NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



373 



credit to such an infant state, both of them in some places are dilapidated, 

 and, like all works undertaken by this Government, are well executed 

 at first, but neglected afterwards, and suffered to go out of repair. — 

 Funds, it is true, are provided for the support of this, yet, being collected 

 at the Register of the Parahybuna, a hundred miles further on, they 

 derive no aid from those, who, living on this side the river, are most 

 benefited by the work, and who, seldom passing the Register, contribute 

 little to the toll. In this respect they exhibit at least a fair specimen of 

 BraziHan management. 



As we ascended, the defile presented some admirable speci- 

 mens of mountain and woodland scenery. On the left, the brook 

 brawled deeply below ; on the right, appeared crags and pinnacles in the 

 wildest confusion : here the declivities retreated and exhibited a feature 

 peculiar perhaps, to this ridge of mountains, where other smaller valleys 

 transversly intersect the general slope, and show their respective lines 

 higher and beyond ; while at other points, the masses rose in abrupt 

 rocks and almost overhung the road. The height of one of these was 

 roughly measured in the following manner, on the I6th of September, 

 at ten o'clock in the morning, in Lat. 22°. S. the sun had not risen on 

 a point of the road a thousand feet above the level of the sea, his rays 

 being intercepted by the summit of a peak, whence a perpendicular 

 would meet the plane of the horizon at ciie mile distant from the observer; 

 data which show that the mountain rose about a mile above us. 



At the highest part of the road, after an ascent of four miles and 

 a half, we are about four thousand feet above the level of the sea, 

 and the cones on each side of us rise two thousand more ; thence we look 

 down upon the flat land, near the foot of the Serro, upon the bay of Rio 

 de Janeiro, and the country round it, as upon a map ; the Sugar Loaf, 

 Corcovado, and Gavia, are directly before us, and we can trace the coast, 

 beyond which lies a vast expanse of ocean, from Cape Frio to the Point 

 Joatinga, a distance of nearly a hundred and fifty miles. The defile 

 presents many fine stations for military defensive works, which most 

 certainly ought to be made impregnable, should the city ever be attacked 



