CHAPTER III.

Harbour of Rio Janeiro and surrounding Scenery-Appearance of its entrance from the Offing-Its works of Defence-City of Rio, or St. Sebastian-Public Square, Façade, and Fountain-Public Buildings, Houses, and Shops-Paucity of Accommodations for Strangers-Climate, Food, and Health-Arcos de Carioco, or Grand Aqueduct-Discovery and Settlement of Brazil-Injustice to the Natives -Origin of the African Slave Trade-Discovery and settlement of Rio JaneiroEmigration of the Royal Family-Their Return to Portugal-Civil Revolution in Brazil-Accession of Don Pedro-War with Buenos Ayres, terminated by an unpopular Treaty-Abdication of Don Pedro-Insurrectionary Symptoms-Clerical Abuses-Population of Rio-Condition of the Slaves-Natural Productions -Theatrical fête on board the Potomac.

HAD human agency been exercised in planning and constructing, for human use, the harbour of Rio Janeiro, it would be impossible to conceive a more felicitous result. It is a beautiful and capacious basin, imbosomed among elevated mountains, whose conical summits are reflected from the translucent surface of its quiet waters. The entrance is so narrow, and its granite barriers so bold, that it was, doubtless, often passed by early navigators, before it was suspected that such a retired and hidden inlet existed. To the aborigines of the country, it was known by a name corresponding to its character; for they called it "Hidden water," which, in their language, is expressed by the term Nithero-hy.

As this part of the Brazilian coast runs nearly east and west, the entrance of the harbour opens to the south, a few miles, of the tropic of Capricorn. It is defended by the Fort of Santa Cruz on the east, opposite to which are others of suitable strength, in vicinity of a high conical hill, called the "Sugarloaf," which some modern travellers have compared to the "leaning tower of Pisa."

The entrance to this celebrated estuary, when seen from the offing, presents the appearance of a gap, or chasm, in the high ridge of mountains which skirt this part of the coast; and which, doubtless, once dammed up the waters within, until their continually accumulating weight burst the adamantine barrier which

had hitherto held them in confinement, and, spurning farther restraint, forced a passage to the ocean. In the same manner, the Blue Ridge of Virginia was evidently rent in twain by the two united rivers, whose mingled waters now form the Potomac; and some suppose that the highlands of the Hudson once exhibited the same phenomenon. The fragments created by this convulsion of nature at Rio, are supposed to have been thrown into the sea, where they still remain, before the entrance of the harbour, in the form of a bar, on which there is never more than ten fathoms of water, while, just within it, there is not less than eighteen. However this may be, the chasm itself, as it now exists, presents a most picturesque appearance, opening as it does between two lofty mountains-Signal Hill on the right, the Sugarloaf cone on the left. These two remarkable piles of almost naked granite, present a striking contrast with the rest of the broken ridge, to which they now form abutments, as every other prominent part is covered with luxuriant vegetation.

On extending the view a little farther inland, the frowning batteries of Santa Cruz castle, with the Brazilian banner floating above them, are seen on the right, based on a solid rock of granite, thirty feet in height, projecting westwardly from the foot of Signal Hill. Opposite to this, on the left, eastwardly of Sugarloaf cone, another fortress is discovered, of inferior strength; while between the two, but nearest to the latter, is a little island, strongly fortified, known by the appellation of Fort Lucia, which reduces the width of the passage to about three quarters of a mile. The Sugarloaf is said to be nearly seven hundred feet in height, and every accessible spot on that side the entrance is occupied by batteries, lines, and forts, or rather bears the. evidence of having thus been occupied.

After passing all these naturally strong-holds, the harbour suddenly expands, and extends itself into a circular, or rather elliptical, inland lake, which is sprinkled over with islands which

“Stand dress'd in living green;"

and surrounded by mountains rising in many ridges behind each other, like a vast natural amphitheatre. The tide rises in the harbour between four and five feet, and there is always sufficient depth of water to float vessels of the largest size.

The natural scenery which surrounds the harbour and city of Rio, has been frequently described, and often highly coloured by travellers. It is, indeed, beautiful to the eye; but, for our own part, we do not think that the meandering streams and gently murmuring rivulets of Brazil, pursue a more tortuous or fanciful course than those of the United States; nor can we perceive that their murmurings are, in the least degree, more "musically plaintive," or excite more tender emotions of the heart, than a creek of the Alleghany, or a small stream at the foot of the Stony Mountains, gurgling over the limestone pebbles, to pay its tributary mite to the majestic Missouri. Yet, among the objects that must arrest the attention on entering this majestic harbour, is the noble sheet of water, filling an oval basin of thirty miles in length and nearly fifteen in breadth, sufficiently capacious to contain all the fleets in the world-protected by a chain of mountains rising from its narrow mouth, and extending back, one above another, until the eye loses them amid white and fleecy clouds, which play in graceful curls around their airy summits. This view is certainly pleasing and exhilarating, and it is diversified, in many places, by cultivated spots, even to the highest elevation; while the valleys beneath are filled with the rich and rare fruits peculiar to the tropics. The shores of this "emerald gemm'd" basin are also indented with numerous inlets, many of which are the mouths of rivulets that dash down the declivities of the mountains, as if eager to mingle with the tranquil waters of this great bay. Almost every eminence around it, as well as many of its islands, is crowned with a fort or a castellated parapet -a church—a convent-or a picturesque ruin.

Although the fortifications already alluded to completely protect, by their positions, the entrance of the harbour, the whole of which is commanded from within, by works long since erected on nearly all the surrounding heights and many of the islands, but now in ruins or ill repair; still, the defence of the place is thought to depend principally on a very strong fort, on the Ilha dos Cobras, or Snake Island, directly in front and near the north angle of the city, from which it is separated only by a deep channel of moderate width. This island is a solid rock, of about nine hundred feet in length, three hundred in breadth, and, at the point where the citadel stands, eighteen feet in height. All around, and

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