Olímpio suddenly leapt toward Amador and grasped him in a wild embrace. “Esmeraldas!” he shouted. “Esmeraldas!” They danced around in front of Almeida, laughing and cheering at the top of their voices: “Viva! Viva! Viva! Vitória!” When they finally separated, Olímpio pointed at the outcrops of rock. “Here will be a quarry, Father — a mine to rival the wealth of Potosi!”
“Yes!” Amador shouted. “Oh, yes! The mine of Amador Flôres da Silva . . . and Olímpio Ramalho!” He looked down at the goldsmith. “And you, my faithful soldier, Procópio Almeida!”
Trajano had been executed in September 1679, twenty months ago. The camp had been abandoned two days after the hanging, and the bandeira had been on the move ever since, Amador’s obsession growing stronger with every day that passed. At night he would rave for hours about emeralds and curse the forces that concealed them from him. Sometimes he would wake trembling from nightmares in which he wrestled with the ghost of Marcos de Azeredo. A few words of doubt, an expression of hopelessness from Procópio Almeida or Olímpio, and Amador would fly into a rage and threaten the punishment he had inflicted on his bastard son.
Amador had shown no remorse over Trajano’s death, and if he referred to him, it was with contempt. In contrast, he had wept openly when Abeguar died the previous winter.
Wherever they stopped, Procópio Almeida had prospected for gold, finding more traces but no significant source. He had not wanted to undertake this journey, but he’d had no alternative, for he could not flee back to São Paulo by himself. He rode one of Olímpio’s mules, exhausted and downhearted.
Like Procópio, Olímpio had despaired that they would find emeralds. Trajano’s death had left him with a lasting fear of Amador, but it was more than this that kept him with the column. Olímpio was dutiful to his father, and accepted that he must stand by him for as long as he was called upon to do so.
They had been moving in a circular route, first west, then north and back toward the southeast, when they entered this valley. Passing along the northwest rim of the lake, they had been forced to swing to the south by the foul vegetation there — to a rocky terrain, where the exposed matrix in which the green gems were embedded indicated a vast deposit of emeralds.
They remained at the lake for two weeks collecting samples of rock. Procópio removed ten fine gems from the richest of these matrices. “I will personally take these emeralds to the infante Pedro,” Amador announced. “I’ll beg our prince to accept these first jewels of Terra do Brasil for the crown he will come to wear.”
When they had enough samples, Amador ordered thirty of the seventy-six Tupi and Carijó who remained with him to set up camp near the lake, until he returned to mine his emeralds.
On June 2, 1681, Amador mounted one of Olímpio’s mules to begin the journey home. A deerskin jerkin had replaced his ruined leather jacket, his breeches were cut from a gray blanket, his sandals had been made by the slaves. The appearance of Olímpio and Procópio Almeida was no better, and as he looked at them, Amador gave a burst of laughter. “Come, my beggars! Come! To São Paulo de Piratininga!” He made an effort to straighten his stooped shoulders; he slapped the pouch at his side and gave a triumphant cry. “Raise your eyes! Lift your spirits! When the voyage ends, you’ll be princes. And I?” He laughed again. “A king — the king of emeralds!”
On June 22, 1681, they headed across a hilly tableland toward the Mantiqueira Mountains.
For several days Olímpio had watched his father with concern. It was as if the full effect of the years in the highlands had suddenly reached him. Amador’s excitement had diminished. He complained of exhaustion and begged that they hurry to São Paulo; at times he leaned forward with his head drooping and had difficulty staying on the mule. Olímpio kept close to him and encouraged him along with talk of the grand reception that awaited them. But Amador’s responses grew fewer and fewer, and though he urged the column to move hastily, he could not travel for more than a few hours a day.
On June 27, 1681, shortly after noon, Amador called a halt at a stream three days’ journey from the Mantiqueira. When he’d been helped to the ground, he immediately dozed off in a feverish sleep. But he awoke toward evening, and for the first time in days he showed improvement and called for food. Olímpio and Procópio Almeida sat with him and expressed relief to see his strength returning.
“How many times have the devils of the sertão tried to carry me off?” Amador asked. “Here in these hills, in the north with Segge Proot . . . wherever I voyaged, they waited. Too late! Too late! The conquest is mine!”
Amador asked that more wood be thrown on the fire, and in the light from the flames, he opened the pouch with the emeralds, rolled some gems into the palm of his hand, and held up the smallest, admiring it. He saw Procópio Almeida staring at him and gave an expressive snort. “This pebble is worth more than that whole bag of dust you carry, Procópio. Not gold . . . not silver in these highlands.” His expression grew reverent as he gazed at the stone. “Esmeraldas.”
“There is gold, Captain-Major.”
“Yes! Yes! Gold of El Dorado. Gold of fools!”
“I’ve seen many traces.”
“All led to nothing. Why dream of gold? Why dream when your very eyes have seen a fortune?”
“True, Captain-Major,” Procópio said, and soon afterward, he got up and went to his sleeping place.
It was bitterly cold. In the middle of the night, Olímpio got up and added more logs to the fire. His father was uncovered, and he threw a blanket over him before returning to his own covers.
Before dawn the camp began to stir as slaves prepared for the day’s journey. Olímpio saw that Amador was still asleep and did not disturb him but went to attend to his mules. He was with them when Procópio Almeida came to him.
“Your father . . .”
Olímpio turned to look at Amador’s still form. Immediately he knew. “Now? Here? So near the end?”
“He had his triumph,” Procópio Almeida said quietly.
And so, in his sixty-seventh year, while he lay in a deep and contented sleep, dreaming of the glory to come, with his pouch of emeralds at his side, Amador Flôres da Silva died. In the sertão.
“For God’s sake, what are you doing?” Olímpio asked Procópio Almeida three hours later. Procópio was struggling with a hide bearing rock samples that had been strapped to a mule. Amador’s body had been wrapped in hides and tied to one of the other mules, for it was Olímpio’s desire that the Benedictines inter his father.
“I told the slaves to discard these,” Procópio said irritably. “You don’t understand, my friend?”
“What?” Olímpio asked urgently. “What must I understand?”
“These green stones are tourmalines. Inferior. Flawed. Not worth the trouble to carry back.”
“But . . . but you said emeralds.”
“How else could we end this madness?” Procópio Almeida responded.
At first, Olímpio Ramalho had been furious at the deception, but then he came to realize that Procópio Almeida had done the right thing. Both, however, were very wrong in thinking that the last bandeira of Amador Flôres da Silva had ended there. It was Ishmael Pinheiro who appreciated the real finale to that tremendous quest — eleven years later.
Ishmael was seventy-eight, and by this time his sons and grandsons conducted the Pinheiro trading venture. Ishmael was mostly to be found on a bench at a tree near his storehouse, where he held court with friends and anyone who would stop for conversation. He was sitting here on a November morning in 1692 when he espied a mule-drawn wagon approaching. He watched it for some minutes and then raised his still corpulent, flabby body and moved slowly toward it.
Olímpio Ramalho walked beside the mules. He hailed Ishmael and went to meet him. Ishmael smiled with pleasure, for Olímpio was not only the son of Amador Flôres, who had been his great friend; he was also Ishmael’s son-in-law, having married his daughter Marianna ten years ago. Ishmael called out a greeting and looked p
ast Olímpio to the wagon, which was being brought to a stop by two slaves. He saw that it held another consignment of quince preserve.
Maria Ramalho da Silva! There were few women to compare with old Maria, Ishmael thought. Amador had died leaving his family with enormous debts, and religiously Maria had sent her produce year after year and taken only the barest supplies in return, determined to repay the thousands of cruzados still owed.
“Please, senhor!” Olímpio said excitedly after their greetings. “Come . . . please.” He took Ishmael’s arm and guided him toward the high-wheeled wagon.
“What is it?” Ishmael asked, but Olímpio simply urged him on. When he was close to the wagon, Ishmael stopped.
“Such a day, senhor, I promise you . . .”
Ishmael looked incredulously at the huge figure of Maria Ramalho enthroned on a pile of animal skins. Almost eighty, wrinkled, toothless, nearly blind in her good eye now, and showing the strain of the thirty-mile trek from the da Silva lands, Maria bent her head toward Ishmael. “My son has told you?”
“What, Dona Maria?” he asked. “Your preserve. A fine harvest. But there was no need for you to come.”
Maria laughed, no ordinary laugh but a burst of pure joy. “Tell him, Olímpio,” she said. “Tell him!”
Olímpio smiled at his mother’s impatience. “Let’s go inside, Dona Maria.”
This took time, for the slaves had difficulty getting Maria off the wagon. Ishmael fussed and fumed and threatened dire punishment for the slightest discomfort to the grand old mameluco matron. After twenty minutes, they had Maria safely installed in Ishmael’s best brocaded chair.
Maria’s expression of joy increased. “I’m here,” she began, and hesitated, her fleshy chins wobbling. “Ishmael Pinheiro, I’ve come . . .” Again she hesitated, and moved her hand slowly from side to side. At last she managed to say, “To pay the debt of Amador Flôres!”
Ishmael looked at her with perplexity. Always she had paid with preserve. What he had seen in the wagon would bring a few hundred cruzados — certainly not enough to settle the balance.
Olímpio entered the room carrying a good-sized cask.
“Show him, my son!” Maria cried.
Olímpio banged off the top of the cask. Ishmael swayed forward, frowning deeply.
“Gold!” Olímpio cried. “We’ve found a river of gold, Procópio Almeida and I.”
They had gone back to the highlands a year after Amador’s death. They had not committed themselves to one interminable journey but had returned to São Paulo every eighteen months or so. Again and again they had found traces — enough to pay for their expeditions — but it had taken eleven years before they came to a river, two days’ journey north of the old camp, where a single day’s work with the bateia produced one thousand oitavos! Procópio Almeida was back there now, guarding their precious claim, for many others had become convinced that gold in great quantities was to be found in the highlands of Terra do Brasil.
Ishmael had to steady himself by holding onto Olímpio as he peered into the cask and beheld the golden treasure.
Maria clapped her hands. “The quinto for Lisbon. The rest — will it be enough, Ishmael Pinheiro?”
“Dear heaven, yes!”
“There’s more,” Olímpio said. “More than you ever dreamed possible.”
“It was his dream, too,” Maria said, a broad smile on her face. “Your father’s dream, Olímpio Ramalho. What did it matter that he hunted emeralds? He led the way.”
Ishmael crossed slowly to her and took her hands into his own. “Oh, yes, Dona Maria. Amador Flôres da Silva led the way.”
THE ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO BRAZIL - THE BANDEIRANTES
BOOK FOUR: Republicans and Sinners
XIV
October 1755 - March 1756
Marcelino Augusto Arzão da Fonseca was a pale and cherub-faced libertine with the eyes of a saint. These eyes, blue and agleam with innocence, had rescued him from many a scrape with student patrols at the University of Coimbra, and had disarmed countless peasant maidens in the poplar groves along Coimbra’s Mondego River. Marcelino Augusto’s wenching and an enthusiasm for cockfighting were matched by a quick intelligence and a good memory, and he had been awarded his diploma in law.
On a serene autumn day in October 1755, life could not have been more promising for twenty-three-year-old Marcelino Augusto and two companions whom he had invited to his father’s country estate at Sintra, seventeen miles northwest of Lisbon. These young men were also recent graduates of Coimbra, where Marcelino Augusto had befriended them; they were both from Brazil, and were soon to take passage back to Brazil.
Marcelino Augusto was the eldest son of Dom António Pinto da Fonseca — he had served for a decade in Portuguese India and at the Bahia, where he had been an aide to a governor-general before retiring to Portugal in 1729.
After leaving the Bahia, Dom António had devoted himself to increasing his fortune and was now a wealthy man. This preoccupation with commerce had damaged his reputation among envious fidalgos who regarded the merchants with whom Dom António associated as parasitical and suspect of Judaic sympathies grave enough to arouse the Grand Inquisitor. Though rarely seen at court, Dom António remained loyal to his king; twice he had made secret loans to His Majesty. But Dom António was openly contemptuous toward pampered courtiers and worthless sycophants, and he could not abide overzealous ecclesiastics.
Marcelino Augusto had been influenced by his father’s ideas, which, though lagging behind the enlightened thinking elsewhere in Europe during these middle years of the eighteenth century, were eminently reasonable. Thus it was that Marcelino Augusto, scion of a wealthy and noble family of Portugal, could, with Dom António’s encouragement, associate with two young men upon whom many highborn Portuguese would look down.
Luis Fialho Soares was twenty-five, the oldest of the three, and hailed from the southern captaincies of Brazil. His prominent cheekbones, a slight bronze tinge to his skin, and almond-shaped eyes bespoke a Tupi heritage; he freely admitted a savage princess among his ancestors, a claim so prevalent as to suggest there were no commoners among the pagans of old Santa Cruz. Generations of Luis Fialho’s family had followed the bandeirante pursuits of slaving, exploring, and prospecting, until his grandfather, Baltasar Soares, a Paulista, struck gold north of the Mantiqueira Mountains during the rush that followed the initial discoveries. Today, the Soares family had gold washings, and a farm with cattle and pigs; Luis Fialho’s father, Floriano Soares, had also prospered as a moneylender. Luis Fialho had been sent to the Jesuit colégio at Rio de Janeiro, and from there to Coimbra to study law, though his ruling passion was poetry of Arcadian simplicity.
The second of Marcelino Augusto’s friends had also been born in Brazil, but he differed from Luis Fialho in all other respects. Paulo Benevides Cavalcanti was the first member of his family to be sent from Engenho Santo Tomás to Coimbra, where he, too, had stood in the Sala dos Capelos to receive his law degree. Descended from Dom Fernão Cavalcanti, one of the heroes of the “War of Divine Liberty” against the Dutch, Paulo was the son of Bartolomeu Rodrigues Cavalcanti, the great-grandson of Fernão. Senhor Bartolomeu’s first wife, Dona Eglantina Castelo, bore him five girls before her death in 1727; his second wife, Catarina Benevides, the daughter of a planter from Cabo district south of Recife, was the mother of Paulo and two other sons, Graciliano and Geraldo.
Paulo, the oldest son, was twenty-three. He had finely arched eyebrows, thick lashes, and a straight, thin nose. He had the typical Cavalcanti physique, compact and muscular, though taller than average, and exuded an aura of vitality and confidence. He shared his companions’ preference for the French fashion, and wore powdered wig, salmon-colored embroidered silk waistcoat, brown breeches, and buckled shoes. A knee-length velvet coat with gold frogging and passementerie completed his outfit, but Paulo had removed the coat and now carried it over his arm, since a short ramble suggested by Marcelino Augusto this afternoon had lengthened into a t
wo-hour assault on a steep hill behind the Fonseca property.
They had climbed along a winding path through shadowy pines and hazelwoods to the summit, where the fortresslike monastery of Pena stood gloomy and silent, its desolation the result of a fire twelve years ago. From these heights, they had a stupendous view of sandy beaches and rocky promontories along the dark blue Atlantic six miles to the west, and in the distance, the mouth of the Tagus River.
Marcelino Augusto sped from one vantage point to another, dramatically describing the scenes below: “Here, my friends, at this very place a lookout spied the first of Dom Vasco da Gama’s ships sailing toward the Tagus. ‘All India is ours!’ cried the fellow, and ran to deliver this news to Dom Manoel the Fortunate. This sanctuary was built by the king in thanks for the passage to the East!”
Marcelino Augusto swung his arm to the north. “And there you see evidence of the gratitude of another king of Portugal!”
He pointed to an immense pile of buildings on the horizon — the towered, domed 880-room Mafra palace, which had been completed fifteen years ago. After three years of childless marriage, Dom João V had vowed that if given an heir, he would erect a monastery on the site of the poorest priory in his kingdom. When his prayers were answered with the birth of a daughter and a son, Dom João had ordered the construction of this colossal building.
Though Dom João had devoted most of his largesse to the court and the church, he had also provided Coimbra’s university with a splendid library, a gilded and lacquered extravaganza. And his engineers had given Lisbon several impressive public works, including a nine-mile aqueduct in the valley of Alcantara just outside the capital.
Before coming to Portugal, Paulo Cavalcanti had traveled no farther than Pernambuco, and his visits to the towns of Olinda and Recife had been infrequent. Like earlier generations of Cavalcanti sons, Paulo had been imbued with respect for the motherland, and he admired the fact that the new structures were as splendid as those built when the riches of the Indies had reached Lisbon. The continuity suggested that the genius of the Portuguese remained as bold and inventive as in the days of As Conquistas.
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