230 THE VOVAGE. /ETAT. 23. [1832. 



opportunity. We have been singularly unlucky in not 

 meeting with any homeward-bound vessels, but I suppose [at] 

 Bahia we certainly shall be able to write to England. Since 

 writing the first part of [this] letter nothing has occurred 

 except crossing the Equator, and being shaved. This most dis- 

 agreeable operation, consists in having your face rubbed with 

 paint and tar, which forms a lather for a saw which represents 

 the razor, and then being half drowned in a sail filled with 

 salt water. About 50 miles north of the line we touched at 

 the rocks of St. Paul ; this little speck (about of a mile 

 across) in the Atlantic has seldom been visited. It is totally 

 barren, but is covered by hosts of birds ; they were so unused 

 to men that we found we could kill plenty with stones and 

 sticks. After remaining some hours on the island, we returned 

 on board with the boat loaded with our prey. From this we 

 went to Fernando Noronha, a small island where the [Bra- 

 zilians] send their exiles. The landing there was attended 

 with so much difficulty owing [to] a heavy surf that the Cap- 

 tain determined to sail the next day after arriving. My one 

 day on shore was exceedingly interesting, the whole island is 

 one single wood so matted together by creepers that it is very 

 difficult to move out of the beaten path. I find the Natural 

 History of all these unfrequented spots most exceedingly 

 interesting, especially the geology. I have written this much 

 in order to save time at Bahia. 



Decidedly the most striking thing in the Tropics is the 

 novelty of the vegetable forms. Cocoa-nuts could well be 

 imagined from drawings, if you add to them a graceful light- 

 ness which no European tree partakes of. Bananas and plan- 

 tains are exactly the same as those in hothouses, the acacias 

 or tamarinds are striking from the blueness of their foliage ; 

 but of the glorious orange trees, no description, no drawings, 

 will give any just idea ; instead of the sickly green of our 

 oranges, the native ones exceed the Portugal laurel in the 

 darkness of their tint, and infinitely exceed it in beauty of 



