1836.] TROPICAL SCEXKRY. 477 



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 sur- 

 rounded, 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. 



The most curious object which I saw in this neighbourhood, was 

 the reef that forms the harbour. I doubt whether in the whole 

 world any other natural structure has so artificial an appearance.* 

 It runs for a length of several miles in an absolutely straight line, 

 parallel to, and not far distant from, the shore. It varies in width 

 from thirty to sixty yards, and its surface is level and smooth ; it 

 is composed of obscurely-stratified hard sandstone. At high water 

 the waves break over it ; at low water its summit is left dry, and it 

 might then be mistaken for a breakwater erected by Cyclopean 

 workmen. On this coast the currents of the sea tend to throw up 



* 1 have described this Bar in detail, in the Lond. and Edin. Phil. Ma?., 

 vol. six. (1841), p. 257. 



