White Jacket; Or, The World on a Man-of-War
Page 53
CHAPTER L.
THE BAY OF ALL BEAUTIES.
I have said that I must pass over Rio without a description; but justnow such a flood of scented reminiscences steals over me, that I mustneeds yield and recant, as I inhale that musky air.
More than one hundred and fifty miles' circuit of living green hillsembosoms a translucent expanse, so gemmed in by sierras of grass, thatamong the Indian tribes the place was known as "The Hidden Water." Onall sides, in the distance, rise high conical peaks, which at sunriseand sunset burn like vast tapers; and down from the interior, throughvineyards and forests, flow radiating streams, all emptying into theharbour.
Talk not of Bahia de Todos os Santos--the Bay of All Saints; for thoughthat be a glorious haven, yet Rio is the Bay of all Rivers--the Bay ofall Delights--the Bay of all Beauties. From circumjacent hill-sides,untiring summer hangs perpetually in terraces of vivid verdure; and,embossed with old mosses, convent and castle nestle in valley and glen.
All round, deep inlets run into the green mountain land, and, overhungwith wild Highlands, more resemble Loch Katrines than Lake Lemans. Andthough Loch Katrine has been sung by the bonneted Scott, and Lake Lemanby the coroneted Byron; yet here, in Rio, both the loch and the lakeare but two wild flowers in a prospect that is almost unlimited. For,behold! far away and away, stretches the broad blue of the water, toyonder soft-swelling hills of light green, backed by the purplepinnacles and pipes of the grand Organ Mountains; fitly so called, forin thunder-time they roll cannonades down the bay, drowning the blendedbass of all the cathedrals in Rio. Shout amain, exalt your voices,stamp your feet, jubilate, Organ Mountains! and roll your Te Deumsround the world!
What though, for more than five thousand five hundred years, this grandharbour of Rio lay hid in the hills, unknown by the CatholicPortuguese? Centuries ere Haydn performed before emperors and kings,these Organ Mountains played his Oratorio of the Creation, before theCreator himself. But nervous Haydn could not have endured thatcannonading choir, since this composer of thunderbolts himself died atlast through the crashing commotion of Napoleon's bombardment of Vienna.
But all mountains are Organ Mountains: the Alps and the Himalayas; theAppalachian Chain, the Ural, the Andes, the Green Hills and the White.All of them play anthems forever: The Messiah, and Samson, and Israelin Egypt, and Saul, and Judas Maccabeus, and Solomon.
Archipelago Rio! ere Noah on old Ararat anchored his ark, there layanchored in you all these green, rocky isles I now see. But God did notbuild on you, isles! those long lines of batteries; nor did our blessedSaviour stand godfather at the christening of yon frowning fortress ofSanta Cruz, though named in honour of himself, the divine Prince ofPeace!
Amphitheatrical Rio! in your broad expanse might be held theResurrection and Judgment-day of the whole world's men-of-war,represented by the flag-ships of fleets--the flag-ships of thePhoenician armed galleys of Tyre and Sidon; of King Solomon's annualsquadrons that sailed to Ophir; whence in after times, perhaps, sailedthe Acapulco fleets of the Spaniards, with golden ingots forballasting; the flag-ships of all the Greek and Persian craft thatexchanged the war-hug at Salamis; of all the Roman and Egyptian galleysthat, eagle-like, with blood-dripping prows, beaked each other atActium; of all the Danish keels of the Vikings; of all the musquitocraft of Abba Thule, king of the Pelaws, when he went to vanquishArtinsall; of all the Venetian, Genoese, and Papal fleets that came tothe shock at Lepanto; of both horns of the crescent of the SpanishArmada; of the Portuguese squadron that, under the gallant Gama,chastised the Moors, and discovered the Moluccas; of all the Dutchnavies red by Van Tromp, and sunk by Admiral Hawke; of the forty-sevenFrench and Spanish sail-of-the-line that, for three months, essayed tobatter down Gibraltar; of all Nelson's seventy-fours thatthunder-bolted off St. Vincent's, at the Nile, Copenhagen, andTrafalgar; of all the frigate-merchantmen of the East India Company; ofPerry's war-brigs, sloops, and schooners that scattered the Britisharmament on Lake Erie; of all the Barbary corsairs captured byBainbridge; of the war-canoes of the Polynesian kings, Tammahammaha andPomare--ay! one and all, with Commodore Noah for their Lord HighAdmiral--in this abounding Bay of Rio these flag-ships might all cometo anchor, and swing round in concert to the first of the flood.
Rio is a small Mediterranean; and what was fabled of the entrance tothat sea, in Rio is partly made true; for here, at the mouth, standsone of Hercules' Pillars, the Sugar-Loaf Mountain, one thousand feethigh, inclining over a little, like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. At itsbase crouch, like mastiffs, the batteries of Jose and Theodosia; whileopposite, you are menaced by a rock-founded fort.
The channel between--the sole inlet to the bay--seems but a biscuit'stoss over; you see naught of the land-locked sea within till fairly inthe strait. But, then, what a sight is beheld! Diversified as theharbour of Constantinople, but a thousand-fold grander. When theNeversink swept in, word was passed, "Aloft, top-men! and furlt'-gallant-sails and royals!"
At the sound I sprang into the rigging, and was soon at my perch. How Ihung over that main-royal-yard in a rapture High in air, poised overthat magnificent bay, a new world to my ravished eyes, I felt like theforemost of a flight of angels, new-lighted upon earth, from some starin the Milky Way.