m 



TRAVELS INI BRAZIL. 



tions of the sea, proves, by the union of the pro- 

 duce of the north ancl of the south, the happy 

 ^situation of the city. Though a high mountain 

 irises near it, and that on the north side, the har- 

 ibour is not sufficiently protected against winds, and 

 the cold is sometimes severe. The warm sirocco, 

 (which often blows over from Africa, is very re- 

 v^laxing, and frequently brings on diseases. At the 

 4inie of our arrival the vegetable world was almost 

 dead, and excepting Helleborus hyemalis. Crocus 

 reticulatus, and Primula acauUs, we found on the 

 ^bare ground scarcely a sign of the approaching 

 ^ spring. The sea, however, afforded a more ample 

 u*5upply of animals and marine plants^ which, with 

 the collections made on our way hither, and the 

 Unsects which we obtained from naturalists here, 

 -were sent to the cabinet of natural history at 

 Munich.* A painful sensation was excited in 

 cUs by the information which we received, some 

 ^ days after our arrival, that the room which w^ oc- 

 fcUpied in the hotel where we put up, was that in 

 'which Winkelmann met his death from the hand 

 of an assassin. We were here neighbours to the 

 ^commander of the two frigates, Signor Nicola de 

 Pasqualigo, a noble of Venice ; a seaman, as much 

 distinguished by general information and nautical 

 knowledge, as by his courage and resolution, of 

 ( which he gave proofs in the last war. He im- 

 mediately took us to our future quarters on board 



