Thousands of nature’s choristers, arrayed in all the brilliancy 
of tropical plumage, enlivened these extensive orange groves; and 
the humming-bird, the smallest and most lovely of the feathered 
race, buzzed like the bee, while sipping the nectarious dew from 
the blossoms and flowers. Nothing can exceed the delicacy of 
these little beauties; especially of that, which from its minuteness, 
is called the fly-bird; its bill and legs are not thicker than a pin; 
its head, tufted with glossy jet, varies with every motion into shades 
of green and purple; the breast is of a bright flame colour; every 
feather, when viewed through a microscope, appears as if fringed 
with silver, and spotted with gold. 
The serpents in this part of South America are large and nox- 
ious, but often beautifully coloured; the town and country are 
infested with lizards, scorpions, centipedes, and troublesome in- 
sects of various kinds. The wild animals generally keep upon 
the mountains, and leave the vallies to the cows, sheep, and goats, 
which were introduced into these colonies by the Portugueze. 
St. Sebastian, the capital of Rio de Janeiro, is a large city, 
with numerous churches, convents, and nunneries; but the man- 
ners and customs of the inhabitants are neither pleasing nor inte- 
resting: pride, poverty, indolence, and superstition, are the pre- 
vailing characteristics of these degenerate Portugueze; and seem 
to have entirely extinguished the noble virtues of their ancestors: 
their cruelty to the plantation negroes, and slaves of every descrip- 
tion, is excessive: humanity shudders at the constant smack of 
the whip, and the loud cries for mercy, vainly implored by these 
poor wretches, from their tyrannic masters, who seem to have lost 
every sense of that divine attribute. 
