528 
PERNAMBUCO , BRAZIL 
CHAP. 
Islands. Unfavourable winds, however, delayed us, and on the 
12th we ran into Pernambuco,—a large city on the coast of 
Brazil, in latitude 8° south. We anchored outside the reef; 
but in a short time a pilot came on board and took us into the 
inner harbour, where we lay close to the town. 
Pernambuco is built on some narrow and low sand-banks, 
which are separated from each other by shoal channels of salt 
water. The three parts of the town are connected together by 
two long bridges built on wooden piles. The town is in all 
parts disgusting, the streets being narrow, ill-paved, and filthy ; 
the houses tall and gloomy. The season of heavy rains had 
hardly come to an end, and hence the surrounding country, 
which is scarcely raised above the level of the sea, was flooded 
with water; and I failed in all my attempts to take long 
walks. 
The flat swampy land on which Pernambuco stands is 
surrounded, at the distance of a few miles, by a semicircle of 
low hills, or rather by the edge of a country elevated perhaps 
two hundred feet above the sea. The old city of Olinda 
stands on one extremity of this range. One day I took a 
canoe, and proceeded up one of the channels to visit it; I 
found the old town from its situation both sweeter and cleaner 
than that of Pernambuco. I must here commemorate what 
happened for the first time during our nearly five years’ 
wandering, namely, having met with a want of politeness ; I 
was refused in a sullen manner at two different houses, and 
obtained with difficulty from a third, permission to pass 
through their gardens to an uncultivated hill, for the purpose 
of viewing the country. I feel glad that this happened in 
the land of the Brazilians, for I bear them no good will—a 
land also of slavery, and therefore of moral debasement. A 
Spaniard would have felt ashamed at the very thought of 
refusing such a request, or of behaving to a stranger with 
rudeness. The channel by which we went to and returned 
from Olinda was bordered on each side by mangroves, which 
sprang like a miniature forest out of the greasy mud-banks. 
The bright green colour of these bushes always reminded me 
of the rank grass in a churchyard ; both are nourished by 
putrid exhalations ; the one speaks of death past, and the 
other too often of death to come. 
