TO KIO DE JANEIRO. 



19 



place, but were violently tossed by the rolling of the sea. Just before 

 us we had the opening in the coast which leads to the royal city of 

 Rio de Janeiro. A number of small rocky islands lay scattered in it ; 

 some of them strike the eye by their very remarkable forms, and 

 combined with the masses of the distant mountains on the coast, 

 afforded a highly romantic prospect. The rising sun illumined with 

 his powerful beams the bright expanse of the smooth unruffled 

 ocean, as well as the mountains on both sides, which, in picturesque 

 perspective, gradually vanished from' the view in the distant horizon. 

 Among them, on the left, that called the Sugar Loaf (Pao d'Assucar ) 

 is particularly distinguished by its conical form ; and opposite to it, 

 upon the right, in the distance, is seen the point of land on which 

 the fort of Santa Cruz, a small but strong fortress with many guns, 

 is erected for the defence of the capital. 



An extremely faint breeze having arisen about eleven o^clock, the 

 progress of the ship was scarcely perceptible, though every sail was 

 set. We resolved to avail ourselves of this delay to form our first 

 acquaintance with the soil of Brazil, by examining one of those rocky 

 islands. The captain had a boat hoisted out, took some sailors with 

 him, and three of the passengers, of whom I was one, accompanied 

 him. We rowed on without observing that our boat leaked very 

 much, for, having been always suspended at the ship's stern, it had 

 become dry from the heat of the sun. When we had laboured hard 

 for half an hour, against the high swell of the sea, we found that it 

 would be necessary to bale out the water ; but as we had no imple- 

 ments for the purpose, our only resource was to pull off our shoes, 

 and to perform this business with them. 



The high swell of the sea had made us lose sight of the ship : how- 

 ever, after we had twice emptied our boat with our new substitutes 

 for scoops, we reached the Ilha raza (or the flat island, so called to 

 distinguish it from the high Ilha rotunda,) where we wished to land. 



