RIO JANEIRO. 
13 
met with in my different excursions in the neighbourhood of Rio. 
Whenever they could understand me they gratified my wishes in the 
most prompt and obliging manner. Having laden myself with plants, 
I returned in the evening along the rocky beach to my boat, walking 
at every step over land-crabs and the larvae of insects, whose numbers 
gave an appearance of animation to the soil. 
On the following morning I again visited the town ; and, having 
procured horses, went with two of the officers of the Alceste on a 
visit to the Sugar-Loaf Mountain, but was unable to approach it very 
near. I ascertained, however, that it was surrounded by interesting 
scenery, and determined to revisit it by water the succeeding 
morning. 
Returning from my ride through the city of St. Sebastian, I fell 
in with a group of negro slaves who were assembled at the corner 
of a street, listening with great delight to one of their own tribe 
playing on a very rude musical instrument. It consisted of a few 
wires fixed to a small square frame, placed over a large segment of 
the shell of the coco-nut. I requested one of his companions to 
accompany the instrument with his voice, which he immediately did, 
in a monotonous, though not unpleasing tone. Another performer 
accompanied the last notes by wild and expressive gesticulations, in 
which he was followed by most of the bye-standers. It was more 
than probable that national remembrances animated both performers 
and auditors. Nothing less powerful, surely, could excite the strong 
emotion which agitated their frames ; and I was, in some measure, 
confirmed in this opinion by what followed. Having bought the 
instrument, I slung it on my arm, and rode with it through the streets 
to the English hotel. Every slave whose eye caught my appendage 
uttered as I passed a cry of surprise : it was also one of joy and 
exultation. His dark countenance assumed the liveliest expression, 
and his whole attitude marked the strong sensation excited by the 
appearance of a stranger, a white and a free man, bearing, perhaps, 
his national emblem, under such circumstances, reviving the recol- 
