384 



PROVINCE OF PERNAMBUCO. 



house, a convent of Franciscans, one of unslippered Carmelites, another of 

 slippered Carmelites, and a fourth of Benedictines ; a palace in which the go- 

 vernors in former times were obliged to reside six months in the year ; an epis- 

 copal palace, finely situated, but much deteriorated, being unoccupied in conse- 

 quence of the death of the bishop; a seminary in the ex-Jesuitical college, with 

 schools, and professors of Greek, Latin, French, geography, rhetoric, universal 

 history, philosophy, drawing, ecclesiastical history, dogmatical and moral theo- 

 logy, a great number of hermitages, and a garden of trees and exotic plants, 

 chiefly Asiatic, from whence the farmers can transplant them into their own 

 grounds. It has also the bread-fruit tree and Otaheitan cane, and occupies an 

 advantageous situation, but is not kept in good order. This city is divided into 

 two parishes, one of them being of the cathedral, which is a magnificent edifice, 

 with three naves, dedicated to St. Salvador, and contains eight hundred and 

 eighty houses; the other has for parochial the church of St. Pedro Martin, and 

 comprises three hundred and fifteen houses. 



Tlie senate is rich ; almost all the houses pay to it a testoon (three hundred 

 reas) of tax for each span of front. Almost all have large gardens, but gene- 

 rally of little or no utility. The ground is appropriated to the cultivation of 

 fruitful trees, of which mangoes are the principal. 



The last donatory of this province affirmed that Ollinda, when it was burned, 

 had two thousand five hundred houses, which were estimated to contain twenty- 

 five thousand inhabitants. 



The decay of Ollinda was considered by many of its inhabitants as a punish- 

 ment for the pride of its rich and leading persons, whose libertinism had 

 arrived at such a pitch, that an orator preaching on a festival day in one of the 

 parish churches, and energetically declaiming against the vices prevailing in the 

 country, some of the principal people commanded him to be silent, and dragged 

 him with violence from the pulpit, without the auxihary priests being able to 

 prevent the outrage. 



The convents, which are handsome and well-built, occupy the finest situa- 

 tions in Ollinda, generally upon the acclivity or summits of the eminences, from 

 whence the views are interesting. Some of these religious establishments have 

 now but few friars, and one of them was occupied by a military detachment. 

 The walls surrounding the grounds of several, I observed, were broken down in 

 many parts, and in a state of dilapidation; and the enclosures, which would have 

 formed fine pleasure grounds, were barren, unplanted, and quite neglected. 



On proceeding from hence by the sand-bank to the Recife, I was suddenly 



