146 



NATURE 



\Pec. 20, 1877 



could reach they quivered in the air. Looking up into 

 the sky where they were thickest, they were seen to be 

 close together and had much the appearance and peculiar 

 motion of large flakes of snow. Amidst such a down- 

 pour the entrance to Bahia was seen. It is very beautiful ; 

 the coast is not elevated ; it is neither mountainous nor 

 hilly, but rises fiom the sea-shore in even terraces, 

 broken here and there by ravines and wooden knolls, 

 every space gloriously clothed with vegetation, and the 

 sky-line broken by long lines of palm trees — from the 

 sea it reminded one of Lisbon, but its splendid luxuriance 

 of vegetation gives it a character of its own. 



The scientific work of the Challefiger was to be on the 

 ocean, and Sir W. Thomson properly discouraged his 

 staff from expending too much of their time or energies 

 on investigating the natural history of the few spots of 

 North or South America that they from time to time 



landed on. We therefore in these volumes meet with 

 very few references to the glimpses that they got of this 

 continent, but some time had to be spent at Bahia, and 

 we cannot avoid giving the following interesting extract 

 which describes a visit made by Sir W. Thomson to 

 Santo Amaro. 



" Mr. Wilson was obliged to be next day at Sto. Amaro, 

 a little town about thirty miles distant, across one of the 

 ridges on another river where he had a line of steamers 

 plying, and he asked us to ride there with him ; so we went 

 back to his house and dined, and spent the evening at his 

 window inhaling the soft flower-perfumed air and gazing 

 at the stars twinkling in their crystal dome of the deepest 

 blue, and their travesties in a galaxy of fire-flies glittering 

 and dancing over the flowers m the garden beneath us. 

 It was late when we tossed ourselves down to take a short 

 sleep, for two o'clock was the hour fixed to be in the 



Fig. I —The Challenger at St. Paul's Rocks. 



saddle in the morning. We rode out of the town in the 

 starlight, Mr. Wilson, Capt. Maclear, and myself, with a 

 native guide on a fast mule. We were now obliged to 

 trust entirely to the instinct of our horses, for if a path 

 were visible in the daylight there was certainly none in 

 the dark, and we scrambled for a couple of hours right up 

 the side of the ridge. When we reached the top we came 

 out upon flat open ground with a little cultivation, 

 bounded in front of us by the dark hne of dense forest. The 

 night was almost absolutely silent, only now and then a 

 peculiar shrill cry of some night-bird reached us from the 

 woods. As we got into the skirt of the forest the morn- 

 ing broke, but the rdveil in a Brazilian forest is wonder- 

 fully diff^erent from the slow creeping on of the dawn of a 

 summer morning at home, to the music of the thrushes 

 answering one another's full rich notes from neighbouring 

 thorn-trees. Suddenly a yellow light spreads upwards in 



the east, the stars quick'y fade, and the dark fringes of 

 the forest and the tall palms show out black against the 

 yellow sky, and almost before one has time to observe 

 the change the sun has risen straight and fierce, and the 

 whole landscape is bathed in the full light of day. But 

 the morning is for yet another hour cool and fresh, and the 

 scene is indescribably beautiful. The woods, so absolutely 

 silent and still before, break at once into noise and move- 

 ment. Flocks of toucans flutter and scream on the tops 

 of the highest forest trees hopelessly out of shot, the ear 

 is pierced by the strange wild screeches of a little band of 

 macaws which fly past you like the wrapped-up ghosts of 

 the birds on some gaudy old brocade. There is no 

 warbling, no song, only harsh noises, abrupt calls which 

 those who haunt the forest soon learn to translate by two 

 or three familiar words in Portuguese or English. Now 

 and then a set of cries more varied and dissonant than 



