Across Unknown South America | Page 8

older generation has worked at
great disadvantage owing to the difficulty of obtaining proper
education. Many are the illiterate or almost illiterate people one finds
even among the better classes. Now, however, excellent and most
up-to-date schools have been established in the principal cities, and
with the great enthusiasm and natural facility in learning of the younger
generations wonderful results have been obtained. On account partly of
the exhausting climate and the indolent life that Brazilians are inclined
to lead, a good deal of the enthusiasm of youth dies out in later years;
still Brazil has in its younger generation a great many men who are
ambitious and heartily wish to render their country service. It is to be
hoped that their efforts may be crowned with success. It is not talent
which is lacking in Brazil, it is not patriotism; but persistence is not
perhaps the chief characteristic among races of Portuguese descent. In
these days of competition it is difficult to accomplish anything great
without labour and trouble.
I left London on December 23rd, 1910, by the Royal Mail steamship
Amazon, one of the most comfortable steamers I have ever been on.
We touched at Madeira, Pernambuco, and then at Bahia. Bahia seen
from the sea was quite picturesque, with its two horizontal lines of
buildings, one on the summit of a low hill-range, the other along the
water line. A border of deep green vegetation separated the lower from

the upper town. A massive red building stood prominent almost in the
centre of the upper town, and also a number of church towers, the high
dome of a church crowning the highest point.
I arrived in Rio de Janeiro on January 9th, 1911.
It is no use my giving a description of the city of Rio de Janeiro.
Everybody knows that it is--from a pictorial point of view--quite a
heavenly spot. Few seaside cities on earth can expect to have such a
glorious background of fantastic mountains, and at the same time be
situated on one of the most wonderful harbours known. I have
personally seen a harbour which was quite as strangely interesting as
the Rio harbour--but there was no city on it. It was the Malampaya
Sound, on the Island of Palawan (Philippine Archipelago). But such an
ensemble of Nature's wonderful work combined with man's cannot, to
the best of my knowledge, be found anywhere else than in Rio.
It does not do to examine everything too closely in detail when you
land--for while there are buildings of beautiful architectural lines, there
are others which suggest the work of a pastrycook. To any one coming
direct from Europe some of the statuary by local talent which adorns
the principal squares gives a severe shock. Ladies in evening dress and
naked cupids in bronze flying through national flags flapping in the
wind, half of their bodies on one side, the other half on the other side of
the flags, look somewhat grotesque as you approach the statues from
behind. But Rio is not the only place where you see grotesque
statuary--you have not to go far from or even out of London to receive
similar and worse shocks. If Rio has some bad statues it also possesses
some remarkably beautiful ones by the sculptor Bernardelli--a
wonderful genius who is now at the head of the Academy of Fine Arts
in Rio. This man has had a marvellous influence in the beautifying of
the city, and to him are due the impressive lines of the finest buildings
in Rio, such as the Academy of Fine Arts. Naturally, in a young
country like Brazil--I am speaking of new Brazil, now wide awake, not
of the Brazil which has been asleep for some decades--perfection
cannot be reached in everything in one day. It is really marvellous how
much the Brazilians have been able to accomplish during the last ten

years or so in their cities, on or near the coast.
Brazilians have their own way of thinking, which is not ours, and
which is to us almost incomprehensible. They are most indirect in their
thoughts and deeds--a characteristic which is purely racial, and which
they themselves cannot appreciate, but which often shocks Europeans.
For instance, one of the most palatial buildings in the Avenida Central
was built only a short time ago. In it, as became such an up-to-date
building, was established a lift. But do you think that the architect, like
all other architects anywhere else in the world, would make the lift start
from the ground floor? No, indeed. The lift only starts from the second
floor up--and, if I remember rightly, you have to walk some thirty-eight
steps up a grand staircase before you reach it! Do you know why?
Because the architect wished to compel all visitors