John Fraser - The Amazing Argentine - A New Land of Enterprise

From gambling at the tables one turned to talking about gambling in the country. The enormous liabilities to foreign countries are all incurred in a great gamble that the hinterlands will yield produce which will pay for all and leave massive surpluses. The coffee trade of Brazil is immense. But all merchants do not make their incomes by watching and nursing the market. That is too slow. Transactions are decided quite as often by the throw of the dice as by negotiation and bargaining. Reckless, far removed from business principles, all this is; but it bespeaks a buoyancy of belief that, notwithstanding the lapse of luck, there is a bottomless well of prosperity to be dipped into in the natural productions of the country. It is scarcity which breeds timidity; it is the confidence of affluence which occasions waste.

Of course there was much talk about Rio de Janeiro, the city with the most gorgeous setting in the southern hemisphere.

"Rio harbour is the most beautiful in the world," said the Brazilian.

"It cannot be a patch on Sydney harbour," said the Australian, who had never seen Rio.

"Tut!" said the Brazilian, who had never seen Sydney.

It was in the fall of an exquisite Sunday afternoon that our glasses caught sight of the hills around Rio. As we approached and ran past picturesque islands a wonderful panorama was unfolded. The scenery was unlike any other scenery in the world. The hills, radiant with equatorial vegetation, rose like strange humps out of the sea. In the background giant mountains reared their heads in the crimson-grey clouds of approaching evening. The picture was not like real scenery. It was like the realisation of a disordered imagination. I would say it was like an imitation of Turner, were the illustration not so trite. Then I thought there was something Chinese about the outreness of the landscape. Then the sun went down in a hurry, and the background was a weird purple. The ship dropped anchor, and the front part of Rio town, a tumble of fantastic red and yellow washed houses, was for all the world like a drop curtain to a stage. I felt we had slipped into another world – and I am not given to rhapsody.

A thousand lamps began to blink along the esplanade which curves to the bend of the bay. A thousand lights pricked the hill sides. There were two big black Brazilian warships, and somebody had to tell the old story how two battleships were sent out to visit the Brazilian convict island in the Atlantic, and how one returned with the awful story that the island had disappeared, for they sailed straight for it and it had gone, whilst later on it was learnt that the other vessel had certainly found the island, for it got piled up on the rocks. Gaily illuminated launches scurried about whilst our liner was slowly being berthed alongside the quay.

"Ah!" cried the Brazilian to me, whilst his eyes glowed brightly, "say that Rio is the most lovely harbour in the world!"

"There's nothing to shout about," interrupted the Australian, "alongside Sydney harbour; and you've seen Sydney harbour," he added, turning to me.

As a sort of amateur Solomon, I was turned to for judgment. My first comment was to laugh. I had seen the two harbours which are each claimed by their champions to be the grandest thing Nature has ever accomplished. It was amusing to witness the fervour of the two men, as though they had a hand in the making of these famous harbours. They were both of the stuff which leads men to believe that for any other country to have pretensions to beauty is just dull-witted boastfulness.

"Well," I remarked, "I think Vigo harbour is charming."

"Oh, Vigo!" they both exclaimed in disgust.

"And there is something to be said for the Golden Gate leading to San Francisco," I added.

"But the Golden Gate and any other place is not in the same street with Sydney harbour," blurted the Australian rather angrily, though he had never seen the Golden Gate. "It cannot be," he said decisively.

"But what do you really think of Rio compared with Sydney?" asked the Brazilian, who saw I was attempting to be funny at the expense of them both.

"I'll tell you," I said, actually throwing half a cigar overboard, for I was called upon to give a verdict on one of the most debatable subjects in the world. "It is like passing judgment on two lovely women. For grand, impressive spectacular effect, being hit right between the eyes with stupendous gorgeousness, seeing Rio harbour at the hour of sunset is the most wonderful sight in the world."

The Brazilian smiled, and the Australian made a contemptuous noise with his lips.

"But hold," I added. "You see all the beauty of Rio harbour at one view. It is like suddenly coming face to face with an imperial lady of dazzling attractions. When you have seen her you have seen everything. Sydney harbour does not knock you over with bewilderment of beauty like Rio does. It is more calm, less turbulent; it impresses you. The more you know it the more it impresses you. And it has lovely arms, stretching up between soft woodlands, as peaceful as the best bits of the Thames. Rio has nothing like that. No, no; I'm not competent to pass judgment. You two gentlemen can go on fighting over the matter, as I dare say the people of your two countries will continue to do, till the crack of doom. I admit the unrivalled grandeur of Rio, but personally I have more affection for the grace and the delights of Sydney."

The Brazilian bowed politely. The Australian wanted to argue I had ceded too much to Rio. Happily, just then a group of friends came on board to rush me off to a dinner party on shore.

Rio will always remind me of Imre Kiralfy, the White City, and Earl's Court. There are some narrow, old European-like streets that recall places on the other side of the Atlantic: the houses high and sombre and with a little mystery behind the shutters. But most of Rio is rampantly new and garish. The people have driven a magnificent Avenida right through the heart of the city, and hang the expense! The piles of buildings, hotels, public offices, great stores along this Avenida are generally eccentric in architecture – and there comes the feeling that here these transplanted Latins, with a strain of negro in their veins, are struggling to express themselves as a new people. The wonderful thing is that five years ago this Avenida was not.

Nothing that the Riviera has can outvie the esplanade, broad, well made, with miles of bright gardens and statues – and the motor-cars whiz along at the maddest, breakneck pace. There is one exquisite avenue lined with nothing but palm trees. Many of the houses, designed surely by someone who has built palaces for pantomimes, are half buried behind splashes of prodigal tropical vegetation. Everything is ornate, showy. From the standpoint of British comfort the buildings are gaudy palaces, lacking real ease. But always one has to remember one is in the tropics.

I know no place so dazzling as Rio. Behind all the glitter, however, there is gold. There is commerce, abounding speculation, the devil-may-care assurance of the gambler. Broad ways, electric car services, hundreds of expensive motor-cars, extravagant restaurants, ladies laden with jewels, the men eager, all tell the opening chapter in the story of Brazil's future. In the cool Strangers' Club I met men of the Saxon breed, quiet Englishmen, quiet Americans, representatives of syndicates with millions of money at their backs, negotiating, wire-pulling, securing concessions for railroads, for developing stretches of that great back country of Brazil, as little explored as Central Africa, but the possibilities of which the world is realising and will scramble hungrily to turn into profit. What Brazil has accomplished so far is but the turning of the key in the door.

The morning comes with a gasp, and a flavour of old oil is in the air. The heavy stillness makes one recite the agony of the Ancient Mariner. We are leaving the ocean, and the steamer is churning a way up an ochreish river, banked on one side, but with a stretch of malarious jungle on the other. We are making for Santos, and an old German who rests his elbows on the rail tells how he has known this coast for thirty years, and how, in the old days, it reeked with yellow fever; how whole ships' crews went down before the scourge, and how no passenger boats dared lie at Santos for the night, but always slipped down to the mouth of the river in the evening so that fresh air could be obtained.