n England. The boatmen are
here universally negroes; some free, and owners of their boats; others
slaves, who are obliged to take home a daily fixed sum to their masters,
who often pass a life of total indolence, being fed in this way by their
slaves.

The place we were going to is Nossa Senhora da Luz, about twelve miles
from Rio, up the harbour, near the mouth of the river Guaxindiba, which
river rises in the hills of Taypu; and though its straight course is
only five miles, its windings would measure twenty or more: it is
navigable, and its banks are astonishingly fertile.

The evening was charming, and we sailed past many a smiling island and
gay wooded promontory, where gardens and country-houses are thickly
scattered, and whence provisions in innumerable boats and canoes cross
the bay every morning for the city. Our first view of N.S. da Luz
presented such a high red bank, half covered with grass and trees,
overhanging the water in the evening sun, as Cuyp would have chosen for
a landscape; and just as I was wishing for something to animate it, the
oxen belonging to the factory came down to drink and cool themselves in
the bay, and completed the scene. The cattle here are large and
well-shaped, something like our own Lancashire breed, and mottled in
colour, though mostly red. On doubling the point of the bank, we came
upon a small white church, with some venerable trees near it; beyond
that was the house, with a long veranda, supported by white columns; and
still farther on, the sugar-house, and the pottery and brick-work. We
landed close to the house; but as the beach is shallow and muddy, we
were carried ashore by negroes. Nothing can be finer than the scenery
here. From the veranda, besides the picturesque and domestic
fore-ground, we see the bay, dotted with rocky islands; one of these,
called Itaoca, is remarkable as having, in the opinion of the Indians,
been the residence of some divine person: it is connected with the
traditions concerning their benefactor, Zome, who taught them the use of
the mandioc, and whom the first missionaries here contrived to convert
into St. Thomas the apostle. It consists of one immense stone cleft
throughout, and a little earth and sand gathered round it, on which are
trees and shrubs of the freshest verdure; some of the other islets are
bare, and some again have houses and villages on them: the whole scene
is terminated by the Organ Mountains, whose spiry and fantastic summit