The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-07-31
A VERY ODD OLD CITY
Curious Sights in the Market
Place of Bahia.
WHALE-FLESH IN LIEU OF PORK
WIn You Be Carried Up Hill in Sedan
Chair, or Ride in a New
Steam Elevator?
wHALE-FLESH IN LIEU OF PORK

BAHIA. San Salvador, June 15.-TSpecial
correspondence OF THE HERALD. mo city
10 Brazil is so interesting to the foreigner
as Bahia, because, with its precipitous
streets, antique architecture. sedan chairs
and mongrel citizens. it is by far the most
characteristic. 1t bears about as much
similarity to Rio as does gay, half creole
New Orleans 80 prim and Puritan Boston.
Its massive stone buildings are Of the very
quaintest description and most of the dwell
ings are proppeo on the verge Of breezy
cliffs by enormous buttresses Of masonry.
The houses ascend skyward more stories
than any others in South America, for the
same reason that houses do in New York
and Chicago-because they could not find
room enough in a horizontal position and
were therefore compelled to take it verti-
cally. Bahia is also the spiritual capital OF
Brazil, being the residence Of his grace,
the archbishop, and dominated by its sixty
seven churches as palpably as are Cam
brige and New Haven by Harvard and
Yale.
The instant you set foot in Bahia you are
plunged into the heart Of the Oldest portion
and the center OF its business activity, for
the landing is fronted by a busy market
place, and the four mile long street that
outlines the water is the original San Sal
vador, founded nearly four centuries ago,
and today filled with commercial houses. 1t
is literally swarmed with negroes and with
people whose compilations are not much
lighter. though their noses may be trifle
less fiat and their hair less tightly curled-
for the city's population is ''coloredn about
TO- tho liUhr-axiunnd mi
nority are many English and German mer-
chants (the latter nationality predomi-
natingA. and few Yankees who are
engaged in the sugar and tobacco trade, for
Ia those two articles this port has fully as
much commerce with the United States as
Para with its indian rubber and Rio with
its coffee, though in every case the exports
are greatly in excess OF The importstions.
Rice, coffee, diamonds, dye woods and
oranges are also shipped in considerable
quantities.
SURE ENOUGH BLACK PEOPLE.
Blacker blacks than those of this section
1t would be impossible to imagine, for they
come direct from western Africa within a
generation or two. Lying directly oppo-
site the dark continent" this portion of
Brazil was the great rendezvous, in earlier
time, for those engaged in the slave trade.
BY the way, / came across some ancien I
pious Portuguese Of the Seventeenth and
Eighteenth centuries characterized the
traffic by the bland title OF commerce for
the spiritual ransom OF slaves,' and car
ried it on under the guise OF philanthropy
--ostensibly to rescue the pagan captives
as brands from the burning and bring
them 10 Christian country, where they
might be baptized, and at the same time
reward those who had been so kind ss to
capture them by q life time Of unrequited
toll.
There are enough Chinese here to add q
touch OF saffron TO the prevailing ebony,
Cor when the slaves were hrst emancipated
they would not work for love or money,
and so the planters imported q few ship
loads of coolies. But the experiment did
not prove a brilliant success and proverty
soon reduced the negroes 20 reason. One
meets numbers of the Creole Nina re
crosses proud as peacocks in their gur-
geous turbans, white gowns and multi
plicity of gold ornaments, because rejoic-
ing under the name par excellence
OF Balkans. With bare feet thrust
into high heeled slippers they
swing along with majestic gait,
Ia carriage that comes only from perfecl
bodily proportions, and cannot be acquired
through any amount OF cultivation by the
wasp-waisied, narrow -hipped. lean-llmbed
women Of colder climates.
SKULLS OF IRON
The negroes who labor about the wharvet
display remarkable muscular development
of the arms and shoulders, and must have
skulls Of astonishing thickness, If one may
Judge by the burdens they are continually
bearing upon them There is q school ol
scientists you know, who claim that the
greater thickness of the negro's skull a.
compared with that of the white man, il
simply the result of an effort on the part oil
nature TO protect his brain from the intense
rays of the tropical sun, to which like the
Moor. he is "a neighbor of near
bread They assert that the black mans
mental inferio-ity is due entirely to the
fact that the sprures OF his skull close al
an earlier age than those of other races
the growth OF the brain being arrested by
the Uranium thus becoming solid; that VI
20 q certain age the negro child Is as bright
and capable OF receiving instruction as any
white one, and that he suddenly grows
stupid and Indifferent. They also claim
that were Africans to continue dwelling il
temperate climates as many centuries as
have the Saxons. their skulls would lose
this then unnecessary density and the
brain keep on expanding with the demands
made upon it, ] fancy it will not be easy
10 convince the all-cOnquering white race
that It's superiority is due only x
the fact that our ancestors hap
pened to live where the SUMS rays
were feeble and therefore their asseons
plates grew thin. However thai
theory may be, the negroes hereRbonts
seem 10 have craniums OF iron instead OF
brittle bone. for they carry everything con
enormous barrels Of sugar and bales OF cot
ton BE a hose could not stagger under,