394 Voyage of the Novara. 



able landing-place on the eastern side of the roads, tlie 

 traveller is conveyed to the shore through the lash of the 

 waves in a small cockle-shaped boat, just as at Madeira or 

 Madras, and equally uncomfortably ; but although the boat and 

 the mode in which it is navigated are anything but calculated 

 "to inspire confidence, such a thing as an accident is of rare 

 occurrence. 



The natiiralists of the Novara found an exceedingly 

 friendly and hearty reception at the beautiful residence of 

 the Russian Consul, M. Von Carlowitz, who shortly before 

 had come from Canton to settle in Macao, with his excellent 

 wife, a very beautiful lady of Altenburg in Germany, there 

 to await the upshot of the war. 



Our first visit the following morning — a bright and beauti- 

 ful Sabbath morning — was to the renowned Camoens Grotto, 

 situated in a large well- wooded park, partly covered with 

 primeval forest, the property of a Portuguese family of the 

 name of Marquez. All around there reigned utter, almost 

 sacred silence. Here it was that Camoens, banished from his 

 native land, wrote his Lusiad. The park with its fragrant 

 shady aisles, its majestic leafy domes, impervious even to the 

 rays of the tropical sun, its huge piles of rock round which 

 clamber the immense roots of gigantic fig-trees, its deliciously 

 cool atmosphere, its soft green velvet paths, its heaps of 

 ruined walls, and its death-like quietness, seems as though 

 destined for the asylum of an exiled poet, who, instead of 

 lamenting his destiny like common men in sullen silence, felt 



