60 



MANGROVES. 



could find a channel in which there was suf- 

 ficient water to float our vessel. It was to Con- 

 ception that the Portuguese came down from 

 Iguaracu for provisions, during the siege of the 

 latter place by the savages in 1548, as is related 

 by Hans Stade. I also observed one of the spots 

 at which the savages attempted to sink the 

 boat as it returned, by means of letting a large 

 tree fall upon it. * The town of Iguaracu was 

 plundered, and the inhabitants slaughtered by 

 the Dutch in 1632, under the direction of the 

 dreadful mulatto Calabar. * 



The mangroves entirely destroy the beauty 

 which it is natural to suppose that the rivers of 

 the country of which I am treating would pos- 

 sess. Until they are destroyed a dull sameness 

 presents itself, for the eye cannot penetrate be- 

 yond them. Upon the banks of the Capibaribe 

 they have given place to houses and gardens, 

 and the alteration is most pleasing ; upon the 

 banks of the Maria Farinha, the mangroves are 

 beginning to give way to cultivation at the set- 

 tlements (sitios) of Jardim and Oiaria ; but the 

 Iguaragu is without any break, and the Goiana 

 is, I understand, in the same state. There are 

 plantations along these rivers, but the owners 

 content themselves with merely cutting a path 

 through the mangroves down to the water's 



* History of Brazil, vol. i. p. 47, and 185. 



