344 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
violence and avarice had depri\ ed of their liberty, 
were affecting. 
On the 20th of March, 1816, we cast anchor at 
the mouth of the harbour of Rio Janeiro. The 
light of the next morning presented before us one 
of the most magnificent and extensive landscapes 
I ever beheld. The mass of granite rock, sur¬ 
mounted by the fort of Santa Cruz on our right, 
the towering Sugar-loaf mountain on our left, the 
picturesque island at the mouth of the harbour, 
the distant city of St. Sebastian, the turrets of the 
castle, the cupolas and spires of the convent, 
the lofty range of mountains in the interior, whose 
receding summits were almost lost in aerial per¬ 
spective, where 
“ Distance lends enchantment to the view,” 
all successively met the eye, together with the 
widely expanded and beautiful bay, one of the 
finest in the world, studded with verdant islands, 
rendered more picturesque by the white cottages 
with which they were adorned. The whole scene 
was enlivened by the numerous boats, with their 
white and singularly shaped sails, incessantly glid¬ 
ing to and fro on the smooth surface of the water, 
and the shipping of different nations riding at 
anchor in the bay, or moored to the shore. Among 
the vessels, which exhibited almost every variety of 
size and form, those by no means least interesting 
to us, were two British frigates; one of which was 
the Alceste, on her way to China, to join Lord 
Amherst’s embassy. These objects excited in our 
minds a variety of pleasing sensations, heightened 
by the circumstance that the country before us 
contained the first port we had entered since leav¬ 
ing England. 
