Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-05-13

at the entrance. twenty-seven miles long
and about twenty-three miles wide at the
middle.
Bahia is built high upon bluffs on the
east side of the barber. You see it as You
enter the harbor its white buildings rtsi,g
cut of palm trees over wall of GenSe
vegetation. There are two parts to the
city. one down on the shore and the other
OH the bluff. Tho part on the shore is the
business section, devoted to importing and
exporting houses This section is worse
smelling than any part of Naples There
i distinct and separate bad smell to every
house. and as you walk through one mar
row street after another you are greeted
with new and strange varieties Of stenches.
The smell disappears to some extent as you
rise up the bluff, but altogether the city is
insanitary in the extreme.
4 City of Negroes.
The chief thing that strikes you in Bahia
is the negroes. They are everywhere.
Nearly every one you meet shows some
traces of negro blood if not in complexion
in the wide nostris and semi-fiat noses.
There are many blacks. The Bahia black
women have become famous for their size
throughout Brazil. They are the fattest
women l have ever seen. Some weigh as
much as $40 pounds and their dress is such
that you can easily see their forms are
not padded. 1t consists of a long white
chemise without sleeves cut low at the neck
woman has q lace edging of beautiful de-
sign. through the meshes of which the black
skin shows out. Nearly all wear white or
gay cOlored turbans and not a few have
shawls about their waists, which form an
overskirt to their chemises. Many of them
are barefOoted, but more wear heelleSs slip
perS so short that they can get little more
than their toes into them, SO that the heel
of the shoe ends just under the instep.
With ordinary Caucasians such shoes would
not do but the Bahia black women have in
steps which make you think of the old
darkey song about his sweetheart, wherein
he says:
And de hollow oh her foot makes a hole
in de ground"
Many Of these negro women are rich.
Some wear half dozen gold bracelets on
each arm, a few have diamond rings, and
many wear gold chains about their fat
neCkS.
Bahia and the Slave Trade.
Bahia has perhaps as many negroes to its
population As any other city of Brazil.
This was the center of the slave trade. The
kidnapers ran their cargoes OF slaves from
Africa into this harbor and from here dis
tributed their human freight to all parts Of
Brazil. Thousands of negroes were sent
from here TO New Orleans. They were
smuggled into the United States after the
trade was prohibited and into Brazil long
hidden.
Slavery existed here up to about ten years
ago. and the result is that there are now
more negroes In Bahia than whites The
color line is not at all distinct. The whites
Of Brazil have intermarried with the ne
groes. and you can find comparatively few
white families which have not some negro
blood.
Negroes have an absolute equality here.
No one thinks of Directing to their presence
at the tables in the dining rooms Of the
hotels or on the steamboats,. On the coast
ing steamer in which I came here two
thirds of the passengers were colored.
Some Of them were very intelligent and
not q few were property owners. I
find colored people in all sorts of posi-
tons down here. The editor and pro-
prietor OF one Of the daily newspapers of
Rio dc Janciro Is n coal-black African, and
at one Of our American minister's recep-
lions met the bishop of Amazonas. whose
face in mahogany brown. He was
dressed In a beautiful cardinal gown
He had n cardinal skull cap on his head
and his big ring of office was covered with
a pair OF cardinal gloves. He spoke French
huently and proved TO be a very Intelligent
man.
Streets Like Mashed RainboSvs.
The walls Of the Bahia streets look like
mashed rainbows. The houses ure PAINTED
all colors. There are scores OF white houses,
houses Of rose pink and houses of sky
blue.
There are houses here as green as the
palm trees which shade them, houses as
red as blood and houses as yellow as gold.
There are houses faced with porcelain tiles
imported from Europe. tiles as fine az those
about your frepiaces Many of the win
wrought iron. and over the do9rs are deo5-
raGons of the same metal. The designs
are are original and the negroes are the de-
These features make Bahia quite p,ctur-