RIO DE JANEIRO AND ITS ENVIRONS. 51 



thrown over the other shoulder, hanging almost to the 

 feet behind. She no doubt was of the colored gentry. 

 Just beyond her sat a black woman on the curbstone, 

 almost without clothing, her glossy skin shining in the 

 sun, and her naked child asleep across her knees. Or 

 take this as another picture : an old wall several feet wide, 

 covered with vines, overhung with thick foliage, the top 

 of which seems to be a stand for the venders of fruits, 

 vegetables, &c. Here lies at full length a powerful negro 

 looking over into the street, his jetty arms crossed on a 

 huge basket of crimson flowers, oranges and bananas, 

 against which he half rests, seemingly too indolent to lift 

 a finger even to attract a purchaser. 



April 2oth. Nature seems to welcome our arrival, not 

 only by her most genial, but also by her exceptional moods. 

 There has been to-day an eclipse of the sun, total at 

 Cape Frio, sixty miles from here, almost total here. We 

 saw it from the deck of the ship, not having yet taken 

 up our quarters in town. The effect was as strange as 

 it was beautiful. There was a something weird, uncanny 

 in the pallor and chill which came over the landscape ; 

 it was not in the least like a common twilight, but had 

 a ghastly, phantom-like element in it. Mr. Agassiz passed 

 the morning at the palace where the Emperor had invited 

 him to witness the eclipse from his observatory. The clouds 

 are poor courtiers, however, and unfortunately a mist hung 

 over San Christovao, obscuring the phenomenon at the 

 moment of its greatest interest, Our post of observation 

 was better for this special occasion than the Imperial 

 observatory, and yet, though the general scene was per- 

 haps more effective in the harbor than on the shore, Mr. 

 Agassiz had an opportunity of making some interesting 



