UNCLE TOM IN BRAZIL

Evening Star, Issue 20985, 26 December 1931, Page 4

UNCLE TOM IN BRAZIL

A reader who is staying at Rio writes to tell us that one of the chief impressions given to a visitor to Brazil is the apparent equality between the negro and the white man. They work alongside each other, mending the roads, driving the tram cars, and carrying out many kinds of work as if there were no such thing as a colour bar. They all seem to be such good friends too. And yet it is scarcely more than forty years since Don Pedro the Second, Emperor of Brazil, would never leave his palace in the city of Rio de Janeiro for a few days’ shooting among the mountains without taking his retinue of slaves with him. , The Imperial shooting box' where he stayed may still be seen. In the wilderness of grass which was once a garden grow tobacco plants and coffee bushes. Tall palm trees with smooth grey trunks make a fine avenue up to the house, and behind rise the mountains, green and densely wooded, where monkeys swing from branch to branch and snakes sleep through the still hot day. The house is a cool-looking dwelling with its front door opening out of a verandah above a flight of stone steps. It has a red-tiled roof, and white shutters keep out the hot afternoon sun. The crimson blossoms of hibiscus are in flower by the side of the bouse. All seems very peaceful, yet if we look below the verandah on each side of the flight of steps wo shall see open doorways that once led into the cells of the Emperor’s slaves. They are low doorways, and we bend our heads to go inside. There we see little stone cells, four feet by ten, leading into one another through low-arched doorways. They are dark and chill after the brilliant sunshine outside.

These were the homes of the slaves, and there they lay at night on rough straw mattresses, their ankles tied lest they should try to escape. On fine nights they could lie and - watch the Southern Cross in tho square patch of sky through the open doorways; but when the tropical rains came down they would lie huddled in the farthest corners 'while the rain swept in at the doorways and flooded the cells. In the daytime the Emperor would summon his slaves to go with him on his hunting expeditious, and they would march on ahead with shrill cries, boating tho long grass for snakes, and carrying home the game at the end of the day. When sport was slack the slaves would sit on the stone bench that runs round the house, chained up to rings in the wall. The rings have grown rusty, and the only occupant of the bench when we saw it was a great St. Bernard dog stretched out along it asleep. It is good to know that slaves were set free in 1889, the year in which the Emperor abdicated. Among the woods and tho hills of the countryside stand dwellings that tell the shameful story of slave colonies, with their cells below ground for the slaves and rings in the -walls of the houses also to which they were chained to prevent any chance of escape. But Brazil, where the_ nuts come from, is a better and happier place now. Undo Tom has a home of his own, freedom to do what ho likes, and can come and go as he wishes.