NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



3 



and we endeavoured to sooth them ; yet it seems the boat had shipped a 

 quantity of water, and the moment the painter was made fast swamped 

 completely. Oh ! what a piercing shriek was there ! but it appealed to 

 the hearts of British seamen, and in them nature works promptly. In 

 a moment all who could be useful were over the side, engaged in the 

 pleasing work of saving. Very soon six persons were safe upon deck, 

 but a lady and gentleman, who sat aft, remained in the water. On the 

 first apprehension of danger, the main-sheet had been thrown over as a 

 mean of assisting them ; the gentleman had seized and put it between 

 his teeth, in order to secure his hold, while he endeavoured to support 

 the lady in his arms. Unfortunately, in the almost insensible struggles 

 of such a moment, he threw one arm round the lady, and the other 

 beneath the thwart of the boat, securing his grasp with the most 

 distressing pertinacity. The power of speech had been long gone in 

 both; but the exertions to relieve them so frequently brought their 

 heads above water, as to prolong the power and effects of respiration. 

 It was only when this ceased, that the bodies could be separated from 

 each other and the boat. When the lady was brought on board pulsa- 

 tion was quite gone ; the gentleman's heart still had a feeble motion. 

 In about an hour and a half, both were so far recovered as to be sensible. 

 Two foreign passengers had beheld the scene with silent, but interested 

 surprise, and afterwards expressed great astonishment at the instances of 

 resuscitation which they witnessed. One of them, when he noticed the 

 lady habited in such dress as could be furnished from the fragments of 

 her own clothes and the wardrobe of sailors, with a poor hairy cap on 

 her head, took his own and presented it with a grace almost inimitable. 

 It touched every one present, and exhibited a fine specimen of what 

 may be done by mere manner alone, when directed by a generous and 

 benevolent heart. About midnight we delivered over the whole party, 

 in a state which gave hopes of complete recovery, to the Africaine 

 frigate, then cruising off the island. 



Teneriffe presents to the curious passenger the most singular object, 

 perhaps, in the northern hemisphere. The island appears, as he sails 



