FERNANDO NORONHA. 
43 
naturalists, armed with sporting guns, nets, geological hammers, and other instruments 
of destruction, to roam over his domain, which was virtually a strictly-guarded state 
prison. One of the boats conveying surveying-officers on shore was upset in the surf, but 
happily no one was drowned, and the chronometers, sextants, &c., were fished up by native 
divers. 
Leaving Fernando Noronha to future explorers who may be fortunate enough to find 
its Governor in more complaisant mood, we started on September 3rd for the neighbouring 
coast of South America. While lingering on the south-west to take soundings, we obtained 
another view of the strange-looking island, with its rocky steeples of Nature’s building. The 
precipitous ridge which terminates in Cape Placellidre has been completely perforated by the 
action of the waves, thus forming a tunnel, through which the sea at times must rush with 
terrific force, and known to sailors as the “ Hole in the Wall.” 
THE HOLE IN THE WALL, CAPE PLACELLIERE. 
After an interlude of stormy weather, the coast of Brazil was seen for the first time on 
the 6th, some distance to the southward of Cape S. Roque. Now the breeze which had sped 
our good ship across the Atlantic began to fail, so that a whole week was consumed in 
covering the distance which separated us from Bahia. During much of this time the coast was 
visible from our deck; Pernambuco was made out with the help of telescopes, and a day 
was spent in dredging off the mouth of the Rio S. Francisco. The general appearance of 
the land was flat, only rising a few hundred feet above the sea-level, and it seemed to be 
\ 
composed of a succession of hill-ranges, rolling towards the interior, wave after wave, until 
lost in the blue distance. Here and there could be seen a grove of palms, or the white walls 
of a building, or the opening of a river. Moving along this coast day after day conveyed a 
good idea of the immensity of a continent the extent of which a native of the promontory 
called Europe finds it difficult to realise. How can he who has sailed up to Richmond on 
the Thames, or to Paris on the Seine, or between the historic banks of the Rhine, or even 
down the Danube to the Black Sea, form a conception of rivers whose course is measured by 
thousands of miles ? and yet the continent of South America contains not one, but more than 
half-a-dozen of such mighty streams. 
The “Challenger’s” approach to Bahia was hailed at once by the hugest and by the 
frailest of living creatures. While two whales were disporting themselves close to the ship, 
leaping in their frolics almost clean out of the water, a swarm of butterflies settled on our 
yards and deck. We had burned our last stone of coal, and with the help of the slenderest of 
breezes, which sprung up just at the right time, we drifted, in the afternoon of September 14th, 
up to our anchorage in the beautiful Bahia de Todos os Santos. 
