258 



NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



some frolic of a gentler kind, until the hour of Ave Marias. We then 

 entered canoas, attended divine service at the Lazaretto, and retired to 

 our respective homes. 



The Hospital for Lepers, where we attended evening worship, was 

 once a house of recreation belonging to the Jesuits, It stands on an 

 elevation, close to the water, and rears its turrets amidst a rich shrub- 

 bery, in part the effect of cultivation. The charity is an excellent one, 

 supported by voluntary contributions ; biit I fear shamefully misadminis-. 

 tered. Nothing, however, can be more useless than remonstrance 

 on such points ; as no accounts of any state, or charitable expenses, 

 except those of the Misericordia, are ever rendered to the public in 

 Rio ; and it would be accounted impertinent in any individual to call 

 for them. Every public officer is accountable to his Superior alone, so 

 that peculation, in which both are thoroughly agreed, goes on unexposed, 

 and, in many cases, without a consciousness of criminality. Between 

 the Hospital and the Northern extremity of this Bay of St. Christophe 

 the shore becomes comparatively tame ; yet under a greater disadvantage 

 than this, that of receiving part of the filth of the city, it exhibits 

 a pleasant row of small houses, 



The Sacco, or little recess of Gambda, a portion of the more richly 

 diversified Southern shore, is also skirted by a line of dwellings, backed 

 by a verdant mountain. Here is a large building, in which the newly 

 arrived negroes perform a sort of quarantine, A little farther, on the 

 slope of the hill, is the British burying-ground, where the first funeral 

 service was performed in April, 1811, which was too soon followed by 

 others. They seemed to have a great effect on the minds of the Bra-> 

 zilians who witnessed them. The situation, ill fitted for a cemetery, 

 would have been a fine one for a residence. 



Just at hand is one of the public Wharfs, where vessels of a hun- 

 dred tons burden may conveniently discharge their lading ; and round a 

 well wooded point is the Sacco dos Alfares. This communicates with the 

 marsh at the back of the city, and formerly joined the sea through the 

 Campo da Santa Anna, and the spot where are now the public gardens, 



