SOUTH AMEPaCA. 



113 



sailb It was somewhat squally during the night, as 

 is usual in the neighborhood of these headlands* Be- 

 fore day it fell calm, when we descried the sugar loaf, 

 the entrance of the harbor of Rio Janeiro, bearing 

 west south-west, at the distance of twenty miles; by 

 which it appeared, that we had been set twenty-one 

 miles to the westward by the current. There appear- 

 ed before us an irregular line of high rocky coast, and 

 a person not accustomed to measure distances by the 

 eye, would have thought himself not more than a few 

 miles off, and the rocks, instead of mountains, to be lit- 

 tle more than a hundred feet high. The sugar loaf, a 

 leaning cone, was like a watch tower at the termina- 

 tion of a high irregular rampart, forming the western 

 portal of the entrance of the harbor, towards which 

 it leans as if frowning on those who approach. Im- 

 mediately on the opposite side^ there is the same kind 

 of rock though not quite so high, but more broken and 

 irregular. A light breeze springing up from the land, 

 we w^orked in towards the shore, and as we approach- 

 ed discovered high mountains in the back ground, 

 whose tops rose above the region of the clouds. Every 

 object of nature is here on the boldest and most mag- 

 niticent scale. In the evening we came to anchor 

 within a few miles of the forts which command the en- 

 trance to the harbor, and lieutenant Clack was des- 

 patched by the commodore, to wait on the commander 

 of the fort and to obtain a pilot. The number of ves- 

 sels continually entering and leaving the harbor, gave 

 us a high opinion of the commercial importance of the 

 i city we were about to visit. The anchorage is ex- 

 cellent every where along the coast. Before the en- 

 trance there are a number of small islands from two to 

 VOL. I, 1.^ 



