148 



A VOYAGE TO 



but the other had the misfortune to fall, ^nd was so 

 severely hurt, that her lover, though a physician, 

 could afford her no relief, and was obliged to leave 

 her behind. The lieutenant carried his nun on board 

 the ship, and was married by the chaplain. 



An interesting description of the province of Rio Ja- 

 neiro, is given by the author of the Corographia. The 

 name was given to the bay in 1532, by the intrepid 

 navigator de Sousa, in consequence of his mistaking 

 it for a river, and the name was communicated to the 

 province.* It was not settled until about the year 

 1567^ and after a French colony of protestants sent by 

 admiral Coligny, had been dispossessed by the gover- 

 nor of Bahia, or St. Salvador. Rio Janeiro did not 

 become the capital of the province until 1663, when 

 the colony had acquired some importance, and the 

 value of this noble harbor was becoming better known. 

 The province extends along the coast about sixty 

 leagues, and is about twenty -five in width. It is di- 

 vided into two parts by the Organ mountains. On the 

 other side of these is the river Paraiba, which flows 

 between them and the chain of Mantequera, in a val- 

 ley not more than sixty miles across in its widest part. 

 This river takes its rise in the district of St. Paul, 

 and is navigable five or six hundred miles from its 

 mouth. About eight leagues below the town of Lo-^ 

 renzo, where it has already acquired considerable vol- 

 ume, the whole of its waters are compressed into a 

 channel of five fathoms wide, between two natural 



* A number of small rivers discharge themselves into the bay 

 from the sides of the Organ mountains which border on the 

 vrestern side, but none of them navigable more than two or three 

 miles. 



