RMS Caronia is expected to arrive at her anchorage in Bahia at 7.00am on Monday, 23 January. The anchorage area is only
a few minutes tender ride from the wharf, which is located in the Lower Town and only a block away from the elevator
connecting the Lower Town with the Upper City.
The charge for the lift is 20 centavos per person, the admission is through a turnstile and a representative of our
Port Agents - (Wilson, Sons and Co.) will be stationed at the entrance to hand out the necessary coins. Each passenger
will receive 20 centavos coins for a round trip journey. The elevator will lift passengers to the upper platform at the
main square of the city directly in the shopping centre.
Bahia, one of the larger cities in Brazil, is also one of the poorest. The shops are few and not well stocked, and
prices may be regarded as high.
23 January 1950
São Salvador, Bahia, Brazil
To give Bahia its full title we would write it: São Salvador de Bahia de Todos os Santos,
or we may speak of it as Sao Salvador, or just Bahia, also spelled Baia.
Bahia is 477 years old this year (2026). It was first founded in 1549, and remained
Brazil's capital for 214 years, in other words until 1763.
Today the Upper and Lower Towns are connected not only by detouring ramp-like motor roads, but also by four public lifts
close to the Custom House. There are also two little inclined railroads, or rack lifts, further along the quays.
In the Lower Town, along the waterfront, one finds not only the commercial quarter but also a most picturesque market,
with its happy and interesting negro occupants. In the Upper Town, situated on a little plateau nearly 200 feet above
the Lower Town, are the Government Buildings, the shopping district and the principal residential sections.
Bahia has much to offer in historical buildings and early Colonial atmosphere. Many of her 70 churches, her old
fortifications and other of her structures go back to the 16th century.
Bahia is the great centre of the tobacco and cocoa trades, is famous for her cigars and cigarettes, and has large
exports of piassava, coffee, hides, cocoa and general produce. But some facts about precious stones may prove of interest.
Although gems more or less precious are found in many parts of Brazil in great variety, the state of Bahia has sometimes
been spoken of as the gem state, but it is one of the states in which diamonds are found.
It may be a surprise to some to know that Brazilian diamonds, which have been obtained for over 200 years, are valued
even more highly than those of Kimberley, in Africa. But in the state of Bahia, along the Paraguasen River, is found a
stone which appears hardly anywhere else outside of Brazil. This stone is the black diamond, or carbonados, which is
used industrially as an abrasive.
A rose diamond was discovered in the Rio Abasta in 1919, reported to be the largest of its kind in the World. One
diamond found on the Rio Areado, at Patos, weighed over 2,000 carats and was valued at £160,000. In 1943 Bahia
cleared 3,899 grammes of black diamonds, valued at $5,847,200. Manganese ore is also being worked on an increasing
scale near the Port of Bahia.
Bahia is also an orange state and it was from here that the California Navel orange was transplanted. The Bahia coconut
yields 15% more copra than the Eastern coconut, and 63% in oil, as compared with 54% from the Asiatic nut.
This state had a population of 463,000 in 1944 in an area of 731,363 square miles. Salvador, Bahia, the capital, is one
of the most picturesque towns we shall visit on the cruise.
The Riches of South America
Many North Americans have been too prone to take South America for granted or to think of that continent as a newcoming
land. Yet there is no other continent that is more important in its economic and social relations to us as that of South
America. Also, it is vitally important from the standpoint of hemisphere defence.
Historically, South America is older by about 100 years than Anglo-Saxon America. Lima, Peru, had established a
university before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. Economically, South and Central America have made contributions
to the Old World that definitely changed the course of its life and history.
The debt which Europe and we of North America owe to the Amerindian (American Indian) peoples in the latter's discovery
of agricultural plants, fibres, gums, dyes, medicines and technical processes is inestimable.
Now, specifically, just what are we and Europe indebted to them for? Permit us to list some of the most important food
plants they cultivate, which often includes specific technical processes in their cultivation or preparation, as below…
South-American Flora
Alligator Pear
Arracacha
Barbados Cherries
Cacao
Cashew Nuts
Cassawa
Custard Apples
Guava
Jocote
Kidney Beans
Lima Beans
Maize
Nispero
Oca
Pacay
Paraquay Tea
Paw Paws
Peanuts
Peppers
Persimmon
Pineapple
Potatoes
Pumpkins
Sour Soup
Squashes
Star Apples
Strawberries
Sweet Soup
Sweet Potatoes
Tomatoes
As if these items were not enough, let us give you a few of those things discovered and used by the Amerinds which have
been other important economic contributions to European life:
Europeans owe the autochthonous (originating where it is found) inhabitants of South and Central America a debt they will
never be able to repay.
Since those early days new discoveries and developments of many new riches have been made, and in this great continent
we have twelve of the strategic materials used in our national military defence.
In today's disturbed world we must realise that the most elementary facts about the other twenty Republics of this
hemisphere have become important to us. The destiny of the United States is linked with that of our Latin American
neighbours with whom, as Ambassadors, let us spread the good neighbour policy.
25 January 1950
Rio de Janeiro
RMS Caronia is due to arrive at Rio de Janeiro at approximately 7.00am on Wednesday, 25 January.
The ship will dock at Praca Maua, which is centrally located and near the business and shipping districts of Rio de
Janeiro - at the foot of the main thoroughfare, the Rio Branco Avenue.
Beautiful Rio
Rio de Janeiro is a breath-taking, fantastic city set amid peaks, palms and the sea. This setting, with its superb
brilliance of colouring, is one of the most admired in the World.
To see Rio at its best, one must be up on deck, when wisps of the melting clouds, dispelled by the early sun, slowly
unfold and reveal a scenic panorama, the beauty of which is as futile to adequately describe as to try to convey a
beautiful face by giving the colour, the number and the approximate dimensions of the features.
Rio is, in every sense of the word, as its residents the Cariocans state: “God-made!” They also say that,
as if to show His final satisfaction with His great scenic masterpiece, God placed stately Sugar Loaf at the entrance
of the harbour, to serve as an exclamation point!
Rear of Christ statue on Corcovado
[Image: Gráfica Franco period postcard.
Courtesy: George Peterson]NavBar
The view from the summit of 1,200-foot Sugar Loaf, reached by aerial cableway, is rivalled only by that of Corcovado,
the “Hunchback”, a precipitous pinnacle that has become a 2,300-foot pedestal for a colossal statue of
Christ the Redeemer.
Beyond slumbers bulky Tijuca, with the profile of a reclining giant. Then there's Gavea, whose name means either a crow's
nest or the sail of a ship. Nature has provided countless other green hills and granite spurs to bracket Rio's
island-studded Guanabara Bay.
Rio's principal boulevard is the Avenida Rio Branco, which starts at the Praca Maua, where you walk off the gang-plank
of our ship, and stretches for a mile and a half from north to south, to join the Avenida Beira Mar.
This splendid thoroughfare then skirts the Praca Paris, swings around Flamengo Beach, describes a semi-circle about the
shore of Botofago Bay, and halts in the shadow of Sugar Loaf.
Partial aerial view of Copacabana, Rio
[Image: Colombo period postcard.
Courtesy: George Peterson]
Rates of Exchange
18.32 Cruzeiros to one U.S. dollar. Unofficially we understand that Cruzeiros may be purchased at some discount.
Along the Rio Branco are the city's banks, Government Ministries, cinemas, clubs and cafés. Parisian-like, some
of the cafés spill out on the street, where Cariocans stop to drink coffee, heavily sweetened, and to watch the
world go by.
Rio de Janeiro at night
[Image: Gráfica Franco period postcard.
Courtesy: George Peterson]
Among Rio's most unusual attractions are its unique sidewalks of confusing stone paving, set with a mosaic of black and
white stones, plazas and paths seem to billow and wave in the bright sunshine.
Rio's other outstanding assets are its wonderful beaches, of which Copacabana is the most attractive and popular. But
to really appreciate the scenic beauty of Rio one has to view it from the summit of Corcovado. From here Rio glistens
like a jewel in its setting of blue sea, dotted with purple and jade mountains. This is definitely one of the
outstanding ports of call on our cruise.
