528 PEKNAMBUCO, BRAZIL chap. 



Islands. Unfavourable winds, however, delayed us, and on the 

 I 2th 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, permission to pass 

 through their gardens to an uncultivated hill, for the purpose 

 of viewing the country. I feel glad that this happened in 

 the land of the Brazilians, for I bear them no good will — a 

 land also of slavery, and therefore of moral debasement. A 

 Spaniard would have felt ashamed at the very thought of 

 refusing such a request, or of behaving to a stranger with 

 rudeness. The channel by which we went to and returned 

 from Olinda was bordered on each side by mangroves, which 

 sprang like a miniature forest out of the greasy mud-banks. 

 The bright green colour of these bushes always reminded me 

 of the rank grass in a churchyard ; both are nourished by 

 putrid exhalations ; the one speaks of death past, and the 

 other too often of death to come. 



