LAST DAYS IN BRAZIL. 207 



too likely to occur, as on one side the mountain descends 

 perpendicularly over a thousand feet. On the summit are 

 many steps cut in the live rock, without which it would be 

 difficult to keep one's foothold. When I arrived there were 

 three natives in shirt-sleeves and with long sticks. I 

 thought how easily they might go for me, rifle my pockets, 

 and throw me over the wall, a sheer thousand feet, into the 

 virgin forest beneath. However, they did not perpetrate 

 the ghastly deed, or I could hardly have written these 

 lines. 



How can I describe this view.? It almost passes de- 

 scription. With a perfectly cloudless sky, the eye ranged 

 from the Organ Mountains on the north side, some fifty 

 miles away, to Cape Frio, seventy-five miles- to the east, 

 and to a cape beyond the Ilha Grande, near Paraty, some 

 seventy miles or more to the west ; while to the south lay 

 the broad expanse of the Atlantic, whose ripplets broke in 

 silver threads upon the sandy shores, or dashed against 

 precipitous rocks. All the mountains on the Nichteroy side 

 appeared a promiscuous mass of dark green hillocks. The 

 whole of the Bay of Rio de Janeiro, with its countless islands, 

 was mapped out. At a dizzy depth below lay the vast 

 city ; its numerous morros, or hills, scarcely appearing'to 

 rise above the plain. The Sugar-loaf (1383 feet) seemed a 

 ninepin. To the west — by glimpses through the rough- 

 and-tumble forest-clad mountains, among which are the 

 square-topped rock Gavea, and the Two Brothers — were 

 lovely scraps of the Atlantic and the cape in the far 

 distance, on the borders of the province of Sao Paolo. The 

 horizon of the Atlantic was lost in haze ; but on its blue 

 bosom were seen, as tiny white specks, ships in full sail, 

 and one or two steamers. I watched one of the latter, the 

 Advance, coming in from New York. It presently entered 



