THE CAPTIVITY OF HANS STADE OF HESSE (Hakluyt Society, 1874)
THE PREFACE AND INTRODUCTION OF RICHARD F. BURTON
INCLUDES THE BIBLIOGRAPHY BY C.R.M. AT END
In this transcription, special letters, letters with accents and the like have been rendered in regular English letters.

Footnotes may be found at http://www.jrbooksonline.com/HTML-docs/hakluyt_staden/hakluyt_staden_intro_fn.htm.

Originally posted July 2007 at http://www.jrbooksonline.com/burton.htm.

PREFACE.

SECTION I.

IT was my fate during nearly three years, between November 10th, 1865, and July 28th, 1868, to endure exile as H.B.M.’s Consul for the port of Santos, in the province of Sao Paulo, the Brazil. There was little occupation on high days and holidays, except to visit the sea-board and “kitchen middens”; and, as there are no roads along the shore, many of my excursions were made in open boats—trips which gained dignity by the perpetual presence of danger. During these excursions, I passed again and again through the Rio Bertioga, a channel which separates the once populous and still luxuriant island of Santo Amaro from the mainland; and I landed, not unfrequently, at the ruin opposite the Forte da Bertioga. The stone-heap occupies the site where Hans Stade, the author of the following pages, served as gunner, and whence he was carried off captive by the cannibal savages, who, in those days lived alternately upon the sea-coast and the interior plateau. Of the wild tribes, not a living specimen remains; but, like the Guanches of Tenerife, they have left manifest traces of “red” blood in the veins of their modern

ii   PREFACE.

successors. And, whilst their wigwams have long vanished from the earth’s face, their enormous “kitchen middens”, called by the natives Sambaque, and by the Portuguese Ostreiras, containing thousands of cubic feet, and composed chiefly of Venus (berbigoes), oyster and mussel shells, still stud the coast line and supply the granitic and primary regions with lime, which will presently be exhausted.

Before my transfer from Santos to Damascus (1869), I had strongly recommended a friend, Albert Tootal, to expend the moments which he could spare from more important matters in translating Hans Stade. He followed my advice, and all those who take an interest in wild tribes, and especially in the Brazilian savages, owe him a debt of gratitude. Also at my suggestion, he preserved the chaste and simple style which best suits the subject; which accords with the character of the unlettered gunner, and which seems to vouch for the truth and the straightforwardness of the traveller. And the matter is not less interesting than the manner: it has the intrinsic value of ranking amongst the very few works written by eye-witnesses during the early sixteenth century, and it throws important light upon a point which unreasonable doubts have lately darkened. Not long ago we were assured that man does not outlive a hundred years, and the supposed error of Flourens led his correctors into an error still greater. After that freak, that “crotchet of criticism”, the existence of cannibalism, which seems at different ages of the world to have been the universal custom of mankind, was called in question. Hans

PREFACE. iii

Stade now steps forth and delivers his testimony about a people who were literally “fleshed with human meat”.

I must apologise to Mr. Tootal for long delay in my share of the work. The translation was finished in 1869, and it was taken to Syria for the purpose of adding an Introduction and a few explanatory Notes. But I unexpectedly found at Damascus duties and studies that occupied the whole of my time, and the various troubles to which allusion has been made in “Unexplored Syria”, left me as little will as leisure for the work. When suddenly recalled from my post, friends advised me to try the tonic effects of a summer in Iceland; in fact, until the present moment, when settled pro tempore at Trieste, I have lacked opportunity to fulfil my humble part of the contract.

Mr. Tootal is alone answerable for the accuracy of his translation. To my responsibility fall the Introduction and the Notes. Its bibliographical portion was kindly undertaken by Clements R. Markham, C.B., etc., whose various literary avocations, to say nothing of official labours, enable him to be, like most hard workers perforce thrifty of their time, a man of comparative leisure. He has also the advantage of consulting libraries and of collecting viva voce information —conditions hardly to be expected in a highly commercial sea-port.

iv PREFACE.

SECTION II.

Before proceeding to the old inhabitants of the country, I will describe the passage of the Bertioga, and a cruise along the coast of Sao Paulo as far as Ubatuba, which forms the scene of Hans Stade’s captivity. Of the various excursions made by me, those will be most useful which took place in mid-November, 1865, and August, 1866. At the former season it is necessary to choose fine weather, when the fish do not spring, and when the distant hills do not look as if you can touch their feathered flanks: without this precaution the surf will not allow men to land. During the last-mentioned month, the traveller still finds the hot, fever-giving winds, the dry tornadoes and the dense fogs (Cerracao), mentioned by Pero Lopes in 1531.¹

The beautiful Rio Bertioga, popularly known as the Rio Grande, is a sea arm winding nearly east and west, about fifteen statute (=10 direct geographical) miles long, and from three miles to a few hundred yards in breadth; it has a double flow, as the centre forms a water-parting; the western half runs west-ward into Santos Bay, and the other into the Southern Atlantic. At times this Euripus shows the vivacity of a sluice. The depth is rarely under two fathoms, and the bottom is soft mud.

The only vehicle which chanced to be procurable in November 1865, was a “Batelao”, a short thick “Ein-

PREFACE. v

baum”, with additions fore, aft, and at the quarters. These nut-shells will ply north, hoping for a calm sea, but nothing eau persuade them to tempt the “Costa braba” (wild coast) to the south of Santos.

Paddling away from my pleasant station, the “Wapping of the far West”; early in the morning we left at the nearer extremity of Santo Amaro, the old fort Itapema (“flat stone”), now a heap of dull yellow masonry, backed by two large kitchen middens, which by this time have probably disappeared. Some care is requisite when entering the sea-arm’s narrow mouth, as the northern jaw is foul with hidden rocks. The distant view on both sides is high and grandiose; the immediate banks are low and swampy, with lumps of detached hill, amongst which the sphynx-form, as about the granite regions of Rio de Janeiro, is not uncommon. The ragged mangrove bush, with its undergrowth of tufted sprouts, is a glorious breeding-place when the ebb-tide discovers huge mud flats, the homes of various pests known to the natives as Mutuca, Perna-lunga, Pium Carapana, and Maruim.² A few cottages of dirty bilious clay, covered with rusty tattered thatch and

vi   PREFACE.

fronting, perhaps, some square yards of cane, occupy holes cut in the luxuriant green bush, and roughly-made canoes are drawn up the black mire—we might be prospecting one of the “Oil Rivers” in the Bight of Biafra. But though the mud is fetid, the people are said not to be unhealthy.

On the right hand we pass a Morne (earth cliff), denoted by a Ranch or hovel for the use of lime burners. To the left is the Morro de Cabrao, which rises darkly from the light green mangrove,

“A glorious scene, and as the ranks ascend
Shade above shade, a woody theatre
Of stateliest view,”

we especially note amongst the tangled and cordaged trees a beautiful Veronica, locally called Nyaganhacatiro. Each is a garden of flowers, purple-mauve in youth, pink in middle life, and virgin white, like the dog-roses of Dalmatia, with the hoar of age: all these colours blooming at the same time. There is the normal peculiarity of the grand Brazilian forest, the gigantic white trunks thrown out in strong relief by the black-green shade, and the light yellow-green verdure of the Capoeira or second growth, contrasting with the mottled glooms of the Mato Virgem. The Rhine, in summer, can show nothing like the might and majesty of this “Flowery Forest”; and the vegetation dwarfs the

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tallest of English oaks and the noblest of European elms, as though they had passed through Chinese hands. Art is wholly absent. Smoke winding from the bush alone shows that the woodland contains homesteads and farms; whilst palms, as in Africa, denote the presence of man—this contrast between the works of nature, first-hand and second-hand, is here ever present to the mind.

The several features of the Bertioga are the Volta Grande, where a sweet-water stream from the Cabrao forms a riverine island; various “Furados” (creeks) in the mangrove bush; the Rio do Quilombo (of the Maroon village) draining the mountains and telling its date of olden days; and, on the right bank two unclean ditches known as the Rio dos Portos and the Rio da Boa Vista. Every site is named,—names are retained for places even when houses have long returned to earth. Some ugly bends deform the stream, where lies a small archipelago, and for about a league and a half the mangrove country lasts: beyond it, the rhizophor still fringes the brown water, but the shore grows higher, and bald patches of yellow rock appear. The wondrously shaggy Serra looks as if man had never placed his foot there. In wet weather cloud-flecks cling like handfuls of wool to thorny shrubs. Now it shows with sharp distinctness a sky-line jagged like a saw, while, misty in the far distance, loom the blue cliffs behind Enseada. And over all are the glow and play of a tropical sun, a dancing of the bright clear air, and the diamond sparkle and iridescence of the sea as it catches the direct or the slanting light. The storm-

viii   PREFACE.

tossed Portuguese must have found a peculiar charm in this Rio Formoso of the western hemisphere.

Presently we arrive at the half-way house, the Lagoa de Caete (of good wood), a small Mediterranean, long and shallow, which mirrors the tall Serra and its hilly and knobby outlines. The current begins to run east-ward and to mingle with the South Atlantic: the view waxes still finer, and we taste the sweets of the unadulterated sea-breeze. On the mainland bank and raised above the marsh is the Quinta (villa) of Colonel Caudinho Albuquerque, whose lime manufactory is close to the water’s edge, not far from the Cabussu river, a mere surface drain of the Serra. The small white house, with double roof, two windows, and a door, is approached by steps, some of stone, others cut in the stiff yellow clay. The extensive sheds and out-houses show dogs and poultry; but no negroes are working in the now neglected coffee grounds which surround it; and the large guavas and cedars, palms and palmitos, flower and fruit all in vain. Many proprietors from Santos have boxes up the Bertioga, where they come to eat fish and to shoot the deer and the Anta (tapir), now so rare in the neighbourhood of civilisation. Here, however, the mosquitoes muster too strong for enjoyment.

On the right hand the bearded hills and knolls of Santo Amaro slope gradually to the water-brink. The island,³ once populous and cultivated, and still pre-

PREFACE. ix

serving ruins of Engenhos or sugar-houses, has become a mass of luxuriant second-growth. With the exception of rice, which much resembles that of Carolina, agriculture is a poor trade: as in Santos Island, the climate forbids it; the burning sun ever alternating with flooding rains, and the plague of Sauba,⁴ more than compensate for all the fertility of the soil. Yet Fray Gaspar da Madre de Deos, the monographer of his native province,⁵ attributed in the last century the poverty of his compatriots to their contempt for Triptolemus, and declared that their indolence has covered large Fazendas (plantations) with bush.

Santo Amaro island still shows beyond the Cade river the small white Ermida (chapel) of Curumahil, which rejoices in an image known as Nossa Senhora da Representacao, and the stream of the same name leads to the Casa do Pereque, an estate on the north-eastern side fronting the sea. Further again is a gap in the brake-covert called the Burraccao (big hole), which has a short cut over the hills to the Praia de Yporanga near Pereque.

A little beyond Colonel Albuquerque’s house lie the Sitio (farm) and Ostreira of Manoel Luiz Fer-

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reira, popularly known as Manecco Manguata. The little yellow box, built upon a hillock, with a landing-place like those of the Tanganyika Lake, is the best in the whole line; it is faced on the mainland by the Praiuha, a cleared, grassy space, dotted with palms, and boasting of a boat-house; whilst beyond it the Rio de Uriri denotes the site of a huge shell-heap.

The Corral de Peixe (fish kraal), here a common feature, attracts our attention. It is a winding fence thrown across, or half across, the sea-arm; the material being bamboo poles connected by the black Imbe (Philodendron imbe), which my friends on the Bonny river would recognise as “tie-tie”. The victims are driven by the tide through a Giqui, funnel or narrow passage, into a Camara or bulge; thence a struggle for escape leads them into a second; and, finally, they enter the last pocket known by the tunny-fishers’ name—“Camara da Norte”. Here two men, standing upon the fence, ply a large hand-net fastened to a pole. The produce consists of some eighty or ninety species, of which the most common are known as Savelha or Sardinha and Cavalla; Gallo and Corvina; Bagre and Robalo; Paraty, Paru and Parambeta; Pescado jacu, Pescado branco, and Pescado amarello, the latter often weighing twenty pounds and worth 6$000. The less common are the Sherma and Caratinga; the Badeja and Caranha; the Goette, the Pescado Selvagem, the Pescado Cangoa, and the excellent Garupa and Garupeta.

As at Fernando Po, the fisherman can easily clear £5 by a single day’s haul; yet, with all this wealth at hand, the people, from the Amazons to the Plata,

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actually import Bacalhao (salt cod) from Newfoundland, and, with the sea at their feet, they will not take the trouble, or rather it is not worth their while, to lay out Salinas. One of the divers boasted that he could remain ten minutes under water, and I put him on the path of making a fabulous fortune in England or in the United States. The “patroon”, who, like many of his class hereabouts, had been three times captured by English cruizers when slaving on the West Coast of Africa, and who consequently “knew a thing or two”, scoffingly compared the boaster with the renowned Padre Anchieta, who could pray and read his breviary for three-quarters of an hour at a time under water.

The river presently narrows and makes a distinct bend to the north of east. The last projection, on the right, is the Ponta Grossa, a commanding ridge with a large clearing, green as a parrot’s plume, which has not had time for second growth, although the old sugar plantation is utterly deserted. Opposite is the Rio do Pilar, alias the Barra do Bucuhy, a stream which extends, they say, some twelve leagues inland and supports various Fazendas, whilst the banks supply tanneries, especially that of M. Porchat, with mangrove bark. Up its valley runs a Picada (bush-path, as opposed to a Camiuho franco) connecting with the settlement of Mogy das Cruzes on the plateau of Sao Paulo. Gold-dust is said still to be found in the upper waters, the Rio Itutinga, and the head of the Tapanhahu (Tapanahu). The mouth is blocked by electric wires which ought to be submerged.

After some four hours paddling we sight the open

xii PREFACE.

sea from the embouchure of the Bertioga, where the hills draw off. On the left is still the tall Serra do Mar, the eastern ghauts of the Brazil, which rival the Camarones mountains in portentous luxuriance of vegetation. The Itaguare height, with its crystal vein of water, is conspicuous, and we count upon the face of the rock-wall seven cascades, diminished by distance to the size of thin twisted glass cylinders in the old style of Swiss clock. The nearest point ahead is the bluff headland known as the Morro, or Ponta da Enseada (da Bertioga); beyond it rises the islet of Monte Pascoal, bluer than the air; further still is the heap called Montao do Trigo, and lastly the Alcatrazes lie low in the water, shaped like an elephant’s back, and thrown out by the azure curtain of charming Sao Sebastiao. This fringe of scattered islets affords excellent shelter, and forms in fact a natural διώρυξ, through which even canoes, during the calm season, ply between Santos and Rio de Janeiro. They are Continental, not Pelagic, to adopt Von Buch’s distinction; almost all are inhabited except where water is absolutely wanting, and it is probable that they were occupied by “Indians” in the days of yore.

The eastern mouth of the Bertioga is some 600 or 700 yards wide, and from two to three fathoms deep; it is said to have no bar, the curse of Brazilian as of tropical African rivers, and I certainly never saw the sea break across it. Inside is a safe anchorage of eight fathoms, forming a first-rate harbour of refuge for small craft making Santos from the north: thus they save the twenty rough miles round Santo Amaro. In

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the days when Fr. Gaspar wrote, it was generally believed that the Discoverer and First Donatory of the Captaincy, Martim Affonso de Souza, entered the Bertioga channel when outward bound. But the log-book of his brother, Pero Lopes de Souza,⁶ clearly shows that, after leaving Rio de Janeiro, the squadron in twelve days made Cananea, and did not touch at the parts about Santos, till homeward bound, on January 22nd, 1532, when S. Vicente and the Bertioga fort were built. He had sailed from Portugal on December 23rd, 1530, and reached Rio de Janeiro, not in January, but on April 30th, 1531: thus he was too late to name, as some have supposed (Southey, I, 42), the several ports upon the Brazilian coast. The old Portuguese navigators, it has been well remarked, travelled almanac in hand, baptising every place after the patron saint who presided on the day of discovery.

For instance—

Cape S. Roque is so called from Aug. 16.⁷
Cape S. Agostinho   „ „ „ 28.
Rio de S. Miguel    „ „ Sept. 29.
Rio de S. Jeronymo   „ „ „ 30.
Rio de S. Francisco    „ „ Oct. 4.

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Rio das Virgens is so called from Oct. 21.
Rio de Santa Luzia (Rio Doce?) Dec. 15.
Cabo de S. Thome   „    „    ,, 21 (? 22)
S. Salvador da Bahia de todos os Santos
(discovered November 1st, 1501,
popularly placed on December 25).
Rio de Janeiro „    „ Jan. 1.
Angra dos Reis Magos (Epiphany,
or Twelfth-day)    „    „ „    6.
Ilha de S. Sebastiao „ „    „ 20.
Porto (or Rio) de S. Vicente ,, „ 21.
(22nd (?) festival of SS. Vincent and
Anastasius).

M. F. Adolfo de Varnhagen (note to History, vol. i, p. 425), finds S. Augustine mentioned in A.U. 1504; St. Vincent is on the map of J. Ruysch, dated 1508, and Cape S. Thomm and Angra dos Reis appear before 1519 (Navarrete, iv, 210). He is therefore justified in attributing the nomenclature to the first exploration of the coast by Goncalo Coelho in 1501, who, by order of D. Manuel, carried on board, as pilot and cosmographer, the much-maligned Italian savant, Amerigo Vespucci.⁸

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We anchored, in deep water, under the Fortaleza da Bertioga on the northern or mainland shore. The word, according to Fray Gaspar (p. 21), is a corruption of Buriqui oca, “the house of Buriqui,” a kind of reddish monkey formerly abundant: at first it was applied to the hill behind the settlement, on the northern point of the Serra de Santo Amaro, but generally it extended to the neighbourhood and to the whole sea arm. Vasconcellos (iii, 63) calls it “Biritioga”, and the author of the Noticia do Brazil, “Britioga” (Part I, chap. lxi). They erroneously suppose that the Indians, when they saw the work, named it “house of Buriquis,” because its garrison had ruddy hair like those simiads. As will be seen, there were two forts at the mouth of the Bertioga: they were called after SS. Felippe and Santiago, and the former was founded on the island by Martini Affonso. Hans Stade names it only the “Fort of Santo Amaro.”

The C. O., Manuel dos Santos, who commands a garrison of four men, did the honours of the modern establishment. The building has evidently been renewed upon the olden plan, and hodiernal plaster takes the place of ancient stone. It is in the usual style of its date, built of boulders and lime, with a straight curtain commanding the water, whilst two side faces afford flanking fire. Each angle is provided with its pepper-castor sentry-box: the terre pleine, revetted with uncut slabs,

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is thirty paces in length by seven deep. Six old carronades, for which there is no powder, lie about anywhere except near the embrasures, and only one rusty gun overlooks the wall. In rear of the battery is the normal roof of red tiles, denoting the Quartel or barracks. The door is off its hinges, and a canoe occupies the guard-room. To the right are the commandant’s quarters, carefully shut, and, as the holy-water basin and a wooden cross nailed to the wall suggest, the left wing is the chapel of Sao Joao Baptista.

We may see this kind of thing in any part of old Iberia; for instance, at Algeciras, in the Bay of Gibraltar. Europe, however, usually whitewashes the smaller buildings; this is spotted like a carriage dog, the result of abnormal moisture. The little village of eight houses, with a population of seventy-two souls, lies behind the sand-spit which supports the fort: some of the tenements are neat and clean, showing all the implements for fishing, and the usual multitude of children born of and bred by ichthy ophagous populations. They are built on no regular plan, and the streets are reduced to narrow footpaths, winding amongst shrubs and palms. A certain Pinto will supply breakfast, and the commandant, who passes most of his time in making nets of Tucum fibre (Astrocaryum tucum), has a little store of rum, beer, sugar, and other necessaries; but he complains that business is not brisk. Opposite this Fortaleza is one of the incunabula of the Luso-Brazilian Empire, the site of the old tower of earth and mud built in A.D. 1532 by Martim Affonso, the great Dona-

PREFACE. xvii

tory, and rebuilt in 1552 by Thome de Souza.⁹ After the fashion of the ancient world the first captain wisely preferred, to the continent, the island-site, where defence was easy, where troubles with the natives, who infested the place with hostile canoes, would be least dangerous, and where exports, then the object of colonisation, would most readily be em-barked. Indeed, he forbade his people to visit the interior without special leave, trusting that in time, after the shores had been occupied, an increasing population would spread inland: these sensible precautions were abolished by his widow, Dona Anna Pimentel.

When the Indians saw the Portuguese disembark they fled, headed by their Cacique, to the uplands, and reported the matter to the great warrior chief of the Goyanazes, Tebyreca, Anchieta’s Teverica, Lord of the Prairies of Piratininga—now Sao Paulo, or, more classically, Paulopolis—who had married his daughter to one Joao Ramalho, a Portuguese refugee. The latter, suspecting that a handful of his fellow-countrymen had been driven ashore like himself, accompanied the Regulus who, with three hundred braves, marched upon the Bertioga, and arrived there on the third day to find the tower built and the guns mounted. Martim Affonso made preparations for a regular defence, when a white man walked up within hearsay and welcomed the astonished Portuguese in their own tongue, bidding

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them not to fear. Ramalho was then presented to the captain, related his adventures, and promised assistance. Tebyreca, who afterwards prefixed to his name Martim Affonso,¹⁰ in sign of baptism and of love for his white friend, was received with due respect, and hastened to make a perpetual alliance with the strangers. Then all was joy. The guns fired, to the terror of the “Red men”, and the latter in kilts and coronals and beautiful plumage, sang, danced, and shot their arrows in the air. The other wild tribes that came hastening to the fray, found the Piratininganos and Portuguese on the best of terms; and the Goya-Dazes, who mostly lived in the interior, easily permitted the foreigners to occupy the coast upon the sole condition of the fisheries remaining free.

The site has seen many a change since Hans Stade was captured,¹¹ in 1553-1554, and the last building was an Armacao (whaling station), also in ruins and overgrown with bush: a stranger would pass it without a glance. The landing-place is within the river immediately behind the Morro da Paciencia, so called because peculiarly trying to craft going south: here are grand table-rocks of pink granite, but the least sea prevents disembarkation. There is a stone wharf like that at the present approach to Santos,¹² but the seats

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and blocks are now almost buried in mud. A slippery path leads up the slope, and the dense bush suggests caution: at this season (November) snakes are supposed to be abnormally active. Reaching a field of sugar-cane, we turned to the right, descended some ruinous steps, and found the remains. The chapel of Sao Joao da Bertioga preserves an arch of cut stone between the body of the building and the high altar; a pediment, and a dwarf tower; the sanctuary is broken and the roof has fallen in. A bartizan and a curtain, with a bluff shoulder facing the sea, show excellent masonry, and the wall that crowns the corner looks as if freshly made; probably the stones were brought from Europe by Thome de Souza. Truly a wonderful race were these old Portuguese, who seem, like their sires, the Romans, to have built for eternity. According to the people, this later fort was never finished: the bush was cleared out about two years before my visit. Up hill, where stretches a fine sheet of verdurous second-growth, tier upon tier of tenderest green domes and domelets, like giant parasols, are the ruins of another bartizan.

At the Fortaleza we must dismiss the wet and cranky Batelao, which objects to venture into the smoking Euseada, or Bay to the east, swept by the full force of the Atlantic, and very dangerous after a

xx   PREFACE.

south-wester. I was lucky enough to find a Cana de Voga, the Santa Maria. Its hull was a giant Jequitiba (Couratari legalis, Mart.), some 50 palms long by 4 deep, and 6½ in breadth, and it carried 400 arrobas (x 32 lbs.=12,800 lbs.), nearly six tons, whilst the value was about £150. The sides spooned outwards; it was supplied with additional boards at the gunwales, prow and stern, and it was copper-sheathed above as well as copper bottomed. The admirably graceful lines showed its descent from the naval architecture of the savages, and this may be observed throughout the Brazil: Venice herself can boast nothing more picturesque. The Santa Maria had only one mast, with ham-shaped sails, and she was utterly ignorant of the jib which would be useful: a Patrao (master) and six oarsmen composed the normal crew. The larger specimens are decked fore and aft, and carry a foremast (trinqueta) and square sail, with a wizen (wizena) and leg of mutton; they are not, however, so manageable.

The Santa Maria stands boldly out along the

Virgens plagas do Cabral famoso,

straight as a bee-line for the little fishing-village of Fnsearla. It is distant eight long miles by sea, but those who prefer a land journey can ride nearly the same number of leagues. Looking back upon the island of Santo Amaro we see the houses and estate called the Fazenda do Pereque: now it is the property of Sr. Valencio Augusto Teixeira Leomil, and he would willingly part with his haunt of ants, although coal, they say, has been found there.

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The place has a bad name in history: before 1850 it was a landing-place for slaves, who were smuggled, as our seaboard once smuggled silks and brandies. On the 16th of May H.M.S. “Rifleman,” Commander Crofton, whose cutter had been fired upon, and one of the crew killed, landed and burnt the Casa de Pereque. I spare further details, especially in these days, when

“All Afric’s sons exclaim from shore to shore,
‘Quashee ma boo! the slave trade is no more.’”

The bay (Enseada) is a long shallow arc protected on the north-eastern side by the Morro da Enseada, a stony point bending south: the land is the same tall rocky curtain which forms the Eugua-guassu, alias Monjolo, alias Pilao Grande (Great Mortar) of Santos, and a break in it denotes, by a thin white thread, the Itutinga cataract. The settlement boasts a fine beach, but sadly exposed to the west wind. Gaps in the bush lead from the sand to the houses, which are those of the Bertioga: there are about forty tenements under the charge of an Inspector de Quarteirao (police magistrate); and one has lately been built at an expense of 300$000, say £30. There is a chaplain, and a little chapel dedicated to the Born Jesus de Canna-verde; it accommodates some thirty-five women, who sit at squat, whilst the men stand outside, or kneel upon the bare stones. When Ladainhas (litanies) are recited there is a full gathering: the altar candles are lighted; the calico awning and curtains contrast with the bare walls, and all is gay with roses—Catholicism and flowers seem in these regions to be inseparably united. A gun-shot denotes the end of the psalmody, which contrasts well with

xxii   PREFACE.

that of the village church in England, and a second discharge shows the end of the “function”, after which all troop out chatting and laughing as they wend their way homewards.

The people were formerly fishermen, but the “tainha,” a white mullet (Mugil albula) the herring of this region, whose shoals, according to the “peritos” (experts), once numbered fifty to sixty thousand, have deserted the coast: the same complaint is made everywhere between Rio de Janeiro and Conceicao, whereas south of the latter port “tainha” is still the staff of life. Agriculture has not proceeded beyond manioc, which thrives tolerably: fruits abound, and a little cane is grown for Melado (molasses); but sugar, coffee, and caxaca (rum) are unknown. Formerly Enseada had a high repute for “Batuqueiras,” who performed much in the style of the Egyptian Alimeh (dancing girls), and the youth of Santos used to visit it on Saturdays accompanied by a large demijohn of spirits. Now it is vain for a stranger to propose a “nautch”—modesty forbids.

Beyond Enseada the coast runs nearly west-east, forming a system of headlands and bays, the latter generally giving names to the former: as we advance sun-wards the bights have less sag, and become mere denticulations in the coast line. Three bluffs attracted my attention, the Tres Morros de Imburace: here the rocky, shallow bottom causes the sea to break half a mile off, and this “Carrera” is much feared.

On August 1st, 1866, I entered the Rio de Una, which now divides the municipalities of Santos and Sao Sebastiao. My visit was for the purpose of in-

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specting a “gigantic marine monster,” which had found its way into the papers. The settlers, said the local prints, called it “Peixe Cobra,” because it swam like a snake and “Igbahe Apena”, or “Diabo Pelado” (bald devil): they represented it to be two hundred and sixteen feet long; three years ago (1863) it had been thrown up by the sea, and it remained alive three days. The body was scaleless and gave no oil. The vertebrae could not be seen, having been buried in the sand, but the gigantic ribs lay on the shore, measuring almost twenty-four feet long, three feet wide, and fourteen inches in thickness: there was also a bone, sword-shaped and triangular, measuring nearly fifteen feet; whilst another, which lay near the ribs and was nine and a half feet in length, was judged to be part of the head. It became, in fact, a regular Dragon of Wantley, which, with a tail unreasonably long, devoured the shepherd as well as the sheep.

The bar of the Una was not pleasant to cross, there are rocks in the channel, and it bends parallel with the seaboard, forming a sand-pit: formerly the Abra de Una was better, but nature has driven it to the east-ward. On the right bank is a low, tiled, and yellow-painted house, one of the twenty-four establishments belonging to the Carmelite order; the chapel is dedicated to the Senhor Bom Jesus. The brotherhood lets it for 50$000 per mensem to a certain Antonio de Goes Moreira, but will not allow the ground to be cultivated. The lessee led me to the disjecta ossa of what was evidently a Balea or whale; the vertebrae had been turned into stools by the cottagers, the people

xxiv   PREFACE.

had drawn oil from the tongue; the tail-piece, which served the newspapers as a sword, had been carried off, and the ribs measured a maximum of twenty-four and a half spans. The total length had been ninety-nine feet, and similar godsends had lately been found at the northern whaling establishment (Armacao)¹³ of Sao Sebastian, and on the Ilha das Couves (of cabbages). The mammal was hunted off the Ponta de Arpoar, (Harpoon point) to the north in August and September, and in June and July to the south.

The people of Una have not the best of names. Here three municipalities meet, the third being that of Sao Jose de Parahytinga, and its position makes it an asylum for thieves and murderers: shortly after I left it, one Joao Marianna was assassinated at the instigation of his wife. Off the mouth of the Rio do Una is the round mound, called Montao de Trigo (wheat heap); the islet is inhabited by some seven

PREFACE. xxv

families, who cultivate coffee and catch as much fish as they please. The Alcatrazes, or Pelican Islands, a system of rock-lumps, are further out to sea, some seven leagues from land: there is water upon them, but no population: the solitude would be that of Saint Ronans. The aspect of the rock masses is barren and picturesque, and Capitaine E. Mouchez, who surveyed the coast in the frigate La Motte Piquet made the height only 180 feet above the “wasser-spiegel.” The fringe of little outliers still continues along the shore; the principal are the Tres Ilhas, with good soil, and the uninhabited Ilha do Gato (of the cat): beyond it lies the Ilha das Couves, which supports four families, and the scatter of Toque Toque, also deserted, at the mouth of the S. Sebastiao channel. Toque Toque means a “tide-rip,” here caused by the currents, thrown off by the island, meeting the stony Mainland-point Buraco or Ponta da Velha; there is another, Toque Emboque, between the Tamandua islet and Tobatinga point, further north. The most remarkable headlands and bays are the Buracea, Jurea, Juquihy, Asahy, Praia da Balea, and Boisucanga:¹⁴ at the latter there is a little chapel, N.S. da Conceicao. Afterwards come Marezias, Toque Toque Pequeno, Calhetas, and Toque Toque Grande.

I passed, very unwillingly, a night at the Praia de Toque Toque Grande, a village now containing some

xxvi   PREFACE.

forty-four huts and hovels of fishermen, who have perforce become cultivators. My object was to examine some reported lead diggings, which, if they existed, would prove that the highly-important Yporanga formation, the Derbyshire of the Brazil, extends thus far north. Old men spoke of the metal being found in dry torrent-beds after rain; there was a report that some had lately appeared where the foundation for a house was dug, and the elder fishermen remembered weighting their nets with it. I made two excursions in vain to the Cachoeira or water-fall, a mere thread about one hundred feet long, falling down a gap between the tall bluffs to the north-east into a kieve, containing the coldest water even in the hot sea-son. From this place there is a land road to the town of S. Sebastiao, which leads for three hours over an alternation of rocky projections and sandy inlets. We preferred, however, the boat. The weather was peculiarly threatening: a brassy-yellow gleam in the eastern sky followed the sunset; puffs of wind like the breath of a furnace ruffled the sea at intervals, and there was a peculiar moan which seemed to announce disaster. The rains were approaching, and men quoted the saying

“Nova lua trovoajada
Trinte dias de molhada.”

We put off for the coast of S. Sebastiao, which appeared a dark cul de sac, hardly inviting even to a returning fisherman—it sadly wants a lighthouse. Hardly had the oars dipped a dozen times when a simoom-blast came ploughing the sea like a tornado, and a succes-

PREFACE. xxvii

sion of three huge waves raised us from the water and tossed us ashore, as if the large boat had been a walnut-shell. A few contusions were the only result. The people rushed down to our assistance, and we met with the usual kindly reception of “shipwrecked mariners” at the hospitable house of Mattheus de Moura.

On the next day, by no means the worse for our adventure, we passed the high and rocky mainland point Toque Toque, which fronts the lone long Ponta da Silla, the south-western corner of the island Sao Sebastiao, a little south of the Forte da Feiticeira, now a plantation. Followed the Praia Brava, with the Buraca da Velha (old woman’s hole), so called from a dark rugged cave at its point: this section is steep and rocky, wild and narrow; all give it a wide berth, as many canoes have been broken and lives lost, especially during the dangerous south-west wind. About one and a-half leagues from the town of Sao Sebastiao are the small sandy Praia and the Ponta de Guiaca, an “Indian” word supposed to signify a den. Here is the Buraco do Bicho (beast-hole), one of the many tunnels in the honeycombed rock: it gets its Dame from some unknown animal that issued from it and sprang into the sea. The unlearned tell many “Worm”-tales about it, and the learned quote the Beast of Rhodes. The Guiaca is a large and well-timbered estate, with a chapel under the invocation of Na. Sa. da Luz, belonging to the Carmo (Carmelite Order). The last friar carried off all the movables in prospect of secularisation, and the place

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was offered for 800$000. On December 3rd, 1864, the slaves murdered their administrator, Antonio Augusto Teixeira, because he hired out some of their number beyond the limits of the municipality. It is followed by the Praia de Varequesaba, separated from the Praia do Cavallo Gordo by a point of grassy rock-faced soil; then come the Praia de Pitanguy, very romantic and solitary; two stony projections; the Praia Grande, fronted by a dangerous “deviling;” the Lage da Araca, or da Praia Grande; and lastly, the Ponta da Arapa, where lies an old and decayed battery, with guns along the wall, a red-tiled house behind, and a small whitewashed chapel dedicated to Sao Sebastiao.

We are now within the canal de Sao Sebastiao, sometimes called Toque Toque, one hundred and forty indirect miles from Rio de Janeiro. Here the coast bends suddenly from west-east to north-east, and is fronted by the continental island of Sao Sebastiao which, viewed from a distance, stems part of the shore. Between the two is a land-locked channel, a vast harbour nine to ten miles long by two to three broad: it is easy of access for the island, with a coast line of fourteen miles, which has few important projections. The depth averages twelve fathoms: the middle is a sandy and stony bottom, and on both sides there is a slate-coloured clayey mud. When the tide is out lauding is difficult: at high water you step upon hard sand, and the veriest sketch of a pier would suffice for public comfort. This channel, which casts the bar-hour of Lerwick far into the shade, mimics a lake; it is generally smooth as ice, and the scenery is fair as

PREFACE. xxix

that of the fairest river. An English naval officer declares the Brazilian coast to be deficient in ports: in these parts at least it has some of the best that can be imagined.

I visited more than once the town of S. Sebastiao da Terra Firma, so called to distinguish it from the island and its capital, and I always lodged at the house of a bachelor friend, Benedito Fernando Coelho, President of the Municipal Chamber (Mayor). Originally it was a small village, subject, like all the coast places north of Bertioga, to its head-quarters, the Porto de Santos—Sanctorum oppidum. It was created Villa de Saul Sebastian, on March 16, A.D. 1636, by Pedro de Motta Leite, sixth Capitao Mor of Sao Vicente, in the name of the perpetual Donatory, D. Alvaro Perez de Castro Souza, Count of Monsanto: a copy of the old document made in 1741, and very much worm-eaten, may still be seen in the municipal building. The population then consisted of some sixty “moradores” (colonists), and its jurisdiction extended nine miles south to the Una River. It was presently prolonged to the Rio Sahy, but Law No. 44 (of April 5, 1865) revived the older state of things. Northwards the frontier once ran to Tabatinga, a distance of thirteen leagues; but when Caraguatatuba was raised to the rank of a Villa (town), the line was drawn at the Juquirequire River, distant three leagues. Its early reputation arose from the neighbouring gold mines of Araguara; the site, however, as often happens in the Brazil, is now forgotten.

The town of S. Sebastiao consists, like its neighbours,

xxx   PREFACE.

of a Rua Direita (straight or high street) and a Largo (square), both well grown with grass. It is very badly placed in a low plain of thick mata (bush) under a buttress perpendicular to the main chain of the Serra, which here edges away from the sea: it is backed by a dangerous swamp, and bounded to the north by an unclean drain. Yet the people boast of their climate, and declare that the land is fertile and the water is abundant. From afar it is denoted by two large double-storied houses, apparently uninhabited; they are the common many-windowed and balconied claret-cases with foundations and corners of good stone. The landing is not pleasant: formerly there was a fort, now turned into a drying-ground for coffee, and its four old English carronades lie dismantled upon the sand. The shipping is represented by a few small craft, chiefly Lanchas and Sumacas for the Cabotagem or coasting trade, by half a dozen drawn-up canoes, and by the same number of “Canoas de Voga” discharging Carne seca—jerked beef. The population of Sao Sebastiao and its jurisdiction, although much of it, including Caraguatatuba, has been curtailed, still represents six thousand souls, which the enthusiastic exaggerate to double. I have every reason to remember with pleasure and gratitude the hospitality of my excellent host and the kindness of the Sao Sebastianenses.

In 1590, Sao Sebastiao, being then a village, had a filial chapel of Sao Goncalo under the Villa de Santos; when visited by the Administrator of Rio de Janeiro, Doctor Lourenco de Mendonca Prelado, he ordered the building to be removed a gunshot from the shore,

PREFACE. xxxi

where the Matriz of Sao Sebastiao now stands. The latter is a long low building, which lacking stone foundations cannot be raised higher; the tower is to the north, not a common arrangement here as in Styria. As usual, it is unfinished; three side chapels have been furnished by private piety, but three still want columns and other necessaries. Below it lies a mass of human remains; the dead were buried there till 1862, when a small cemetery was erected by public contributions, the government giving its share of 400$000. Again, the mortuary chapel is unfinished. The main square shows vestiges of antiquity in the Portuguese pillory with hanging bars to accommodate four: levantar pelourinho e fazer Villa was the good old feudal phrase for founding a settlement.¹⁵ Behind it is the prison, in which I found a negro confined for the Guiaca murder. The main square (Largo da Matriz) contains a small dwelling once inhabited by the “Palmerston of the Brazil,” the late Marquez de Parana, who here began his career as Juiz de Fora. The Casa da Camara (Town Hall) was opened, like the prison, in 1865.

In the long Rua Direita stand the empty barracks and magazine (Trem or Armazem de Artigos bellicos); the latter was built in 1825 by the military commandant and last governor of the Villa, Lieut.-Colonel Lopo da Cunha d’Eca e Costa. In these piping times of peace the guns have been transferred to Santos. Forts were once numerous. North of the town lay

xxxii   PREFACE.

the Fortes da Sapituba, da Ponta da Cruz, whose guns cumber the ground, and da Ponta das Cannas, the most salient point: the latter has an old wall of cut stone, probably dating from 1800, and pierced for eighteen pieces; it is in ruins, and has served to build the houses. South is the Forte da Araca (Araxa), opposite the island-work “da Feiticeira.” In this direction also is the temporary Matriz of S. Goncalo, and a brook called “O Ribeiro,” coming from the south-west; the upper part supplies drinking water, and the lower is handy for washerwomen.

Of course there is a Rua da Quitanda (market street), but the supplies are very limited. The people content themselves with cultivating half an acre of manioc, and fish when they please; fresh meat is rare, and the many cannot even afford Carne seta. There are a few shops of the omnium gatherum style in the grassy streets; two bakeries supply bread half-raw, and the square boasts the normal poor apothecary. The people mentioned an Irish doctor, Alexander Newcator, who married a Brazilian wife, and eventually came to grief.

Sao Sebastiao contains two well-frequented schools of first letters for each sex: according to the law of the Empire (October 15th, 1827) they teach Portuguese grammar, arithmetic, the elements of geography, morality, and the religion of the State. The earliest creation was in 1800, under the Professor Alexandre Bento de Barros. At the same time a Latin cum French school was established: it was shut in 1861, as it wanted the legal number of pupils. There are

PREFACE. xxxiii

also elementary schools at the neighbouring places, the Toque-Toques (Grande and Pequeno), S. Francisco, Fuseada, Caraguatatuba, Massa-guasu, and Cambory.

I made a short excursion north of S. Sebastiao to the Bairro de Sao Francisco, in order to inquire about some antimony reported to have been found there. A grassy hill beyond the town gives a fine view; further lies the large Fazenda de Santa Anna, belonging to Antonio Francisco da Rego. The stone aqueduct shows that it was once important, and supported a number of slaves; now the house is neglected, and the orchard is a fine breeding-place for weeds. The next baylet contains a tilery, and a pottery manufactory higher up. The walk is pleasant, the sands are overrun with the delicate blue 1pom ea Maritima (here called Salsa da praia), like our convolvulus; and I recognised with pleasure the fleshy leaves which welcome the traveller to inter-tropical Africa. Inland are heaps of a Cardomum-like plant, the tall Sape grass, and the arrowy Uba (properly Vuba, Arundo Sagittaria), resembling sugar-cane. The Pao d’Alho (Garlic tree, Seguiera alliacea) flourishes everywhere, even on the beach; the people have an idea that its wood deflects the needle, and will hardly trust their eyes when they see that it does not.

After walking a league I reached the Bairro de S. Francisco, one of those small outlying places which astonish the traveller in the Brazil.¹⁶ In a village with a

xxxiv   PREFACE.

single street of scattered houses, backed by cocoa-nuts and large clearings, and fronted by a Praia (beach) bearing a few canoes, rises a vast and lofty building of the best masonry, approached by a fine ramp of masonry, and faced by a substantial stone cross. To the north is a chapel of the Third Order of Franciscans, now a Matriz: in the centre and fronting east is the convent church, with a portico supported by two piers and flanked by a tower. The southern building is a huge convent, which once accommodated a score of monks, and might have lodged a hundred. Azulejos (Lisbon glazed tiles) upon the tower, the dome and the facade, prove that no expense was spared: both places of worship show St. Francis and his stigmata, whilst both have black St. Benedicts in gorgeous array, each holding a white baby.¹⁷ But everything is in the last stage of neglect; the kitchen, with the vast chimney, looks utterly deserted; the cloisters are falling to pieces; the floors are dangerous, and the torn music-scores are scattered on the ground—I saw something of the kind on the Congo River. Tradition says that the land was given by an old “Morador” (colonist), Antonio de Abrcu, and doubtless a whole regiment of slaves, and probably of Indians, was employed upon the construction. It belongs to careless owners in Rio de Janeiro; the difficulty is to know what to do with it, were it even secularised. The Freguezia (parish) is one of the most populous in the Province, but men have changed

PREFACE. xxxv

their habitations, and there are no monks to be lodged. At the Bairro, antimony was ignored by all the inhabitants.

The continental island of Sao Sebastiao (A Ilha Fronteira) invites a visit. In fine weather, when the sea is blue and the landscape is clearly outlined, the aspect is charming. The length of the long narrow feature, which is hatchet-shaped, the edge being to the south, is eight or nine miles, and the breadth two to four: consequently it shares with St. Catherine the honour of being the largest island off the Brazilian coast between the Amazonas and the Plata river. We find it mentioned by old travellers, especially Hans Stade and Andrew Battel of Leigh; from the former we learn the Tupi name, Meyen or Meyenbipe, which is now clean forgotten. Near the southern shore the water is deep; ships, however, must be cautious when approaching Villa Bella about the north-western third. The surface is high, broken, and picturesque; a single Serra runs down the length, bifurcating about the centre to south-east and south-west: it is generally covered with wool-pack in the morning, whilst opaline mists lie in the hollows. The outline is somewhat volcanic in shape, especially the Central Peak, in whose flanks the rains have ploughed deep hollows. Thick trees run up to the summit, clothing every inch of ground. The people have had the sense not to disforest the upper island for plantations where the soil would be cold and useless: consequently the humus and vegetable matter have not been swept into the sea. In the middle altitudes are clearings and grassy

xxxvi   PREFACE.

fallows; the cultivation is better than on the main land, and coffee extends 1100 feet high. The aspect reminded me of Brava Island in the Cape Verdes, but Africa must here yield to the Brazil.

All the hill points¹⁸ are not named. The pyramidal north-eastern peak is called the Pico do Poco after a Cachoeira or waterfall. Viewed from the north, it is bell-shaped, with a Mamelon on the summit, like the Old Man of Hoy. The north-western summit is the Monte da Pacuiba, green, and rising to a point from its spreading roots the Ponta da Pedra and the rushy Ponta das Cannas. The central height, steep and regularly pyramidal, with a bare stony buttress to the north, is known as the Morro or Pedra de Baipi, or Baijipi, possibly from the name of the cannibals who used to attack the people of CaraguatKat.uba, and who were driven away by the colonists of Santos. To the south is a well-wooded and rounded hill, “O Frade”, a humbug compared with “O Frade” of Paraty, further north, which much resembles a hooded Franciscan.

On August 5th, 1866, I ascended the Baipi. The path was decent as long as it passed over the plantations and the grassy lulls, but it became very troublesome when it plunged into the steep virgin forest along a succession of Cachoeiras. The Criciuma bamboo, which at a certain angle cuts like glass, molested the

PREFACE. xxxvii

hands unprotected by gloves, the Sipos (llianas) tangled the feet, and the Caraguata thorns were more injurious than the “wait-a-bit”. The people spoke largely of coral serpents, rattlesnakes, Jararacas, Jararacussus, and other trigonokephali; but in places so damp I made sure of not finding them. The bats (Noctilio and Molossus) are very common, whilst the Morcego or vampire, known by its musky smell, does not confine itself to insects—I have described its habits of phlebotomy in the Highlands of the Brazil. Here the people hang up an owl’s skin to keep it away from themselves and from their cattle, which it afflicts with poisonous sores. We passed several Tocos (caves), in which runaway negroes had taken refuge. Presently we emerged from the virgin forest upon a stony sugar-loaf; whose summit is about 2000 feet above sea level; here ropes were wanted, and the guide refused to advance. It afforded a grand prospect of the northern coast about Caraguatatuba and the mountain walls of the Serra do Mar working round to the east.

We could see on the verge of the open Atlantic to the north-east the Ilha dos Buzios (Cowrie Island), a lumpy feature like the Cypraea, which gave it a name, but somewhat saddle-backed; it contains water in abundance, and supports about a score of families, whose mainland is Sao Sebastiao. Still nearer the shore and east is the uninhabited island of Vittoria, a local name adopted by Captain Mouchez; it is generally included with its little outliers in the Buzios group. Want of water forbids population, but coffee grows luxuriantly. South-west of Vittoria is a snug

xxxviii   PREFACE.

bight, the Bahia dos Castelhanos, so called from a Spanish ship wrecked there.

The landing-place, whence Baipi can best be ascended, is the settlement of Pereque opposite the town of S. Sebastiao. A flat ledge under the heights carries about two hundred houses, large and small, scattered about and buried in the bush, or abutting upon plantations—everywhere here, as in Africa, the waving cocoanut trees show the presence of man. About a dozen whitewashed bungalows form a straight line along the shore, and the same number of shops supply the necessaries of life—the baker complained to me, however, that his trade would not keep him alive; he had sold only two vintems worth of bread that morning. A little south of Pereque and hugging the western shore, is the green Ilha das Cabras.

A walk of two miles from the north leads from Pereque to Villa Bella, the chief town in the island of Sao Sebastiao. On the way we pass a local lion, the Cachoeira—cataract or rapid—beyond which the road is very good. The water is scanty between June and August, dividing it into two sections, which course down a steep incline of granite: about Christmas time it becomes a single sheet. There is a similar feature north of Villa Bella, and a third upon the mainland. All are charming streams, with Mesas or large sheets of granite, and either falling into Pocos (kieves) or into swamps and debris of rock, the ruins of the mountain, which they themselves have made. The Tocas or caverns, which produce luxuriant orchids, are favourite places for Troglodytic picnics: one of them

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is called the Toca do Mendez, from a “pardo” (Mulatto), who here took refuge from conscription. Brazilians especially affect the “agua batida”, broken water, which, dashing from high rocks, is thoroughly aerated.

On September 7th, 1865—Independence Day—Commander Napier, R.N., of H.M.S. Triton, a sister ship to the Antelope, and I, lauded at Villa Bella and inspected the old-new settlement. From 1600 to 1806 the island formed part of the municipality of Sao Sebastiao, till the “beautiful town” was founded by the Capitao Mor Juliao de Moura Negrao, and was inaugurated in 1808-9 by Dr. Joaquim Procopio Picao Salgado, the Ouvidor (Chief Justice) of the Comarca de Sao Paulo. Hence it is also known as Villa Nova da Princeza. The site is a sandy, boulder-studded flat at the foot of the hills outlying the mountains, and it commands a glorious view of the winding channel, with its salient and re-entering angles. Villa Bella is bounded north by a gorge, whose vast blocks, angular as well as rounded, are small conservatories of orchids copiously irrigated by the rain, and the mouth is a tract of “bents” and reeds. At times a dangerous torrent rolls down the bed, and the broken wooden bridge should be removed higher up. The church, Na. Sa. de Ajuda, stands on a dwarf rise fronting a square which contains the now empty prison and the municipal chamber above—the broken-down feudal pillory will be turned into a cross when funds are forth-coming. The place of worship is a towerless, barn-like structure, with three holes in the long sides and an aperture by way of wheel window in front. A

xl   PREFACE.

ramp was proposed for the entrance: it was unfinished in 1865, but in August 1866 considerable progress appeared. The belfry is a kind of gallows, to which the bells hang, as in the Congo regions. Inside, the high altar shows the mother and child, with Sta. Barbara in blue on the proper right, and a black Benedict in Papal robes and bosomed baby to the left. The confessional is a mere grating—I should think it a great advantage if confessor and penitent did not know each other, but certainly neither would agree with me. The font is painted light ultramarine, a favourite colour in the Brazil. The sacristy is poor and unfinished, and the cemetery behind the church is still a kind of “Campo” (open bush) unwalled, and denoted only by a cross. The Fete of the Padroeira (patroness) is on February 2nd.

The houses form a street, Rua da Cunha, along the sea, which seems to be empty except on Sundays and holidays. The only Sobrado (two-storied tenement) is the jail, and there is a single Meio-sobrado raised upon masonry foundations. The walls are decorated with crosses of lath painted black, upon whitewashed grounds; the roofs are tiled, and, besides the eleven of somewhat superior construction, there are a number of ragged and grey-thatched hovels forming three rudimental cross-streets. About the middle of the settlement and denoted by a tall palm, stands an old and crumbling battery of earth and stone. The good brass giuis have been sent, we were told, to the scat of war in Paraguay: those that remain are chiefly the ancient twenty-four pounders, and all except one bear the

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broad arrow of England. To the south of the settlement, and opposite the Rua dos Benedictinos, lies the little chapel of St. Benedict, still unfinished; yet corpses are buried in it. It owes its existence to the Mulattos, who, being a proud race, will have their own place of worship, but will not, or rather cannot, afford the luxury. The “movement of commerce” is represented by one shop of dry goods, and four of Molhados, wet goods,—in plain English, liquor.

As we landed for the usual official visits we were met by the notables of the place. Foremost was the municipal judge, Dr. Joao dos Santos Sarahyba, in black velvet cap, silk robes, and laced cuffs; the Sub-Delegate of Police, Sr. Jose Martinez da Silva, both of them depending upon the town of Sao Sebastiao, accompanied him; also the intelligent young Vigario, Rev. Jose Vicente Cabral of Ubatuba, who has lived here but a short time, and is not “Collado” or permanent. He had studied at Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, and it was easy to understand that he would willingly have exchanged this pomp of skies, this calm of seas, this grandeur of rocks, this luxury of vegetation, this gigantic and monotonous magnificence of scenery, for the dirty picturesqueness, and the human interest of a back alley in a civilised city. Hardly a man in a million can enjoy nature unadorned; the belle sauvage soon palls upon the senses, and love declines from indiference to absolute aversion. The people are in a primitive state, as may be seen by their pulling off their hats and wishing one another good night when they hear the “Ave Maria”. They live mostly in their

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Rotas, little clearings, and their only amusement is on summer evenings when the drum summons them to a dance. They are all poor, and, as is usually the case in these small places, they are reserved, not to say surly, to foreigners. But there is a reason for this. Some three years before our visit a drunken Frenchman, M. Perlet of Nantes, made himself peculiarly disagreeable, and one fine day he disappeared—his compatriots declare that he was murdered: the people represent him to have been drowned. The officials, who were very kind and communicative, informed us that Villa Bella contains some two hundred fires; the island supplies Santos, where nothing will grow, with Farinha (Manioc-flour), Feijao (beans), Batatas (sweet potatoes), various vegetables, as the Guandu (Cajanus flavus), and a little saffron; with fruits, such as oranges, plantains, Abacatis (Persea gratissima, the Avocado pear), and Jaboticabas (Eugenia cauliflora), the latter remarkably good. The Purgeira (Jatropha curcas), whose “physic-oil”, used by Lisbon lamps, has often kept sundry of the Cape Verde Islands from starving, is here a weed, and neglected accordingly. The sugar-cane, of three kinds: the Creoula, Cayenna, and Preta; the latter, a purple variety, little prized, has of late years made way for coffee, and this “fruit”, despite want of hands, became the principal export till 1856, when it was attacked by a disease, which had not disappeared in 1866. The “bush-”, or wild coffee, had not suffered; the cause, therefore, must be sought in keeping the tree upon the same ground—a general failing in the Brazil. The rice of the Ribeira de Iguape, further south, has

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degenerated, because the seed was never changed. About Villa Bella there are no ploughs and few carts: the animals are horses, cows, and goats.

I will now continue my cruize on August 6, 1866. The “Canoa de Voga” carried me slowly up the noble channel of St. Sebastian, the breeze being from the west and the tide against us: the current depends chiefly upon the wind, flowing up coast with the souther, and vice versa. The correspondence of the uplifted strata in shape and angle (about 45°), suggests that an earthquake once parted island from continent, and that there was a dome of rock where the sea now rolls up to the cliffs. The same was said of Sicily,

“Haec loca si quondam et vasta convulsa ruina
(Tantum aevi longinqua valet mutare vetustas)
Disiluisse ferunt,”

and “Rheggio” embalms the belief which is riot held by modern geologists. About one league north of the Villa Bella is the Forte do Rabo Azedo, whose small and almost unarmed garrison, on November 8, 1826, drove off the Argentine Admiral, William Brown, and forced his war schooner the “Sarandy” and a transport brig to retire. Near it lies Vianna, a little village of a dozen whitewashed houses, built in a cove which receives a small mountain stream: the site is a mound of earth and large boulders, fronting the bright sands and backed by woods of the darkest verdure, speckled with the verdigris green of the sugar cane. Beyond it is the Armacao das Baleas, whence a line of road dotted with huts, and plantations of brown soil, leads to the chief town of the highly picturesque island.

xliv PREFACE.

The north-western extremity is the Ponta das Cannas, a projection from the Monte da Pedra; it fronts the Ponta de Arpoar (Harpooning point) of the main land beyond the Bairro de S. Francisco, the convent whose straight lines stand well out from the curves of the tangled dark-green bush. Harpooning Point has a cross upon the rocks, showing that a man was drowned there: now the Devil, as the people say, has no power to enter the place. Our last look at the Pedra showed a remarkably sharp cone.

Beyond the channel we debouched upon a broad, shallow open bay of sand and mangrove,¹⁹ con-

PREFACE. xlv

sidered very dangerous for small shipping, but with good riding ground in calm weather. On our left, under the tall mountain walls, lay the Barra das Canaveiras, a low and mangrove-grown tract with green water, which to the practised eye at once suggests a river. This is the Jujuiriquere, anciently known as the Curupace, and here began the old Captaincy of Santo Amaro, which extended three leagues down coast, and which is now merged into the province of S. Paulo. Two miles beyond the Arpoar, and deep in the bay, is Caraguatatuba, alias the Villa de Santo Antonio do Morro de Caraguatatuba e Capella de Na. Sa. da Conceicao.

The town is not easily approached in rough weather, and the canoe is severely tried by a long, low line of breakers. The beach is garnished with a large shed, acting as boat-house; and the abodes, some fifty fires, scattered about the bush, give the settlement a desolate, dreary look. All are ground floors, even the Municipal Chamber: the church on the west is the mere skeleton of a place of worship, under repair, and not even plastered. Almost all the houses are shut, except the three Vendas (liquor-shops). A single old gun upon the ground shows that it was once defended. The place seems permanently ruined since the collectorate was transferred to Sao Sebastiao, and it now keeps itself alive by supplying the chief town with bacon and cheese, coffee, beans, and maize. Caraguata-

xlvi   PREFACE.

tuba is still very unhealthy, and the cause is manifest in the Pantanaes (morasses) which hem it in. During its most prosperous days it was well drained, but the neglect brought on a pestilence which destroyed almost all its inhabitants. After the rains, which are heavier even than at Santos, the neighbourhood is under water. There is a chalybeate spring which might be, but which is not, utilised by the people.

Caraguatatuba was founded in A.D. 1600, by Manoel de Faria Doria of Santos, said to be a son or nephew of Andrea Doria of Villa Oneglia in the western Riviera of Genoa, who attacked the Turks under Dragut Rais on the Neapolitan coast in 1552: the family still flourishes at Santos.²⁰ It soon became a Villa, whose limits were Ubatuba on the north, and the Curupace river to the south. When desolated by pestilence its villa-ship was transferred to Ubatuba. The Provincial Law (No. 18, of March 16, 1847) created it a Freguezia (parish) under the municipality of Sao Sebastiao. In 1828 it again suffered from “Maletas” (typhus), causing the patients to vomit blood, and to die at the shortest notice. By another Provincial Law (No. 30, of April 20, 1857), it became a Villa for the second time, forming part of the “Termo” (district) of Sao Sebastiao. The Tropic of Capricorn is said to pass over it: a road four leagues long connects it with the chief town, and telegraph posts mark out the line.

The position of Sao Sebastiao and the steepness of the hill curtain behind it, rendered a road to the Serra

PREFACE. xlvii

Acima (uplands) difficult and expensive. About 1832, a Picada or bridle-path was run up a branch ridge (Espigao) of the main wall to Sao Jose de Piratininga, distant about thirteen leagues, by two ecclesiastics, Padre Pinto and the Vicar Padre Mauoel de Faria Doria. But the last died in 1843, and the Doria road was left for natives to destroy. In 1785, the Capitao Mor of Sao Sebastiao, Manoel Lopes de Resurreicao, and others, dissatisfied with the dangerous ascents from Ubatuba and Paraty, which still remain, and unwilling to make the long detour via Pirassinunga, laid out a hill road. At present we see a red line winding over the dark green Serra: it leads in one day to Parahybuna, and the stiffness of the ascent is limited to five miles. But with such a port, what is the use of a highway?

From Caraguatatuba to Ubatuba is a canoe run of seven leagues. You first cross the eastern half of the bay, so terrible in the east-south-eastern gales, foul with rocks and shallows, and showing a break half a mile long. Before arriving at the sandy Bahia, and the grassy bluff, “Ponta de Martim de Sa”, we see a Prainha (little beach), a nook to the north-east, with a clump of white houses. At its natural pier sailors, coming from the north, land during bad weather, and find a path to Caraguatatuba; another line also leads to Gituba, the large Fazenda of Commendador Jose Vieira de Macedo. Beyond this point the coast-line is deeply indented with jagged anfractuosities and long rocky projections —the bays and headlands equally dangerous. The first bight is Macoca Bay, with its little river protected

xlviii   PREFACE.

from all sides but the dangerous south-south-wester by two islets, the Tacuncanha, and a longer feature easily recognised by a split in the rock, a heap of dense and dark vegetation which supports two families. Beyond it are the Ponta de Tobatinga and two bluffs; here huge boulders line the shore, showing the violent send of the sea.

The next projection, Ponta Aguda, like most of these features, is a long neat’s tongue, stony below, green above, grassy at the root, and clumpy with trees at the tip. Behind it lies the Bahia da Alagua, a deep inlet with a sandy beach, showing at the bottom a large whitewashed house. Here there is often a tide rip, formed by a current from the north-east and a sea from the south-west. The bay and point “do Bananal” are shaggy hills with grassy clearings, and for a few furlongs the trend is from east to north-east. Off the Ponta do Cassho, where lie huge slabs of pink granite, the sea often breaks heavily, and the next inlet is divided into the Bahia da Lagoinha and the Bahia do Maranduba.

Our attention was then drawn to the Ponta da Fortaleza (fortress), a broad bluff, taking a name from its regular outlines, and fronted by a little insulated out-work of rock. Opposite it lies the Ilha do Malvirado (the “ill-turned”). All the other islets run parallel with the coast, but the lay of this is from north-west to south-east—considered to be the wrong direction. It is a caterpillar-like line with a central bulge and shaggy with the densest forest: consequently, it supports no inhabitants. Beyond it, a long deep sag,

PREFACE. xlix

with shelving shore, forms a noted anchorage for small craft, and therefore is tolerably populous: it is divided into a multitude of minor baylets, and is bounded east-ward by the Ponta de Sete Fontes, whose two prominent rocks are curiously split. We then pass a deep, somewhat shallow, and very safe bight with sands and houses backed by high and forested hills. The outer part is called Sacco do Flamengo, and the inner Sacco da Ribeira. Both are known to older writers as the Enseada dos Maramomis or Guaramomis (See the “Arte de Navigar” of Luiz Serrao Pimentel, No. 3, p. 229, Lisbon edit. 1681, quoted by Fr. Gaspar), then the only Indian permanent settlement on the coast between this and Itanhaem, south of Santos. The Guaramomis sought the society of the Portuguese, and were removed by them to Alder, Velha, a place one league north of the old Bertioga fort. Here, when Jose de Anchieta, the venerable Thaumaturgus of the Brazil, was praying in the chapel, the captain of the fort and his wife saw celestial lights and heard heavenly music. I must record a debt of gratitude to the Flamengo, one fierce black night when the crew could not haul in their sail, and when the canoe would not answer her helm. The ranch which sheltered us was, it must be confessed, populous with the Carrapato (the Ricinus or tick), yet, sleeping in it was far better than a wet berth among the fishes.

The Ponta da Enseada, a projection in the rocky continental beach, is divided from the Ponta do Boqueirao by a “gut” or passage some 160 feet broad. Due south of it is the Ilha dos Porcos—of pigs—an unsavory name found in Fr. Gaspar (p. 20), the people insist

l   PREFACE.

upon turning it into “dos Portos”—of ports or ferries. It is this crescent-shaped islet with the convexity turned to the coast which makes the Saco do Flamengo so safe. The main block, which has small outliers to the east and north-east, rises in two peaks, the northern rounded and the southern irregular; the latter, known as the Padra de Indaja, projects a low rib stretching south-west towards the mainland, and forms a baylet which shelters a dozen white houses, one of them large and conspicuous. The ground is cleared almost to the hill summits and is renowned for coffee and manioc. In olden times the islet was called Tapera (ruin) de Cunhabebe, the dreaded Cacique who, when Anchieta returned from Iperoyg on his mission of reconciling the Tamoyo tribes of Ubatuba and Larangeiras, carried the reverend man in his canoe to Sao Vicente.

The Ponta do Boqueirao leads to the Bahia da Tonninha (of the Tunny), a wild shore where no man anchors: it is known by a sandy beach in its periphery and by a pair of rocky buttresses projecting into the sea. Behind it is the Morro da Tonninha, a well defined cone which, when clear, shows that an east wind is imminent. And now after passing the bluff and stony Ponta Grossa, the southern staple of Ubatuba Bay, we turn from north-east to due west. The shores appear quite worn out; the herbaceous forest (Capoeira) is thin and yellow, and the only conspicuous growth is the Indaja palm (Attalea compta), with leaves on edge, which fruits in December and January. En revanche the seas are full of fish, as we could see by the host of terns, the butterflies of the waters, hovering over every wash.

PREFACE. li

Presently we passed the Ponto do Meirao at the inner entrance of the Barra de Ubatuba: the stony southern projection, bluff and with rocks honeycombed by the sea, like all its neighbours, fronts white cottages, some of them not unlike chillets, in clearings freshly fired for plantains and sugar-cane. We landed at the Ponta da Prainha, to the north-east of the settlement which lies at the bottom of the deep bay: here a rocky point stretches into the sea, and might easily become a pier. The clump of sheds and new white-washed houses with shops on the ground-floor is faced with four wooden jetties, and there is the usual display of flags. The two small steamers which connect the place, very irregularly, with Rio de Janeiro, and are supposed to sail every four days, lie in four fathoms off the Sacco do Itagua, on the south-east of the bay. The Rade, though defended to the north-north-east by the Ilha dos Couves (of Cabbages), and sundry small outliers, is terribly affected by the east winds which roll in an awful sea. The gales are ever shifting, especially in August, making the beach very dangerous: the best season is from November to January, but it is also the wettest.

A walk of a few yards over a red hill of slippery clay leads to the Rua da Boavista, upon the shore where a single old gun lies. Ubatuba, by older writers called Ubatyba, derives its name from the quantity of tall cane (Uba, properly Vuba, Arundo Sagittaria) which the indigenes used for arrows, and “tyba,” place of growth or abundance: others prefer Obatyba, meaning manufactory of cloth (Oba). The air is said to

lii   PREFACE.

be exceptionally healthy, and the site is good; it lies like Iguape upon a sandy flat; behind it is a rolling subrange, bright green with cultivation and dotted with houses, whilst the back-ground is the wild Serra, darkly clad to the top and forming an arc. The usual ruddy thread shows the road to the interior: it is kept in fair order as far as the summit, but afterwards it becomes very foul. In the rear-curtain there is a Corcovado (hunchback hill) which, however, more resembles the Gavea of Rio de Janeiro, and behind it is shown a mamelon, rich, says the local legend, in gold and precious stones.

North of the town runs a winding stream, the Rio Grande, upon which lie boats and other gear. Though the mouth is only a few feet broad, the upper part spreads out far and wide: of the stone bridge only the piers remain, and the Troupeiros (muleteers) cross by a rough affair of timber 120 paces long. They complain that repairs are sadly wanted for the roads, and that they can hardly travel in safety to the northern port, Paraty, distant only a few miles. Yet a French engineer, M. Charles Bernard, and his assistant, M. Alphonse Boude, have been here two years endeavouring to mend matters.

Grass flourishes in the streets of Ubatuba as it does upon the shore. The town is deserted, like an African village at noon, or like Barege and Aranjuez out of the season: the long street may show a solitary old man. Yet there are signs of past prosperity when a single planter had his 600 head of slaves, in several heavy-eaved “Sobrados” (two storied houses) with Corinthian

PREFACE. liii

columns of plaster and statuettes, and in rooms neatly papered, furnished, and supplied with books, whilst each tenement has its Quintal (back yard) and garden. The best specimen, known by its coat-of-arms and Lisbon tiles, belongs to a Fazendeiro or planter, Sr. Balthasar. The smaller dwellings of wattle and dab are cleanly whitewashed, but when they fall, apparently, they are allowed to lie. In the south a chapel, Na. Sa. do Rosario, is in the last stage of neglect and decay; the brick tower is unfinished, and the windows are torn off the hinges. Beyond it lies the Largo da Matriz, containing the Vicar’s house, the Collectoria (octroi bureau), and a cathedral not yet christened—the white dickey, with the normal three windows and three doors, is painfully ornamented, and every line that should be straight is crooked, whilst the bricks behind are exposed; of course there is no belfrey. The town ends south in a cemetery, also whitewashed. The best part is partitioned off and walled in for the use of the red-coated brotherhood of the “Santo Sacramento”: here are some good marble tombs, whilst the walls intended to guard bodies from wet graves, as in New Orleans and parts of Spain, show the inscribed names of many a gentilhomme, prudhomme, and bonhomme.

In the Rua de Benavides there is an hotel, the “Bom Retiro,” a thorough misnomer, kept by a Portuguese, Sr. Algarato. The “Gasthaus” in this part of the world is a study. The host probably combines inn-keeping with brokerage or some other matter: the mistress, if there be one, is far above her work, consequently from year

liv PREFACE.

to year nothing is washed or cleaned—it is worse than in Galway or Mullingar. The beds are bunks, the bedrooms are stalls, hardly divided from one another by the thinnest of partition walls. The servants, a negro or two, know nothing and do nothing. Fresh meat is an event, lean chickens and “tainha” are the usual luxuries. The vilest stuff in the shape of beer and wine, bears the honoured names of Bass and Bordeaux, being duly labelled at Rio de Janeiro. There is a billiard room, where the marker plays with himself; also a public room, which the presence of a stranger converts into a menagerie: it reminds you of the ’cute Chinaman who exhibited his British guest as a rare manner of beast. The people walk in, touch hat or not, sit down, expectorate, and indulge in a stare which, unbroken by a word, may last a quarter of an hour: when tired they rise slowly and lounge out of the room. Finally, the bill will show, that as in the depths of Ireland, you are charged first-rate English prices for accommodation which no arithmetic can rate: your “addition” will be eighteen dollars a day instead of two, and a box of lucifers worth a penny will be modestly set down for nine pence.

The Brazilian Fazenda (plantation) shows much true hospitality: in these country towns, where an apology for an inn exists, there is as little as in Shetland or Italy. Moreover, we can hardly expect to be favourites after our late display of Palmerstonian gas—all fizz, and smell, and flare, without light—in the matter of slaves. I sent my introductory letter to the Juge de Droit, Virginio Henriques Costa, who returned the satisfactory

PREFACE. lv

answer that he had received it. Hard upon a traveller to be treated as a crypto-Palmerstonian, when he has nought of sympathy with the vagaries of his eccentric rulers! The Ubatubans also have a bad name, they are chiefly noted for swearing by “Gesu Christo”, a habit learned from the French, and for fighting and killing one another. About six years before my time, the Bishop of Sao Paulo visited the place, but soon left it in disgust. Lately a murdered he-goat was hung at the door of an unpopular official, with an inscription which might have been written by “Sarah”:

Xarapim!
Vede que fazem a vos como fizerao a mim.”²¹

He wisely left at once, knowing that the aggrieved were perfectly capable of employing “Capangas,” or professional bravos, whilst the authorities were perfectly incapable of defending him.

Ubatuba has seen better days. The treaty of February 19, 1810, which, by the by, abolished the Inquisition in Portuguese America, secured to England the right of felling forest timber for her navy, and in 1817, when Rio de Janeiro became the capital of Portugal, establishments were set up here and at Sao Sebastiao. The effect was to render prices impossible, and indeed it may be doubtful whether the operation will pay anywhere—even at Camarones, opposite Fernando Po, where the finest of trees may be had for the price of cutting. About 1820, the French immi-

lvi   PREFACE.

gration began: they were chiefly colons de Saint Domingue, although the people attribute the influx to the scattering which followed the downfall of the first Napoleon. The Bing, Don Joao VI, broke new ground, and freely granted “Sesmarias”—gifts of ground—where the new comers settled down for a time as planters, surrounded by multitudes of slaves. The sugar-cane, however, here, like that of the Beiramar (maritime region) generally, is poor and watery. A M. Robillard, originally a Parisian, after serving in the English navy, wasted some 500,000 francs. M. Millon, his managing man, died. M. Rene, son of a Breton gentleman, de la Jousselandiere, had less money but no more luck. The brothers Jan, from Brittany, sold their lands and slaves at a profit and sensibly left the place; the brothers Pierre and Louis Richet, also Bretons, unwisely stayed here and died. The Freres d’Herissey established a glass manufacture, which was subventioned by government—grass now overgrows the place where once 600 slaves worked. In 1848 M. Marquois, after wasting twelve years here, became Consul de France at Sao Paulo. M. Chaillot of Santo Domingo left two sons, Arsene and Carlos, who still grow coffee. There is also a French Vice-Consul, M. Rene, who lives at Colonia, distant two miles, and the list of notables may end with the local banker, Sr. Francisco de Castro, who was driven here by political feuds.

Ubatuba appears now ruined, the result of coffee disease, of deficient slave labour, and of emigration. The richest proprietor owns perhaps twenty-five head

PREFACE. lvii

of negroes where he could work a thousand, and the largest fortune will not exceed £5,000. The thinness of the free population is mostly the effect of railways, which withdraw hands from these outlying districts to large centres, and to lines where transit and transport are cheap and easy. This is evidently a disadvantage to the townlets: on the other hand it is a great benefit to the Empire. We shall see the same things in Syria and other parts of Turkey, when that obese and lethargic land condescends to let the Giaour be up and doing.

I have now guided the reader over the hundred direct geographical miles of coast between Santos and Ubatuba, the scene of Hans Stade’s travel and captivity. The details have been extended, perhaps, to a wearisome length, but they serve the purpose of placing the mise-en-scene before the reader’s eye, and of showing what effect three centuries and a half have exercised upon these shores, where the Indian is now utterly extinct.²²

——————

INTRODUCTION.

THE “INDIANS” OF THE BRAZIL.

NOTES ON THE AUTHOR-TRAVELLERS OF THE SIXTEENTH
CENTURY. HANS STADE.

INTRODUCTION.

UNTIL the present age the anthropology of the native Brazilians was involved in error and misunderstanding. Various theories were afloat touching their origin: whilst some derived them from a southern focus, where modern Paraguay lies, others made them emigrants from the wilds and wolds of the northern continent. As regards their mutual relationship many, misled by the system of what appeared to be national names, distributed them into separate races, whilst a few, justly observing that the language was single and undivided, and that the same terms might be traced from Florida to the Rio de la Plata, determined the family to be one, without, however, explaining how and why each section seemed to claim a different and distinguishing title.

Upon the latter point it may be useful to enlarge. An immense confusion was caused by the old writers, whose books became the authorities upon the subject, such as Gabriel Soares (A. D. 1580-87), Yves d’Evreux (A.D. 1613-14), Gaspar Barlaeus (A.D. 1647), Padre Simam de Vasconcellos (A.D. 1628), and Jaboatam (A.D. 1761). The authors who took from them, erudite Southey for instance, could not but perpetuate the

lxii   INTRODUCTION.

evil, and it was not before the days of M. F. Adolfo de Varnhagen that we have anything like a sensible ethnological statement.

The error was simply that of dividing a single people into a multitude of different nations, each with its own name and habitat. For instance, Gaspar Barlaeus in a copy of verses addressed to Count Maurice of Nassau, thus enumerates the “barbarians” subjected to the sway of the Netherlands:

“Nec barbara sperne
Verba, Magayates et qui sibi lurida formant
Tela, Tabajarres et pictos membra Tapujas
Patagones et Canibales, pastumque cruore
Humano deforme; durosque Caetas
Tupiguas et Amizoceros saevosque Piryvos
Et Tupinaquorum populos.”

Hence the student applied himself to the study of such nationalities as the Pytiguaras, Putygoares, or Poti-guaras; the Cayetes or Caitis; the Tupynambas with their various divisions the Tupinaens, Amoipiras Maracas, and Ubirajaras; the Tupynamquis, the Papanas; the Aymores or Aimores; the Goaytacas, called Ouctanages by Abreu and Lima (Compendio da Historia do Brazil Rio de Janeiro, Lammaert), and Guaitaca (Plur. Guaitacazes) by Fr. Gaspar, with their sub-tribe the Papanazes; the Tamoyos; the Goayana (Pl. Goayanazes or Guayanazes); the Carijos; the Tapyiyas, commonly known as Tapuyas; the Toba-yaras or Taba-jaras, called Tabaiares by Yves d’Evreux, and many other similar distinctions. Under these great divisions were a multitude of clans, a list of whose names would fill pages. The huge list, amount-

INTRODUCTION. lxiii

ing to at least seventy-six, was presently reduced to six nationalities, viz., Tobayaras, Potiguaras, Tapuyas, Tupinambas, Tamoyos, and Carijos. A further simplification included the three latter in the three former. After this, P. Simam de Vasconcellos (Chronica da Companhia do Jesus, A.D. 1628) brought down the number to two, namely:

1st. The Tapuyas, alias Indios Bravos or Bravios (wild Indians, a vain term where all were wild) with their divisions, viz. Aimores, Potentins, Guaiatacas, Guaramomis, Goaregoares, Jecarucus, Amanipaques, and Payeas.

2nd. The Indios Mansos (tame or settled), not including the Amazonian tribes. Their component items are Tobayaras, Tupys, Tupynambas, Tupynaquis, Tupigoares, Tupyminos, Amoigpiras, Araboyaras, Rarigoaras, Potigoares, Tamoyos, Carijos, and Goayanas.

Jaboatam (Fr. Antonio de Santa Maria) who wrote, in A.D. 1761, the “Novo Orbe Serafico brasilico ou Chronica dos Frades Menores da provincia do Brasil” (2nd edit. Rio de Janeiro, 1858) in his second “Digression” gives a list of the tribes on the seaboard of the Brazil, from Gran Para to the Rio da Prata, and, like his predecessors, fails to solve the riddle. Yet the ethnological details of this work are so interesting that they might even now be offered in abridged translation to the public.

Southey (“History of Brazil,” London, Longmans, 1810) found matters in this state, and left them as he found them, having no means of rectifying the “catalogue of barbarous and dissonant names.” At length order grew out of the chaos in the “Historia Geral do

lxiv   INTRODUCTION.

Brazil, by M. Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen (Rio de Janeiro, Laemmert, 1854). I shall extract the substance from his eighth Seccao or Chapter (vol. i. pp. 97-108), as it is apparently unknown to English writers, and I shall take the liberty of adding a few notes.

These semi-nomades—the “Indians” of the Brazil—who were engaged in perpetual wars, apparently belonged to one great family, that is to say, they had a common origin, and all spoke dialects of the same tongue. For authorities see Gandavo,¹ Gabriel Soares (vol. i. pp. 13, 39, &c.), Padre Joao Daniel, and D’Orbigny: see also the “Revista” of the Institute of Rio de Janeiro, vol. iii. p. 175. This tongue was called “Lingua geral” by the first Portuguese colonists, and its area exceeded that of all the South American families of speech. The limits extended from the Amazonas River to the Porto dos Patos, and from Sao Vicente to the head waters of the Rio da Prata² (Ramirez, Letter of July 10th, 1858, Revista, xv. p. 27). In this vast expanse, however, there were sundry little isolated oases, if the expression be allowed, held by caravans which had migrated or fled their country: such were the

INTRODUCTION. lxv

Aymores or Botocudos (the modern Puris?), the Cairiris and others. Thus we may explain the easy progress of Portuguese conquest, and the identity of geographical, botanical, and zoological expressions which, with few exceptions, pervaded the Brazil.

The general name of the race known to itself, was “Tupinamba”:³ from Para, to Rio de Janeiro, if you asked an “Indian” who he was, his reply would have been “Tupinamba.” Abbeville is our authority for Maranhao; Berredo for the Amazonas, Para, and the Tocantins; Acuna (Nos. 22 and 69, folio 9, v. and 35) for the Amazonas-races; Gabriel Soares for Bahia; and for Rio de Janeiro Hans Stade, Thevet, and Jan van Laet, whose “Novus Orbis” is partly borrowed from Manuel de Moraes. The Tupinamba trunk put forth a variety of new stems, branches, and offshoots, which, however far-spread, never changed names.

This term, which has not been much discussed, is derived from two words, “Tupi”⁴ and “Mba.” The

lxvi   INTRODUCTION.

latter was omitted when the clans ceased to be friends; and when on bad terms they insulted one another with “Tupi-n-aem,” that is to say, “bad Tupis.” As unfriendly neighbours they politely termed one another “Tupi-n-ikis,” or “Tupi neighbours.” “Mba,” the form in composition of “Aba,” signified “vir,” a chief or brave,⁵ and their pride would concede this title to none but themselves—thus at times they would vaunt their own people as “Mba-ete,” whence “Aba-Ete,” meaning a “true brave.” Sometimes, but rarely, when roused to fury by strife they would dub their former companions “Tupinambaranas,” or wild savage “Tupinambas.” When simply separated they called those from whom it was their boast to proceed “Tamoy,” whence our “Tamoyos,” signifying grandfathers, and consequently they became “Temiminos,” grandsons⁶ (Dicc. Brazil, pp. 17, 54; Thevet, Cosmogr. f. 914, v. writes Tominous). At other times they termed them-

INTRODUCTION. lxvii

selves “Guaya” or “Guaya-na,” that is, “we, the esteemed,” whence our “Guaiazes,” or “Guaianazes,” and “Guiana,” from the people near the Orinoco; Southey mentions other “Goaydnases” (vol. i, note 28). Some derive it from “Guay,” the esteemed, and “ana,” people; others from “Guaya,” people, and “na,” esteemed, “Amoipiras” may signify distant relatives (Tesoro Guarani, fol. 32 v., and 297 v.), and “Anaces,” quasi-relations (ditto fol. 34 and 113 v).

Hence the confusion caused by applying different names to the same tribe. This can be avoided only by having recourse to the original language.

For instance, the clans who inhabited the captaincy of Sao Vicente would call themselves primarily Tupinambas; when wishing to preserve their descent from the northern “Tamoyos” they would be Temiminos; and when boastfully inclined, “Guayanas.” Hostile neighbours, as we find in Hans Stade, were termed “Tupiniquins” (Tupi-n-ikis), or, by way of insult, “Maracayas,” i.e., wild cats. At the same time the colonists from Portugal would call these wild men “Bugres,” which means simply slaves, and “Caboclos,” bald men, because the Indians, men and women, plucked and scraped their hair from their faces and bodies—the original pincers being a bivalve shell. The latter word (Caboclo) was used in contradistinction to “Emboaba,” a fowl with feathered shanks, or a man wearing nether garments.

Following out this analysis, we shall easily show that the names, which ignorance and want of observation have represented to be national and racial, and

lxviii   INTRODUCTION.

with which tedious catalogues have been filled, were simply epithets, in fact, nicknames often doubled and multiplied,⁷ to express the mutual feeling of the clans. Hate was denoted by “Maracayas,” wild cats; by “Nhengaibas” or “Nheengaibas,” bad tongues;⁸ and by “Tibiras” or “Tymbiras,” the infamous. Respect appeared in “Tamoyos,” grandfathers, and “Mbeguas,” the peaceful. There were many which were simply descriptive, and generally ended in “iaras,” “yaras,” “uaras,” or “jaras,” meaning lords or masters⁹ (Dicc. Brazil, pp. 17, 71): such are “Ubira-jaras,”¹⁰

INTRODUCTION. lxix

clubmen; “Poty-uaras,” shrimpers;¹¹ for which others prefer “Pety-uaras,” smokers of tobacco (Petima, Purchas, v. 910); “Taba-jaras,” or “Tabaiaras,” men who inhabit “Tabu” or villages;¹² “Guatos,” canoers; “Guaita-cas” and “Guaiatacazes” (“Goatacaras” in Dicc. Brazil, p. 28), walkers, scouts, runners, or scourers of country; “Ca-iapos,” bushrangers, robbers; “Cary-yos,” descendants of the white men or the ancients; Juru-unas, black-mouths, because their lips were painted; and “Temembes” (Abbeville, f. 189) or vagabonds, as opposed to the “Taba-jaras.” “Camacans” may be from “Cuam-akan,” signifying in this case “heads rolled up.”

“Puris” or “Purus,” apparently corrupted to Orizes, as applied to a people of the upper Amazonas, to a sea-board tribe still living south of Bahia, and to those who held Taubate in A.D. 1645, means only cannibals. (Tesoro Guarani, f. 319 v.) “Tagi-” (Ita-gy) “purus” are men-eaters with stone hatchets (“Ita,” stone, and “gy,” an axe). “Curtimara” proves that the wretches who bore the name suffered from the itch—in fact,

lxx   INTRODUCTION.

were what we should call mangy. And, as might be expected amongst savages, there were not a few terms which decency absolutely forbids us to quote.

I may note, en passant, that these nicknames, so far from being confined to the Brazil, extended throughout South America. The Ay mores, more anciently written “Gaimures” and “Gaimures,” were so called by the Tupinambas from a poisonous fish. The “Aimras,” according to Captain Bernardo de Vargas Machuca (fol. 132), were so known from their sleeveless shirts; and in return they insulted their neighbours by calling them “Moxos” (Moksos), or “Molengas,” sorry fellows. “Ottawas” (“Otauas”), in that widely-spread North American dialect which the French named Algonquin, meant no more than traders, and “Mascutinos” only signified inhabitants of river plains.

There was naturally in the Lingua Geral a general term applicable to absolute strangers, and thus corresponding with the Hebrew Goyi (Gentile), the Hindu Mlenchha (mixed or impure breed), the Greek βάρβαρος, the Latin Barbarus, and the Chinese Fan Kwei (foreign devil). Everyone not of the same race was “Tapuy.”¹³ Gumilla relates of the Caribs that, asked whence came their ancestors, they can but reply, “Ana carina rote,” i.e., “we only are men,” as a Jew would say “only we are Bashar” or human beings. According to Hervas (I, 270), many national names expressed nothing but

INTRODUCTION. lxxi

men, people; thus the Lules call themselves “Peles,” the Peruvians “Runas,” the Chiquitos “Naquinones,” the Darien Indians “Tule,” and so forth. The same is the case with the Bube of Fernando Po.

Thus Tapuy presently became the “great Tapuya nation,” when Tapuy Tinga, i.e., white barbarian, was applied to their European allies, and especially to the French (Dicc. Brazil, p. 42). As regards the origin and true meaning of the word, we shall not agree with those who derive it from a country, and still less from a king, a great chief of that name who ruled the race when it was yet compact. The character of the people and of its language forbids us to consider it otherwise than as a collective root-noun, which the adjectives -mba, -iki, and -aem simply modified, and we refer to the Guarani dictionary rather than wander over a wild waste of conjectures.

Tupi or Tupy primarily means paternal uncle, and secondarily companion, comrade or fellow countryman. The connection in the popular mind is clear, when we remember that their relationship was only on the father’s side, the mother being, as it were, but the nidus or cradle which lodged the child.¹⁴ After the father the nearest of blood was the Tupi or father’s brother, and they had scant regard for fraternity, so strong a tie amongst ourselves. Nor, perhaps, shall we err in considering that the title of uncle, still a

lxxii   INTRODUCTION.

favourite amongst the civilised peoples of Europe, came in ancient times from the East. “Ya ’Ammi,” “O my (paternal) uncle!” is heard every day amongst the Arabic-speaking races. “Tio” is still general in Portugal, and is applied to a negro in a kindly way, nor have we yet seen the last of “Uncle Sam.”

Other Tupis entitled themselves “Guaranis,” meaning only “great braves.”¹⁵ Of the same breed were the Caraïbes, Caraibes, or Caribes of Guiana, which suggests the Calybes of Xenophon, the tribe living about Trebizond. According to D’Orbigny (L’ Homme Americain, ii, 268, et seq.), these savages extended their attacks to the Antilles. Enciso, treating of the same islands in A.D. 1519, tells us that the cannibals of Terra Firma used canoes to war amongst themselves, and with foreigners. Gumilla (Orinoco Illustrado,

INTRODUCTION. lxxiii

chap. 6) adds, “the prominent and dominant race in the eastern parts is the Cariba nation, which extends along the shores to Cayenne,” and assures us that they have spread to the islands about Martinique. Other authors, knowing that Florida was occupied by them (Hervas, i, 389), suppose that they came from the north.¹⁶

In fact, the general opinion and traditions of the people, from the Amazonas to Sao Vicente, makes these invaders march southwards. The tenants of Bahia asserted that they came from the wilds beyond the Rio de Sao Francisco (Soares, ii, chap. 147). Cabo Frio (Thevet, Cosmog. f. 915) attracted to itself the Caraibes from northern Brazil. The wild men of Sao

lxxiv   INTRODUCTION.

Vicente considered those of Rio de Janeiro their forefathers. The emigration swept downwards in successive surges, driving all before it, successively dislodging the possessors of the soil, and “leaving no more mark behind it than the sounding wave which breaks upon the shore.”

It is possible that the cradle of the great nation, which included the Tupis, the Guaranis, and the Omaguas, might have been in the glades and forests that clothe the Amazonas’ banks. Between this stream and the mighty Orinoco, which are not unconnected, they might have lived as an agricultural race, till, finally becoming navigators, and, emboldened by voyages upon the inner waters, they went forth in their canoes, extending northwards to the islands of the American Mediterranean, and southwards to the furthest confines of the Brazil. From the Jarupa to the Rio Negro, the ground, cut by natural canals, supported a large population; thus Acuna (No. 38) alludes to the crowded state of the Amazonas’ banks, and especially to a Taba, or village, about a league long, which furnished his expedition with more than five hundred measures (fanegas) of manioc flour. Hence there might have been an exodus to the southern parts of the continent, and the conquerors would carry with them not only their canoes, but their primitive agriculture, the planting and rearing of maize and manioc, of beans and “squashes” (Aboboras or Jurimus), and their knowledge of simples and poisons.

These Tupis, therefore, were the Jasons of Brazilian mythology, the Phoenicians of her ancient history, and

INTRODUCTION. lxxv

the Norman invaders of more modern ages. They owed the facility of their conquests to an overpowering fleet of war canoes, whilst the barbarous tenants of the land possibly ignored this weapon, like the Aymores, of whom mention has been made. They brought with them a perpetual state of warfare, habits adverse to population, such as earth-eating, and poisoning, and excesses of debauchery hardly to be expected in an uncivilised race. Their society reminds us of Spenser’s “Sans Foy, Sans Loy, and Sans Joy,” to which we may add Sans Roy, and thus they never took the first step towards the aristocratic monarchy of Peru. In fact, we may apply to them the

“Soy meme est sa Loy, son Senat et son Roy,”

of Ronsard, who ends, like J. J. Rousseau, with singing, “Je voudrois vivre ainsy.”

So far M. Varnhagen.

We cannot be surprised that, in the days when philanthropy had not become a profession, travellers said hard things of their wild “brethren.” “They are very treacherous: all they do is with deceit” (Luiz Ramirez). “They live like pigs in a stye” (cevados em chiqueiro); “quorum Deus est venter (as Saint Paul says) semper mendaces, malae bestiae, ventres pigri,” etc. “They are people without honour—without any virtue when they have not fear, and servile in all things when they have” (Vargas). “They have rarely real and sincere friendship” (Bandeira). “They are vicious and inconstant in every sense of the word; . . . . very light and very ungrateful, light, disloyal, envious,

lxxvi   INTRODUCTION.

. . . stained with vice, . . . disorderly and indolent” (Voyage of a Brazilian). “False and faithless . . . very suspicious, ignoring pity, without ideas of healthy morality arising from sentiments of shame and sensibility, which respects decorum and good faith; they are stupidly brutal, and their phlegmatic tempers are hard to move” (Varnhagen). All dwell upon their inordinate love for tobacco, their ravenous “agriophagous” hunger, their practice of cannibalism, and their religious observance of revenge. The ethnology is not without its romantic and fabulous side (Southey, I, 685); but here we have no room to consider the western types of the Amazons, the Pigmies, the Monoculars, and so forth. Our authors prefer the picturesque aspect of the subject—

“Such of late
Columbus found the American, so girt
With feather’d cincture, naked else and wild
Among the trees, on isles and wooded shores.”

At last a papal bull, “Veritas ipsa quae nec falli nec fallere potest” (Paul III.), in A.D. 1536, and the Council of Lima, A.D. 1583, were found necessary, ordering Christians to believe that these wild men-beasts are descended from “Adam.”

There are not many printed works of travel, contemporary with the savages, which describe the race in all its vigour, and of which it may be said, “L’homme du lieu auquel le Bresil croist, est tel qu’ici a l’oeil il apparoit.” Hence the value of Hans Stade.

The following Bibliotheca Americana contains the principal eye-witnesses during the 16th century, the

INTRODUCTION. lxxvii

Brazil having been discovered in A.D. 1499. The names are chiefly taken from Note A upon the “Reflexoes criticas sobre o Escripto do Seculo xiv, impresso con o Titulo de Noticia do Brasil, no Tomo 3° da Colleccao de Not. ultr., accompanhadas de interessantes Noticias bibliographicas, e importantes Investigacaes historicas por Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen, Socio correspondente da Academia (pp. 73-78, vol. v. Colleccao de Noticias para a Historia e Geografia das Nacoes ultramarinhas que vivem nos dominios Portuguezes ou lhes sao visinhas: Publicada pela Academia Real das Sciencias, Lisboa. Na Typografia da mesma Academia, 1836).

1. The letter of Pero Vaz (Vaas in older writers) Caminha addressed to El Rei D. Manuel from the Terra de Santa Cruz (the Brazil), on May 1, A.D. 1500. The original is in the Real Archivo (Drawer 8, Bundle 2, No. 8). It was first printed, very incorrectly, as a note to the Corografia Brasilica of Ayres do Cazal, Rio de Janeiro, 1817. The Royal Academy of Sciences (Lisbon) then edited it, with some emendations, in the Noticias above alluded to (vol. iv., No. 3). A French translation appeared in 1822.

This curious document is most valuable as the production of an eye-witness, who gives all the required details. It was poetised by the fertile imagination of the historian De Barros. A French writer declares that, after a scrupulous examination, he finds no contradictions in the version of the latter, nor in those of Goes and Osorio: a little more care would enable him, with the indefatigable Cazal (Corografia, etc.), to detect a host of inaccuracies.

lxxviii   INTRODUCTION.

2. The “Viagem as Indias Orientaes” of the Florentine Giovanni da Empoli, factor of a Portuguese ship, A.D. 1503, who touched at Vera Cruz (the Brazil,) so called from the invention of the Holy Cross, May 3rd (Noticias Ultramarinas, vol. iii. No. 6).

3. The “Relacao da Viagem de Cabral,” published in the Collections of Ramusio (“Dale Navigazione e Viaggi racolti da M. C. B. Ramusio; Vinegia, Giunti, 1550”), and of Gryneus (Novus Orbis), and translated in the Noticias Ultramarinas (vol. ii.).

4. The voyage of the ship Hope, of Honfleur, which begins in June 24, 1503, and ends in 1505. The commander, Captain Gonneville, declares in his account that he had been preceded some years (dempuis aucunes annees en ca) by other French voyagers. M. d’Avezac, who published this interesting little volume from a MS. in the Arsenal library, claims to have established the fact that French seamen discovered the Brazil before the Spaniards and Portuguese. His reasons are these. “Some” years must mean at least three; therefore Frenchmen had touched on the coast, probably for dye-wood, before the various companions of Columbus—Alonzo de Ojeda, Vincent Yanez Pinzon of Palos, Diego Lope, and Pedro Alvares de Cabral, Lord of Azureira in Beira, who was cast upon the southern continent on April 24, or second octave of Easter (Jaboatam and Fr. Gaspar) in the same year (A.D. 1500). This assertion requires more definite evidence; it is hardly possible to get so much out of a vague “some”.¹⁷

INTRODUCTION. lxxix

5. The two letters of Amerigo Vespucci, who travelled by order of the King in the ships of Goncalo Coelho (May 10, 1501, and May 10, 1503), and pub-

lxxx   INTRODUCTION.

lished, it is said, for the first time, in A.D. 1504.¹⁸ A Portuguese translation will be found in the Noticias Ultramarinas (vol. ii. No. 4). These letters have caused an immense controversy—it would be impossible here to give even an abstract of it.

6. The Diario de Pero Lopez de Souza,¹⁹ alluded to

INTRODUCTION. lxxxi

in the Preface; the cruise occupied three years from December 3, 1530.

7. The relation of a Frenchman from Dieppe, conceiving various voyages which he made to Newfoundland, to the Brazil, to Guinea, etc. First published in Italian by Ramusio (19 of vol. iii).

The author speaks with rancour about the Portuguese inviting his compatriots to invade and occupy the Brazil, of which he offers a short description. He is supposed to have written in A.D. 1535, from these words: “The Brazil was partly discovered by the Portuguese about thirty-five years ago. Another portion was discovered by a Frenchman called Denis de Honfleur, and French ships subsequently voyaged here.” The Dieppe pilots, who claim priority upon the Guinea coast, are supposed to have explored the Maranham shore in A.D. 1524; and Alphonse le Xaintongeois, whose cosmography in the original MS. is preserved by the Bibliotheque Imperiale of Paris, entered the mouth of the Amazonas river in A.D. 1540, and wrote in A.D. 1543 (Ferdinand Denis, p. viii; Introduction to Pere Yves d’Evreux).

8. The letter of Gonsalo Fernandes Oviedo to Cardinal Bembo, on the navigation of the Amazonas River, dating January 20, 1543, and printed in the collection of Ramusio.²⁰

9. “La Deduction de la Somptueuse Entree” (fol-

lxxxii   INTRODUCTION.

lowed by the “Ceremonial de France”) by Maurice Seve, Sceve, or Saeve, published at Rouen, December 9, 1551, by M. Fred. Denis, under the title of “Une fete Bresilienne, celebree a Rouen en 1550, suivie d’un Fragment du XVI^me. Siecle roulant sur la Theogonie des anciens peuples du Bresil et des poesies en langue Tupique de Christovam Valente.” Paris, Techener, 1850, gr. in 8vo.

10. The magnificent Portulan of Guillaume le Testu, A.D. 1555. The author, a Protestant, was one of the most able pilots in the days of Charles IX, navigated the African and American seas, and was killed in action with the Spaniards.

11. The history of Hans Stade, concerning which more details will be offered at the end of this Introduction. In the same year (A.D. 1557) was printed at Evora the “Relacam do que ho adiantado da Florida, dom Fernado de Souto passou em conquistar,” and the volume, in 8vo, was lately reproduced by the Academy of Sciences, Lisbon. It appeared in an English dress in A.D. 1563, and was translated into French by M. D. G., A.D. 1685.

12. The “Copie de quelques lettres sur la navigation du Chevalier de Villegaignon,” etc. Paris, A.D. 1557.

The celebrated Chevalier Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon, Vice-Admiral of Brittany, is said to have composed the Vocabulary of De Lery amongst other

INTRODUCTION. lxxxiii

valuable opuscules. He involved himself in the atrocious quarrels between the fervent Catholics and the furious Calvinists or Huguenots, who gave him the title “Cain of America”. In due course of time, “Villagalhao,” as he is still called in the Brazil, and Viragalham in old books, will doubtless undergo “une rehabilitation.” Already men begin to quote Ronsard:²¹

“Docte Villegaignon, tu fais une grande faute,
De vouloir rendre fine un gent si peu caute.”

13. The “Discours de Nicolas Barre sur la Navigation du Chevalier de Villegaiguon en Amerique.” Paris, A.D. 1557.

14. “Les Singularites de la France Antartique, autrement nommee Amerique,” etc. Par Andre Thevet, published in 8vo, at Antwerp (Paris?), A.D. 1558,²¹ and in Paris in 4to.

This travelling Cordelier, who became cosmographer to Henry III of France, is exceedingly interesting, especially at the present time, on account of the careful study which he bestowed upon the savages and their “gentilismo”. An Italian edition, in 4to, appeared at Venice in A.D. 1584, and was used by the Abbade Barbosa to prove that the author, Andre de Teive, was a Portuguese.

15.²² The “Histoire des choses memorables advenus

lxxxiv   INTRODUCTION.

en la terre du Bresil, partie de l’Amerique Australe, sous le Gouvernement. de M. le Chevalier de Villegaignon,” etc. A.D. 1561. 1 vol., 12mo. This work is also a diatribe against “Cain.” Of a similar nature is the book of the Protestant minister who visited the Brazil in A.D. 1556: “Petri Richerii lib. duo apologetici ad refutandas naenias, et coarguendos blasphemos, detegendaque mendacia Nicolai Durandi, qui se Villegagnonem cognominat.” Printed in A.D. 1561 (no place). Small 4to.

16.²³ The “Historia da Provincia de Sancta Cruz” (an unauthorised change from Vera Cruz), “a que vulgarmento chamamos Brasil.” Lisbon, A.D. 1576, 1 vol., 4to, by Pero de Magalhaens de Gandavo, the first regular Portuguese historian of the country, whose work, had it not been of the rarest, would have been much used by modern writers. It was lately translated into French (Archives des Voyages) by H. Teruaux Compans, and the Academy of Sciences, Lisbon, announced a re-impression.

17. The “Tratado da Terra do Brasil, no qual se

INTRODUCTION. lxxxv

contem a informacao das cousas que ha nestas partes, feito por Pero de Magaglhaes” (sic): an abridgment of Gandavo, published in A.D. 1576, and reprinted by the Academy in the Noticias Ultramarinas (vol. iv, No. 4).

18. The “Roteiro da Jornada de Joao Coelho de Sousa ao Rio de S. Francisco,” referred to by Gabriel Soares, Part I, chapter xx).

19. The “Histoire d’un voyage fait en la terre du Brasil, autrement dit Amerique, donnee par Jean de Lery. A la Rochelle, A.D. 1578.” 1 vol., 8vo.

De Lery is called by Auguste de Saint Hilaire the “Montaigne des vieux voyageurs.” He travelled to Rio de Janeiro in the days of Villegaignon (A.D. 1556). I believe the first edition was published at Rouen in A.D. 1571. Many subsequent issues of the book appeared, the 5th in A.D. 1611.

20. “A letter written to Mr. Richard Staper by John Whithall from Santos (in Brazil), the 26th of June, 1578.” It was republished by Southey (Supplementary Notes to History, I, pp. xxxii-xxxiv), from Hakluyt, and I reproduce it here.²⁴

lxxxvi   INTRODUCTION.

21. The “Relation y derrotero del Viaje y descubrimiento del estrecho de la Madre de Dios, antes

INTRODUCTION. lxxxvii

llamado de Magaleanes por Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa.” Published in A.D. 1580. An unworthy attempt to rob the great Magellan,

lxxxviii   INTRODUCTION.

who was naturally distasteful to the Spaniards, of his right to the Straits.

22. The “Narrativa Epistolar de uma Viagem e

INTRODUCTION. lxxxix

Missao Jesuitica pela Bahia, Ilheos, etc. Escripta em duas cartas ao Padre Provincial em Portugal.”

The Jesuit Fernao Cardim, who was superior of the Jesuits in 1609, lived at Bahia and Ilheos, and visited the southern “Indians” A.D. 1583-1618. His excellent work, which is compared with those of Jean de Lery and Yves d’Evreux, was edited by Varnhagen, Lisbon, 1847. 1 vol., 8vo (123 pages).

23. The “Tratado Descriptivo do Brazil em 1587, obra di Gabriel Soares de Souza, Senhor de Engeuho da Brazil, nella residente dozesete annos, seu Vereador da Camara.” It is generally known as the Roteiro²⁵ of Geral.

The author concluded in A.D. 1587 a work composed of two parts: 1. Description of the Coast; 2. Of the Notable Things in the Brazil: almost contemporary with Yves d’Evreux, he was wrecked, and died upon the inhospitable shores of the southern continent in A.D. 1591. Judicious readers prefer it in some points, especially in the description of native tribes, to all the works of the 16th century upon the same subject.

xc INTRODUCTION.

“This precious chronicle” (says M. Ferdinand Denis) “contains more facts upon the subject of the ancient races inhabiting the Brazil than any other contemporaneous work.” It was lately published by Varnhageu, in Rio de Janeiro. 1 vol., 8vo.

24.²⁶ The “Strange Adventures of Andrew Battel, of Leigh, in Essex, sent by the Portuguese prisoner to Angola, who lived there and in the adjoining regions near eighteen years” (Purchas his Pilgrims, vol. ii; Pinkerton, vol. xvi). “The author,” an ignorant man, and an authority only as to what he actually saw, “fetched the coast of Brazil” in A.D. 1589, went to the Plata river, visited the “Island of Saint Sebastian, lying under the Tropic of Capricorn,” on his return northward, and was sent from Rio de Janeiro to Angola. All his notices of the Brazil are in chapter i.

25. The “Voyage Round the World” of Antonio Pigafetta, of Vicenza, who accompanied blagalhaens on the first circumnavigation, touched at the southern shores of the Brazil and, after three years’ absence, returned to Seville in A.D. 1522. An abridgment of his travels was published by Ramusio, in the Raccolta di navigazione e viaggi, fol., Venice, A.D. 1550.

26. The “Libro universal de derrotas, alturas, longitudes e conhencencas de todas as Navigacoes, etc.,” ordinado por pilotos consummados nesta sciencia a virtudes de aproveitar em servico de Deos.

INTRODUCTION. xci

Manuel Gaspar, March 1st, A.D. 1594. One volume, 4to, with plates, exists, according to Sur. Doutor Rivara, as far as the 83rd page, in the “Bibliotheca Publica Eborense.”

27. The “Arte da Grammatica da lingoa mas usada na costa do Brazil,” by Jose de Anchieta Coimbra, 1595, very rare. This venerable ecclesiastic, who travelled to the Brazil in 1553, and died there in 1597, wrote several other works. The first is the “Epistola quamplurimarum reruns naturalium, etc.,” published by the Academy in 1799, and incorporated in the Memorias do Ultramar (vol. i, 4to, A.D. 1812). The second is the “Brasilica Societatis Historia et vitro clarorum Patrum qui in Brasilia, vixerunt”, mentioned by Sebastiao Beretario. The life of this ecclesiastic was written in Portuguese by Pedro Rodrigues, and printed by Beretario in 1617; also by Estevan Paternina, who translated the biography of Anchieta from Latin into Spanish, and printed it at Salamanca, A.D. 1618, 1 vol., 12mo; and by P. Simam de Vasconcellos, Lisbon, A.D. 1672.

28. The “Roteiro de todos os Sinaes, comhecimentos, fundos, baixos, alturas e derrotas que ha na costa do Brazil desde o Cabo de Sato Agostinho ate o Estreito de Fernao de Magalhaes.”

In this respectable list probably the most remarkable work is that of Hans Stade of Hesse, although Varnhagen characterises the earliest written account of the Brazil as “un tanto pintoresca.” It was printed for the first time in German at Marburg (A.D. 1557), and it has become very rare; many writers on the Brazil have failed to find copies. Even in 1586 Theodore Turquet

xcii   INTRODUCTION.

explained a part of it to Jean de Lery, who had never seen it. Translated into Latin, it was included in the (Jean) “de Bry Collection,” for which the reader can consult the Dissertation published by Camus in 1802. This is the edition used by Southey, who (vol. I, chapter vii), after his wont, succeeded admirably well in “tearing the entrails out of the work.” Some writers are of opinion that the illustrations of Hans Stade’s book have been adopted by Thevet and De Lery. Most of them are purely fanciful, and seem borrowed from some book on Turkey. In chapter ix we have domes and crescents; in chapter xii, scimitars and turbans; and in chapter xxviii, an armed elephant. Hans Stade is noticed in the Collection of M. Ternaux Compans (p. 269); in the Revista Trimensal (vol. i, p. 299); and in the Magasin Pittoresque of 1850 (an article written by M. Ferd. Denis).

Hans Stade would have sunk into the oblivion which shrouds his tormentors, but for the rude, truthful, and natural volume which he has left to posterity. His style, though simple and full of sincerity, is a poor contrast with the graceful and charming garb which distinguishes P. Yves d’Evreux²⁷ and the later writers.

INTRODUCTION. xciii

His vile transliteration of foreign words requires the especial notice of an editor. His piety is essentially that of the age when the Jesuits spat on children by way of baptism, and saved the dying by surreptitiously sprinkling them with holy water. Like the common order of man, he has queer ideas about St. Elmo’s fire, and he dreads being eaten more than being killed. His superstitions are manifold: the Tupis see “the Devil”, and are providentially punished for pulling up his crucifix; the Almighty “works wonders” for his especial benefit; his prayers are heard, and all his enemies come to a well-merited bad end. He prophecies in hope of saving his life; he threatens his enemies with the “Man in the Moon”, adding, however, “God forgive me this!” and he especially avoids enlightening them when the savages believe that storms and fair weather are sent in answer to his supplications. In fact, it is curious to mark the narrowness of the border-line between the belief of the Brazilian cannibal and that of the Christian European of the sixteenth century. And, although the latter does not eat his enemies, he foresees for them a far worse fate: he has the grace to ejaculate “May God forgive them!” but it is plainly evident that he does not. He is especially vindictive against the ship which would not receive him on board, and against the young Frenchman who nearly caused him to be devoured, although the latter did at last try to make amends for his former act of barbarity. And yet he behaves nobly by remaining with the Christian captives when he might have effected an escape. Finally, this fellow-country-

xciv   INTRODUCTION.

man of the late lamented Dr. Barth of Tinbuktu shows uncommon powers of acute observation: it is certain that he could not have taken notes, yet his descriptions of the fauna and flora, of the trade and manufactures, and of the customs and polity which fell under his inspection during a captivity of seven and a half years are, as far as they go, excellent.

Southey is the first to own that the adventures of Hans Stade form an interesting part of his history. He devotes a whole chapter (i, 7) to the analysis of the little volume, and he ends by saying, with ample justice: “The history of his adventures is a book of great value, and all subsequent accounts of the Tupi tribes rather repeat than add to the information which it contains.”

——————

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

The first edition of the remarkable narrative of Hans Stade is that of 1557, published at Marpurg, from which the present translation, edited by Captain Burton, has been made.^[1a] It is entitled “Warhafftige Historia unnd beschreibung einer landtschafft der Wilden, Nacketen, Grimmigen, Menschfresser Leuthen in der Newen Welt America gelegen...Da sie Hans Standen von Homburg.” The book is a small quarto of 165 pages (unpaged), with numerous quaint woodcuts. In the same year, another edition, also in small quarto, appeared at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, which is very scarce. There is a good copy in the Grenville Library.

The next edition was a Flemish translation, published at Antwerp in 1558: “Waragtighe Historia ende Beschrijving eens landts in America ghelegen......Beschreven door Hans Staden,’Tantwerpen, 1558. 8vo.”

In 1567 the work of Hans Stade was, for a third time, published in German, at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, in the third part of the “Dieses Weltbuch von Newen erfunden Landtschafften durch Leb. Francke.”

In 1592 the narrative of Hans Stade was again published in folio, at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, in the collection of voyages of De Bry.¹ It was translated into Latin.² The second edition of this Latin version of Hans Stade appeared in 1605, and the third in 1630.

A fourth edition of the original German edition appeared in folio, at Frankfort, in 1593; and a Dutch translation was pub-

xcvi   BIBLIOGRAPHY.

lished at Amsterdam, in 8vo, in 1630. “Hans Staden von Homburgs Beschryringhe van America.” A second edition of the Dutch version appeared at Amsterdam in 1640; and a fifth edition of the German at Frankfort in 1631, in folio. A sixth German edition, in quarto, was published at Oldenburg in 1664.

Then followed two more Dutch editions. In 1686 one appeared at Amsterdam, in quarto, with viii and 72 pages, illustrated with woodcuts; and in 1706 a version appeared in a collection of voyages published, in 8vo, at Leyden. “De vooname Scheeps-togten van Jan Staden van Homburg in Hessen, na Brazil gedaam, anno 1547 en 1549.” In “Naaulherrige Versameling der Gedenk Waardigste Zee in Land Reysen. Vol. 52: door Pieter Vander Aa. (Leyden, 1706).”

The fifth Dutch translation of Hans Stade was published at Amsterdam, in quarto, in 1714. “Description de l’Amerique par Jean Stade de Homburg, en Hollandais.” This edition is mentioned by Boucher de la Richarderie, in the “Bibliotheque Universelle de Voyages.” Tom. V, p. 503. (Paris, 1806). The sixth and last Dutch edition appeared, in folio, at Leyden, in 1727; being a second edition of Pieter van der An.

A French translation was published in the collection of voyages of M. Tornaux Compans (vol. iii. Paris, 1839. 8vo). “Veritable Histoire et Description d’un Pays habite par des hommes sauvages situe dams le nouveau monde namme Amerique, par Hans Staden de Homberg in Hesse.”

The most recent German edition appeared at Stuttgart in 1859. It is entitled “Warhafftig Historia under Beschreibung einer Londtscheft der Wilden, Nacketen, Grimmegen Menschfresser Leuthen in der Newen welt America gelegen ...Da sie Hans Staden von Homberg:” reprinted in the “Bibliothek des Liberischen Vereins in Stuttgart.” Band xlvii. (Stuttgart, 1859. 8vo.)

Hans Stade has never before been translated into English; but Southey, in his History of Brazil, gives a full abstract of the old German traveller’s adventures, taken from the Latin version in De Bry.

C. R. M.

[1a This statement conflicts with the text of this Hakluyt edition which clearly shows on p. 169 the publishing location as “Franckfurdt on the Mayn”. Perhaps there was confusion over the fact that Dryander wrote his preface at Marburg (p. 13). Note further that Letts, in 1928, stated that the Tootal (Hakluyt) translation was taken from the Frankfort-on-the-Maine edition, while his (Letts) was translated from the first Marburg edition. Interestingly, Letts also claims that the edition he used was from the Grenville Library. —JR, ed.]

1 See Struvius Mesuel. Biblioth. Hist., III, Pt. ii, p. 49; and the Memoire de Camus, p. 56. Also Biblioth. Heber, tom. VI, No. 442.

2 The translator, under the name of Teucrius Annaeus, was a fellow townsman of De Bry.