

RIVER DOCE. 



335 



each other in that part of Brazil * : here com- 

 menced that memorahle struggle upon which 

 the Pemambucans, with so much reason, pride 

 themselves. The beginning was not propitious, 

 and did not augur well of the result, but time 

 proved the people to be worthy of the beautiful 

 country which they inhabit. The river Tapado, 

 upon the banks of which the Portuguese com- 

 mander afterwards attempted to rally his men ■*, 

 lies between the Doce and Olinda. It is a 

 rivulet or dyke (for it resembles more the latter 

 than the former) without any outlet to the sea, 

 but it is only separated from it by the sands, 

 which are here about twenty yards across. 

 When the rains have been violent, the additional 

 waters of the Tapado are discharged over the 

 sands, and sometimes at spring tides, when the 

 wind blows fresh, a few waves will reach over 

 them and fall into the dyke ; this being the only 

 manner in which they can communicate with 

 each other. At the Doce likewise landed Pedro 

 Jaques de Magalhaens, the general, and Brito 

 Freire (now known as an historian), the admiral 

 of the fleet which assisted the patriots of Per- 

 nambuco in the completion of their long-desired 

 and hardly-earned object — the reconquest of Re- 

 cife, and consequent expulsion of the Dutch, t 

 But to return, — I arrived upon the banks of 



* History of Brazil, vol.i. p. 467. and 468. 

 f Ibid. vol. ii. p. 237. 



