The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-05-21
UP COAST OF BRAZIL
QUEER FEATURES OF LIFE
ON A BRAZILIAN
STEA MER
AMONG THE EMIGRANTs

AMUNG HE EM1GRANTS
First Cabin Passengers and Their
Queer Table Manners-The Town
of MaceO-In the Sugar and Cot
ton Lands-BrazITs Cotton Fac
tories, Which Pay so Per Cent
Dividends.
Copyrighted, 1899, by Frank G. Carpenter.
PERNAMBUCO, Brazil, April IA am
travelling along the coast of Brazil. My
ship is a Brazilian steamer, which goes
regularly from Rio to the mouth of The
Amazon. The distance is about $500
miles, and the voyage takes fourteen
days. 1t is almost as far from Rio to
the Amazon as it is from the mouth of
the Amazon TO New York. This steamer
Is fast enough, but we stop at every port
TO take on and discharge freight, and we
are all the time crowded with passen-
gers. By the Brazilian laws all coast
heighting must be done in national YES
sells. This ship belongs to the Lloyd Bra
lillian line, which has the monopoly of
the coast trade of the country. 1t has
ships along the coast, steamers on the
Amazon, and mail steamers which go
from Rio Janeiro up the Parana and
Paraguay rivers to Matte Crosse. Nv
ship is the Manaos 1t is a steamer of
about 5000 tons, and is a flrst-class ship
in every respect. 1t was built In Eng
land, and it has all modern improve
ments. My cabin is lighted by mean
descent electric lights. and the dining
room is finished in marble and gold. The
bath room of the steamer seems to be
used by no one but myself, and the warm
salt water shower baths which 1 have
every morning are delightful.
TRAVELLING A LA BRAZIL.
This is the rosy side of the picture,
otherwise there Is comfort with a differ
ence. The ship is crowded with passen-
gers, and such passengers Those who
travel on the regular steamers have no
Idea of the people who swarm the coast
vessels. My companions are of all colors
and conditions of men. Let me begin at
the top deck. This is filed with emil
grants, who are on their way to work in
the rubber forests of the Amazon. There
are at least thousand of them, nearly
all more or less colored. Most of the
men have their families with them, and
there are at least fifty babies and many
small children. The babies in most cases
are stark naked, as is the case with all
the children under four years of age
These nude little ones sprawl over the
deck in all sorts of attitudes. They play
games, now and then wrestling together
/ saw one four-year-old boy who was
playing horse riding a knotty stick be-
tween his naked legs. AS he trotted over
the deck another naked boy saw the
horse and coveted it. He grabbed it, and
there was straightway a fight, which
ended In both children being captured by
their parents and carried sQuawling to
opposite sides of the deck.
Some of the babies are quite pretty. /
should like to play with them, but 1 do
not consider 1t safe. Today, for instance
] saw a woman sucking one of these
nude little ones, and at the same time
going through its hair and picking out
certain insects which are not mentioned
in polite society. 1t was a case of doing
two things at the same time, and as far
as 1 could judge, doing both of them
well.
On the lower gangway, where every
one had to pass, another woman has
slung her hammock. She lies most of
the time stretched out in 1t, with little
one about a week old in her arms. Yes
terday afternoon, as l went by, she was
giving the baby bath. She had placed
a large gourd on the deck and had stood
the little one in 1t. She was pouring the
water over the baby and scrubbing 1t
vigorously. The infant cried Justify, look
ing, in its nakedness, the personification
of grief.
SLEEP IN HAMMOCKS.
Speaking of hammocks, they are slung
everywhere on the decks of the ship.
They are tied to the rigging one above
the other like the hunks in an Atlantic
liner. Every hammock has two or three
persons in 1t. Sometimes the hammock
contains man and his wife, sometimes
a mother and her children. The poorest
of the crowd sleep on the floor They
have no seats, and men, women and chill
dren sprawl about the deck in all sorts
of positions all day and all night They
eat on the deck, squatting at their meals
more like animals than men. Each fam
lily has q round tin bowl of the shape of
d sieve. This is filled with a mixture of
rice, mandioca and meat. AS a general
thing, they eat with their fingers, al
though sometimes a family has one or
two spoons, one knife and one fork.
QUEER TABLE MANNERS.
And what do we flrst-cass passengers
eat and how do we eat 1t? Well, we have
plenty of food, and if the marble and gold
wall of the dining saloon could make it
taste good, there would be no lack of ap-
petite. 1 am, however, something of an
old maid in my tastes. Perhaps I am be-
coming a snob. 1 don't know. At any
rate, I cannot get used to the table ways
of these middle-class Brazillians. 1t dis
turbs me when the negro lady who sits
beside me at the table goes fishing in the
mixed pickle bottle for little onions with
the fork she has just been using, and
having caught several and eaten them,
passes the bottle across the table to her
fat Brazilian grandma, who acts the
same way I can't get used to seeing the
strips of guava jelly for dessert being
picked up by the girl on my left on her
toothpick and thus transferred to her
plate, nor do 1 like the way some young
= ->s,I have Of putting their toothpicks in
their oily hair just over the ears where
our bookkeepers carry their pens, to bring
them out at the close of the following
course. 1 don't much like the use of the
tOothpicks by all the passengers between
the courses, and I am prone to frown as