30 
VOYAGE OF THE POTOMAC. 
[Octobe?j 
The natural scenery which surrounds the harbour and city of 
Rio, has been frequently described, and often highly coloured by 
travellers. It is, indeed, beautiful to the eye ; but, for our ov^n 
part, we do not think that the meandering streams and gently 
murmuring rivulets of Brazil, pursue a more tortuous or fanciful 
course than those of the United States; nor can we perceive 
that their murmurings are, in the least degree, more "musically 
plaintive," or excite more tender emotions of the heart, than a 
ereek of the Alleghany, or a small stream at the foot of the Stony 
Mountains, gurgling over the limestone pebbles, to pay its trib- 
utary mite to the majestic Missouri. Yet, among the objects that 
must arrest the attention on entering this majestic harbour, is the 
noble sheet of water, filling an oval basin of thirty miles in 
length and nearly fifteen in breadth, sufficiently capacious to con- 
tain all the fleets in the world — protected by a chain of moun- 
tains rising from its narrow mouth, and extending back, one 
above another, until the eye loses them amid white and fleecy 
clouds, which play in graceful curls around their airy summits. 
This view is certainly pleasing and exhilarating, and it is diver- 
sified, in many places, by cultivated spots, even to the highest 
elevation ; while the valleys beneath are filled with the rich and 
rare fruits, peculiar to the tropics. The shores of this " emerald 
gemm'd" basin are also indented with numerous inlets, many of 
which are the mouths of rivulets that dash down the declivities 
©f the mountains, as if eager to mingle with the tranquil waters 
of this great bay. Almost every eminence around it, as well as 
many of its islands, is crowned with a fort or a castellated parapet 
— a church — a convent — or a pictmresque ruin. 
Although the fortifications already alluded to completely pro- 
tect, by their positions, the entrance of the harbour, the whole 
of which is commanded from within, by works long since erected 
on nearly all the surrounding heights and many of the islands, 
but now in ruins or ill repair ; stiU, the defence of the place is 
thought to depend principally on a very strong fort, on the Illia 
dos Cobras, or Snake Island, directly in front and near the north- 
angle of the city, from which it is separated only by a deep chan- 
nel of moderate width. This island is a solid rock, of about nine 
hundred feet in length, three hundred in breadth, and, at the point 
where the citadel stands, eighteen feet in height. ' All around, and 
