3^4 



NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



acquaintance, a ci-devant clerk at a wharf in the city, a fellow ready for 

 any man's dirty work. He examined our passports with becoming 

 gravity, endorsed them, and inquired after my health and intentions. 

 Having placed our baggage in the house of a person who kept a small 

 shop, we spent the evening in wandering about, securing some comforts 

 for ourselves, and providing pasture for our beasts, to which we purposed 

 giving a little rest. 



The village of St. Joan de Macahe is situated on a point of land, 

 between the Northern bank of the river and the sea-beach. It contains 

 about a hundred and fifty houses, neatly painted and whitewashed, for 

 the most part small ones, and of a single story, with a few of superior 

 size and pretensions on a rising ground near the mouth of the river, 

 where also, near the summit, stand the church and flag-staff. This 

 elevation must formerly have been an island in the midst of the harbour's 

 mouth ; it is now joined to the beach by a bank of sand twelve or four- 

 teen feet high, over which the sea occasionally breaks. The mouth of 

 the harbour is now not more than seventy yards broad, and unfit for 

 the entrance of vessels whose burden is more than two hundred tons. 

 If the flag be hoisted it is a signal that the entrance is safe ; in going in 

 a vessel must steer close to the South side of the rack, and, when she 

 comes abreast of it, should let go her anchor, with about fifteen fathom 

 cable. If she overshoot this birth, she must put the helm hard a 

 starboard, and run behind the Southern point, where there is a channel 

 eight feet deep and two miles long, with remarkably clear water. A 

 little South of the mouth of the harbour, and close to the shore, lies a 

 ledge of rocks, which must be carefully avoided ; every other part is, 1 

 believe, free from danger. * 



The bay of St. Ann, lying North of St. Joan, is deep and spacious ; 

 in rough weather the surf is violent, and the broken water runs up a 

 long inclined plane ; when the sea is serene, and the ripple comparatively 

 light, it cats away the sand, and forms a flatter beach, with a perpendi^ 

 cular boundary, wherein the laminated appearance of the sand is 

 remarkablep To the Southward the shore is covered with shingles, and 



