Unfavourable Winds, However, Delayed Us, And On
The 12th We Ran Into Pernambuco, - A Large City On The
Coast Of Brazil, In Latitude 8 Degs.
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 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 church-yard:
both are nourished by putrid exhalations; the one speaks of
death past, and the other too often of death to come.
The most curious object which I saw in this neighbourhood,
was the reef that forms the harbour. I doubt whether
in the whole world any other natural structure has so artificial
an appearance. [6] It runs for a length of several miles in
an absolutely straight line, parallel to, and not far distant
from, the shore. It varies in width from thirty to sixty
yards, and its surface is level and smooth; it is composed of
obscurely stratified hard sandstone. At high water the waves
break over it; at low water its summit is left dry, and it
might then be mistaken for a breakwater erected by Cyclopean
workmen.
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