Sketches From My Life. Augustus Charles Hobart-Hampden
distance was measured (fourteen paces), the pistols carefully loaded. Before handing them to the principals we made an effort at arrangement, an effort too contemptuously received to be insisted upon, and we saw that any attempt at reconciliation would be of no avail without the exchange of shots; so, handing to each his weapon, we retired a short distance to give the signal for firing, which was to be done by my dropping a pocket-handkerchief. It was an anxious moment even for us, who were only lookers-on. I gave the words, one, two, three, and dropped the handkerchief.
The pistols went off simultaneously. To my horror I saw the young Brazilian spin round and drop to the ground, his face downwards; we rushed up to him and found that the bullet from A.'s pistol had gone through his brain. He was stone dead.
Then the solemnity of the whole affair dawned on us, but there was no time for thought. Something must be done at once, for revenge quick and fearful was sure to follow such a deed like lightning.
We determined to hurry A. off to his ship, and I begged the young Brazilian to go into the house and break the sad news. The poor fellow, though fearfully cut up, behaved like a gentleman, walking slowly away so as to give us time to escape. As we passed the scene of gaiety the sounds of music and dancing were going on, just as when we left it. How little the jovial throng dreamt of the tragedy that had just been enacted within a few yards of them; of the young life cut down on its threshold!
We got on board all right, but such a terrible row was made about the affair that the ship to which A. belonged had to go to sea the next day, and did not appear again at Rio de Janeiro.
I, though not belonging to that vessel, was not allowed to land for many months.
CHAPTER IV.
RIO DE JANEIRO.
One word about Rio de Janeiro. Rio, as it is generally called, is perhaps one of the most lovely spots in the world. The beautiful natural bay and harbour are unequalled throughout the whole universe. Still, like the Bosphorus, the finest effect is made by Rio de Janeiro when looked at from the water. In the days of which I write yellow fever was unknown; now that fearful disease kills its thousands, aye, tens of thousands, yearly. The climate, though hot at times, is very good; in the summer the mornings are hot to a frying heat, but the sea breeze comes in regularly as clockwork, and when it blows everything is cool and nice. Life is indeed a lazy existence; there is no outdoor amusement of any kind to be had in the neighbourhood. As to shooting, there are only a few snipe to be found here and there, and while looking for these you must beware of snakes and other venomous reptiles, which abound both in the country and in town. I remember a terrible fright a large picnic party, at which I assisted, was thrown into while lunching in the garden of a villa, almost in the town of Rio, by a lady jumping up from her seat with a deadly whip-snake hanging on her dress. I once myself sat on an adder who put his fangs through the woollen stuff of my inexpressibles and could not escape. The same thing happened with the lady's dress; in that case also we caught the snake, as it could not disentangle its fangs.
In the country near Rio there are great snakes called the anaconda, a sort of boa-constrictor on a large scale. Once, while walking in the woods with some friends, we found a little Indian boy dead on the ground, one of these big snakes lying within a foot or so of him, also dead; the snake had a poisoned arrow in his brain, which evidently had been shot at him by the poor little boy, whose blow-pipe was lying by his side. The snake must have struck the boy before it died, as we found a wound on the boy's neck. This reptile measured twenty-two feet in length.
By the way, a well-known author, Mrs. B——, tells a marvellous story about these snakes. She says that they always go in pairs, have great affection for each other, and are prepared on all occasions to resent affronts offered to either of them. She narrates that a peasant once killed a big anaconda, and that the other, or chum snake, followed the man several miles to the house where he had taken the dead one, got in by the window, and crushed the destroyer of his friend to death. I expect that some salt is necessary to swallow this tale, but such is the statement Mrs. B—— makes.
The most lovely birds and butterflies are found near Rio, and the finest collections in the world are made there. The white people are Portuguese by origin—not a nice lot to my fancy, though the ladies are as usual always nice, especially when young; they get old very soon through eating sweets and not taking exercise. There is very little poverty except among the free blacks, who are lazy and idle and somewhat vicious. I always have believed that the black man is an inferior animal—in fact, that the dark races are meant to be drawers of water and hewers of wood. I do not deny that they have souls to be saved, but I believe that their rôle in this world is to attend on the white man. The black is, and for years has been, educated on perfect equality with the white man, and has had every chance of improving himself—with what result? You could almost count on your fingers the names of those who have distinguished themselves in the battle of life.
Sometimes, while cruising off the coast of Rio de Janeiro looking out for slave vessels, we passed a very monotonous life. The long and fearfully hot mornings before the sea breeze sets in, the still longer and choking nights with the thermometer at 108°, were trying in the extreme to those accustomed to the fresh air of northern climates; but sailors have always something of the 'Mark Tapley' about them and are generally jolly under all circumstances, and so it was with me. One day, while longing for something to do, I discovered that the crew had been ordered to paint the ship outside; as a pastime I put on old clothes and joined the painting party. Planks were hung round the ship by ropes being tied to each end of the plank; on these the men stood to do their work. We had not been employed there very long when there was a cry from the deck that the ship was surrounded by sharks. It seems that the butcher had killed a sheep, whose entrails, having been thrown overboard, attracted these fearful brutes round the ship in great numbers. As may be imagined, this report created a real panic among the painters, for I believe we all feared a shark more than an enemy armed to the teeth. I at once made a hurried movement to get off my plank. As I did so the rope at one end slipped off, and so threw the piece of wood, to which I had to hang as on a rope, up and down the vessel's side, bringing my feet to within a very few inches of the water. On looking downwards I saw a great shark in the water, almost within snapping distance of my legs. I can swear that my hair stood on end with fear; though I held on like grim death, I felt myself going, yes, going, little by little right into the beast's jaws. At that moment, only just in time, a rope was thrown over my head from the deck above me, and I was pulled from my fearfully perilous position, more dead than alive. Now for revenge on the brutes who would have eaten me if they could! It was a dead calm, the sharks were still swimming round the ship waiting for their prey. We got a lot of hooks with chains attached to them, on which we put baits of raw meat. I may as well mention a fact not generally known, viz., that a shark must turn on his back before opening his capacious mouth sufficiently to feed himself; when he turns he means business, and woe to him who is within reach of the man-eater's jaws. On this occasion what we offered them was merely a piece of meat, and most ravenously did they rush, turn on their backs, and swallow it, only to find that they were securely hooked, and could not bite through the chains that were fast to the hooks—in fact, that it was all up with them. Orders had been given by the commanding officer that the sharks were not to be pulled on board, partly from the dangerous action of their tails and jaws even when half dead, partly on account of the confusion they make while floundering about the decks; so we hauled them close to the top of the water, fired a bullet into their brains and cut them loose. We killed thirty that morning in this way, some of them eight to ten feet long.
The most horrid thing I know is to see, as I have done on more than one occasion, a man taken by a shark. You hear a fearful scream as the poor wretch is dragged down, and nothing remains to tell the dreadful tale excepting that the water is deeply tinged with blood on the spot where the unfortunate man disappeared. These ravenous man-eaters scent blood from an enormous distance, and their prominent upper fin, which is generally out of the water as they go along at a tremendous pace, may be seen at a great distance, and they can swim at the rate of a mile a minute. A shark somewhat