charm of the entrance to this bay....
Page 24 - ... wants, have prepared a way for their reception ; and that it is not till commerce, the activity of which is directed to external objects, is finally established, that endeavours after the enjoyments and refinements of the arts can arise in a nation. There is scarcely any taste here for painting or sculpture ; and hence we see even in the churches, instead of real works of art, only ornaments overloaded with gold.
Page 365 - I could not possibly wish for a better camarada than my black tropeiro Chico ; he was skilful attentive respectful honest and obliging, but black as coal, and the blacker a negro is, so is he proportionately trustworthy. The...
Page 175 - ... the course of a morning's shooting in the falls. On the 3rd of October, two days after having left the jovial and hospitable camp of the 1st Staff, I passed through the last strip of forest that marked the boundary of the Great Prairie. Ye Gods ! how my heart bounded within me at the long forgotten sight of the great rolling plains, stretching far away to the dim horizon, to the very boundaries of Heaven. In the excitement and enthusiasm of the moment, I left the path and galloped up to the summit...
Page 6 - Nevertheless, it seemed not to require this feature, for the general impression of all we had seen this day, of the nearer environs of the bay, was so overpowering, that nothing was left for the most vivid imagination to supply. Never had any view impressed me so forcibly : even the aspect of Naples — imposing and animated Naples, with Vesuvius and her magnificent bay — sinks in the comparison ; even the oriental splendour of Constantinople, where white cupolas and slender minarets rise proudly...
Page 44 - The whole of this valley belongs to a comparatively few wealthy and important Brazilians, Viscondes and Baroes, of such influence that the railway has had to cross the river five times between Pirahy and Porto Novo da Cunha by long and expensive bridges to serve the interests of a Bariio this side, or a Visconde on the other.
Page 406 - Bahia, and much of which will be forwarded on to Goyaz from Januaria. There were also dark-skinned sinewy boatmen of the river ; countrymen from the Geraes ; gaudily but semi-clad washerwomen, black brown and yellow ; naked moleques (negro lads), all chattering, smoking, and expectorating. On the flat ground above are the long streets of...