362 PERNAMBUCO, BRAZIL] [CHAP. xxi. 



brilliant green. In the temperate zones the case is different the vege- 

 tation there is not so dark or so rich, and hence the rays of the declining 

 sun, tinged of a red, purple, or bright yellow colour, add most to the 

 beauties of those climes. 



When quietly walking along the shady pathways, and admiring each 

 successive view, I wished to find language to express my ideas. 

 Epithet after epithet was found too weak to convey to those who have 

 not visited the intertropical regions, the sensation of delight which the 

 mind experiences. I have said that the plants in a hothouse fail to 

 communicate a just idea of the vegetation, yet I must recur to it. The 

 land is one great wild, untidy, luxuriant hothouse, made by Nature for 

 herself, but taken possession of by man, who has studded it with gay 

 houses and formal gardens. How great would be the desire in every 

 admirer of nature to behold, if such were possible, the scenery of 

 another planet 1 yet to every person in Europe, it may be truly said, 

 that at the distance of only a few degrees from his native soil, the 

 glories of another world are opened to him. In my last walk I stopped 

 again and again to gaze on these beauties, and endeavoured to fix in 

 my mind for ever, an impression which at the time I knew sooner or 

 later must fail. The form of the orange-tree, the cocoa-nut, the palm, 

 the mango, the tree-fern, the banana, will remain clear and separate ; 

 but the thousand beauties which unite these into one perfect scene 

 must fade away ; yet they will leave, like a tale heard in childhood, a 

 picture full of indistinct, but most beautiful figures. 



August 6th. In the afternoon we stood out to sea, with the inten- 

 tion of making a direct course to the Cape de Verd Islands. Unfavour- 

 able winds, however, delayed us, and on the 12th we ran into 

 Pernambuco, a large city on the coast of Brazil, in latitude 8 south. 

 We anchored outside the reef; but in a short time a pilot came on 

 board and took us into the inner harbour, where we lay close to the 

 town 



Pernambuco is built on some narrow and low sand-banks, which are 

 separated from each other by shoal channels of salt water. The three 

 parts of the town are connected together by two long bridges built on 

 wooden piles. The town is in all parts disgusting, the streets being 

 narrow, ill-paved, and filthy ; the houses, tall and gloomy. The season 

 of heavy rains had hardly come to an end, and hence the surrounding 

 country, which is scarcely raised above the level of the sea, was flooded 

 with 'water ; and I failed in all my attempts to take long walks. 



The flat swampy land on which Pernambuco stands is surrounded, 

 at the distance of a few miles, by a semicircle of low hills, or rather by 

 the edge of a country elevated perhaps two hundred feet above the sea. 

 The old city of Olinda stands on one extremity of this range. One 

 day I took a canoe, and proceeded up one of the channels to visit it ; I 

 found the old town from its situation both sweeter and cleaner than 

 that of Pernambuco. I must here commemorate what happened for 

 the first time during our nearly five years' wandering, namely, having 

 met with a want of politeness ; I was refused in a sullen manner at 

 two different houses, and obtained with difficulty from a third, permis- 



