498 PERNAMBUCO, BRAZIL. [cHap. Xxi 
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 Jand of the Brazilians, for I bear them no good 
willa land also of slavery, and therefore of moral debasement. 
A Spaniard would have felt ashamed at the very thought of re- 
fusing 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 minia- 
ture 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 ap- 
pearance.* 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 sand- 
stone. At high water the waves break over it; at low water its 
summit is left dry, and it might then be mistaken for a break- 
water erected by Cyclopean workmen. On this coast the cur- 
rents of the sea tend to throw up in front of the land, long spits 
and bars of loose sand, and on one of these, part of the town 
of Pernambuco stands. In former times a long spit of this 
nature seems to have become consolidated by the percolation of 
calcareous matter, and afterwards to have been gradually up- 
heaved ; the outer and loose parts during this Srocess having been 
worn away by the action of the sea, and the solid nucleus left as 
we now see it. Although night and day the waves of the open 
Atlantic, turbid with sediment, are driven against the steep out- 
side edges of this wall of stone, yet the oldest pilots know of no 
tradition of any change in its appearance. This durability is 
much the most curious fact in its history: it is due to a tough 
* T have described this Bar in detail, in the Lond. and Edin. Phil. Mag, 
Vou. Kix. (1841), p. 257 
