Rio Frio

“ TO reach the city of Cali it is necessary to cross a small river called the Rio Frio, which is full of weeds and flags. This river is very cold, because it comes down from the mountains, and, flowing through a part of the valley, loses itself in the great river. Beyond this river the road leads over extensive plains, where there are many small and very fleet deer. The Spaniards have their grazing farms in the plains, where their servants live, and look after the estates. The Indians come from their villages in the mountains to sow and reap the maize in the plains. ”

“ They are rigged with a large lug-sail, and are used to fish and trade along the Brazil Coast, manned with four or five negroes. February 9th, we saw Cape Frio in the latitude of 23° 1′ south, and longitude 41° 45′ west, and on the 10th we came-to in Rio de Janeiro harbor. We lost no time in preparing to wood and water the ship, the season for doubling Cape Horn being far advanced; several of our crew deserted, and we had great difficulty in procuring others. ”

“ The first Ulleros who ascended the river were so successful in finding rubber, that various other parties were organised, and now an ascent of the Rio Frio from San Carlos is of common occurrence. The poor Indians are now in such dread of fire-arms, that on the first appearance of a boat coming up the river they desert their houses and run into the woods for shelter. The Ulleros rush on shore and seize everything that the poor fugitives have left behind them ”

“ And so the voyage went on placidly with the usual drills and daily ceremonies until Cape Frio, some sixty miles east of Rio, was sighted and then there came the journey along the coast, the entrance into the magnificent harbor, the splash of the mud hooks and the feeling that one-third of the voyage to San Francisco was over, and the fleet was shaking itself down into a smooth working condition better and better with every day at sea. ”

“ Stood to the southward for the night.
Saturday, 19.—Soon after daylight, we saw the land. At noon, Cape Frio, W.N.W. about 12 miles. Lat. 23°. 7'. S. Lon. 39°. 25'. W. At two in the afternoon, we passed a warlike looking schooner under Brazilian colours. At sunset. Cape Frio, E.N.E. about eight miles. Continued our course for the harbour of Rio de Janeiro till midnight, when we hove to for daylight.
Sunday, 20.—At daylight, we made all sail with a light breeze, for the harbour of Rio de Janeiro. At two in the afternoon, sounded in forty fathoms ”

“ All the requisites of a desirable home have been found in Brazil; and a consideration of the data here presented may enable those concerned to determine upon the propriety of transferring their residence to that favored land.
5 HUNTING A HOME IN BRAZIL. Having made a pleasant voyage from New York, it was announced early on the morning of Tuesday, September 12th, 1865, that our vessel had passed Cape Frio, and that we were approaching the harbor of Rio de Janeiro. ”

“ The night is not less beautiful; then the summits of the mountains show dark against the sky, myriads of lights outline the near bays, shine out from the islands and twinkle irregularly up the hillsides, while from the further shore another galaxy are reflected half-way across the still dark water. The whole gives the impression of some magic scene in the Arabian Nights lit up for a great fiesta. Rio is wonderful, marvellous; it leaves one like the Queen of Sheba; and yet—when I am dead I hope that I may return and visit the little bay of Santa Cruz, I know I shall pass by Rio de Janeiro. ”

“ From the top of a high knoll we had a fairly good view of the falls and of the rapids below; after leaping over a twenty-foot ledge the river rushes through a narrow rock-filled gorge; enormous boulders tower out of the channel like so many black, unvanquished monarchs. Tongues of spray leap to a height of forty feet, and clouds of vapor rise in a constant stream. With the exception of the Salto Bello of the Rio Sacre and Utiarity Falls of the Papagaio, we had seen nothing to compare with São Vicente during our entire journey across Brazil. ”

“ Tall palms, feathery bamboos wafted by the gentlest breezes, give a sense of life even on the calmest days. Rio is a fitting mistress for an exuberant poet, for he could never weary of versing her charms, extolling her exceeding beauty, or revelling in her enchantment. Its shores and its mountain slopes, the fascination of their varied aspects, provoke his enthusiasm at every turn. They possess wonders that can never stale, charms that can never tire. Even if this world-famed harbour is entered when night has hidden the wonders of its mountains from view, the scene is most impressive ”

“ The theater of Captain Dickinson's ambition as a treasure-seeker was hostile and forbidding, a coast on which it seemed impossible to tarry except in the most favorable weather. As he describes it, "the island of Cape Frio is about three miles long and one in breadth, is the southeastern extremity of Brazil, and separated from the mainland by a narrow strait or gut about four hundred feet broad, having very deep water in it, and through which, the land on each side being very high, the wind constantly rushes in heavy gusts, and a rapid current runs. ”

“ In two hours El Nacional entered the river’s mouth. The banks were crowded with a disposition of formidable trees. The sumptuous undergrowth of the tropics overflowed the land, and drowned itself in the fallow waters. Silently the sloop entered there, and met a deeper silence. Brilliant with greens and ochres and floral scarlets, the umbrageous mouth of the Rio Ruiz furnished no sound or movement save of the sea-going water as it purled against the prow of the vessel. ”

“ But it had called, and joy surged in the admiral’s breast. He drew his cutlass belt to another buckle hole, roused his dozing crew, and in a quarter of an hour El Nacional was tacking swiftly down coast in a stiff landward breeze.
The Rio Ruiz is a small river, emptying into the sea ten miles below Coralio. That portion of the coast is wild and solitary. Through a gorge in the Cordilleras rushes the Rio Ruiz, cold and bubbling, to glide, at last, with breadth and leisure, through an alluvial morass into the sea. ”

“ But if nature is peerless in Rio, one quickly discovers that man is still the same troublesome little shrimp he is everywhere. We crawled at a snail’s pace past a rocky islet covered with royal palms and a turreted 174castle, past seven large Brazilian battleships, among them the Minas Geraes that had recently mutinied and bombarded the capital, and finally came to anchor well out in the bay. ”

“ Rio Jeneiro, in English, the River January—probably so called from the month in which it was discovered—embraces the varied prospect of a bay incomparable in scenery, a smooth harbor, variegated with many pleasant little islands, which secure and embellish it; the shores on every side teeming in luxuriant vegetation, and where nature, dressed always in the robe of spring—gay as in her prime—sports in all her youthful vigor and beauty. ”

“ So swift are many of these byways of Rio that a street-lamp in the next block is sometimes well above the moon; so closely are nature and man crowded together that there is absolute primeval wilderness within half an hour’s walk of the Avenida central, and one may come upon clusters of jungle cabins lost in the bucolic calm of the virgin matta almost in the heart of the city limits.
Some of our lines passed through long dark tunnels bored in the granite hills, to reach one or another of those pretty, seaside towns that make up the outskirts of Rio. ”

“ On all sides, in the distance, rise high conical peaks, which at sunrise and sunset burn like vast tapers; and down from the interior, through vineyards and forests, flow radiating streams, all emptying into the harbour.
Talk not of Bahia de Todos os Santos--the Bay of All Saints; for though that be a glorious haven, yet Rio is the Bay of all Rivers--the Bay of all Delights--the Bay of all Beauties. From circumjacent hill-sides, untiring summer hangs perpetually in terraces of vivid verdure ”

“ When the early navigators sailed up the island-studded bay, which leads to the present site of the capital of Brazil, they thought it must surely be the mouth of a broad river, and, as it was in the month of January, they named it, for want of a better name, Rio de Janeiro, the River of January, and the name has clung to the bay and settlement, which has grown into a thriving city, during the succeeding four centuries. ”

“ Touching at the Cape de Verde Islands, the squadron steered a west-south-west course across the Atlantic, and on the 31st of October sighted a lofty mountain in Brazil, twenty-four leagues from Cape Frio. The next day the ships came to an anchor between the island of San Sebastian and the main. Here the greater part of a month was spent in setting up a pinnace, preparing casks, and other necessary works. ”

“ Rio is a city without chimneys, and strikes one as a regiment of soldiers without caps. A vein of smoke is never seen circling up over its red-tiled roofs. The mildness of the climate dispenses with all parlor fires, except the gleam of the braséro. ”

“ The drive up from the station to the town, over a pass in the Organ mountains, was superb. At each turn of the road we had an ever-varying view of the city of Rio and its magnificent bay. And then the banks of this tropical high-road! From out a mass of rich verdure grew lovely scarlet begonias, and spotted caladiums, shaded by graceful tree-ferns and overhung by trees full of exquisite parasites and orchids. ”

“ The magnificent scenery of Rio remains, and must remain, short of earthquake; the Sugar Loaf, the distant Organ mountains, the near, high, surrounding hills, the numerous bights and diversified bluffs, which impart continuous novelty to the prospect. It is surprising that in these days of travel more do not go just to see that sight, even if they never put foot on shore ”

“ Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, the United States minister to Brazil, and a Dr. Garnett, United States Navy, his intended son-in-law. We had a very interesting conversation, in which Mr. Wise enlarged on the fact that Rio was supplied from the "dews of heaven," for in the dry season the water comes from the mists and fogs which hang around the Corcovado, drips from the leaves of the trees, and is conducted to the Madre fountain by miles of tile gutters. Halleck and I continued our ascent of the mountain, catching from points of the way magnificent views of the scenery round about Rio Janeiro. ”

“ It mainly consists of a range of handsome villas facing the sea, each with a charming garden, and, in this season, must be a delightful residence. But it is generally admitted that the climate of Rio is debilitating to European constitutions. As compared with most coast stations in the tropics the heat is not excessive—the mean temperature of the warmest month (February) is not quite 80° Fahr., and that of the coldest (July) about 70°; but most Europeans, and especially those of Germanic stock, require to be braced by intervals of cold, if they are to endure a hot climate with impunity. ”

“ A brisk wind from the east sprung up early in the morning of the 22d: we then hoisted all sail, and made for the mouth of the Rio Negro. This noble stream, at its junction with the Amazons, seems, from its position, to be a direct continuation of the main river; while the Solimoens, which joins it at an angle, and is somewhat narrower than its tributary, appears to be a branch, instead of the main trunk, of the vast water-system. ”

“ This excursion of ours took place when roads in New Mexico were almost nil. A buckboard would have been better than an automobile with high pressure tires which blew out about twice a day. We broke an axle on the way home and had to spend the night on La Bajada Mesa between the Rio Grande and the highway in what was locally known as “Old Man Pankey’s Pastures.” The Valley of the Frijoles impressed me, then a little boy, and, I well remember the hundreds of smoke-blackened caves hewn out of the soft cliffs by Indians sometime in the dim past. ”

“ As you approach the mountains, however, it becomes contracted within narrow limits over a gravelly bottom, and a swift, clear, and abundant stream. The waters of the Red River are so brackish when low, as to be unfit for common use.
The Trinity River, the Brazos, and the Rio Colorado, have each a course of about twelve hundred miles, rising in the plains and mountains on the north and north-west side of Texas, and running south south-east into the Gulf of Mexico. ”

“ It was for the most part covered with a scattered growth of tough, stunted mesquite trees, not dense enough to be called a forest, and yet sufficiently close to cut off the view. It was very dry, even as compared with the northern plains. The bed of the Frio was filled with coarse gravel, and for the most part dry as a bone on the surface, the water seeping through underneath, and only appearing in occasional deep holes. These deep holes or ponds never fail, even after a year's drought; they were filled with fish. One lay quite near the ranch house, under a bold rocky bluff ”

“ Rio is now a pleasant place of residence in winter, and the sea-breeze makes the climate agreeable in all but the hottest months, during which Europeans find it debilitating. Fifty years ago the then Emperor Dom Pedro the Second built himself a summer residence among the mountains which rise beyond the further end of the bay, and this presently became the "hot weather station," as people say in India, for the richer class of citizens and for the representatives of foreign countries. ”