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The island of Teneriffe, which is next visited, does not violently excite the author's cupidity: it has, however, some charms; it may be defended by a small but well disciplined garrison; and in the possible prospect of some future invasion of it, Mr. B. surveys the landing places, &c. and suggests the mode of attack. He rails frequently against the French, and once, if we recollect rightly, against French commercial agents: but, though we readily grant that his views are highly honourable and patriotic, yet, whenever we attended him. on his surveys of the bays, landing-places, and batteries of neutral powers, we could never divest ourselves of the notion of a commercial agent.—Some pages are devoted to the narration of an unsuccessful attempt to ascend the Peak of Teneriffe: but the travellers were consoled for their disappointment by a ball in the evening.-Mr. Barrow states the population of Teneriffe at about one hundred thousand. We doubt, therefore, whether, a small but well disciplined garrison would be sufficient to keep the place secure, should we be unwise enough to take it.-The air is salubrious, and population is on the increase.

From Teneriffe, the squadron sailed to St. Jago. When the ship arrived within the limits of the Trade Winds, the smoothness of the sea and the equable motion of the vessel tempted the passengers to the pastime of fishing; and they caught sharks and dolphins. The first were taken without pity, since they were considered as the tyrants and tygers of the deep: the latter were booked and hauled on deck, not for the delicacy of their flesh nor for their bad qualities, but that the anglers might enjoy the delight of observing the exquisitely beautiful but evanescent tints of colour, that pass in succession over the surface of their bodies, in the agonies of dying.'—Mr. B.'s account of the sword-fish is curious:

There are instances, still more extraordinary than the salmon-leap of the astonishing power which the muscles of fishes are capable of exerting; so very extraordinary indeed, that were they not authenticated in such a manner as not to leave the possibility of a doubt, they would certainly be considered as the inventions of voyagers. Ships' sides of thick oak plank have been completely perforated by the snout of the sword-fish, not of the common species the Xiphias gladius, of which we struck one at the entrance of Porta Praya bay, but another or at least a variety, of greater dimensions, being sometimes from twenty to thirty feet in length, and distinguished by a large spotted back fin, and by the rounded extremity of the snout or boney process. Van Schouten of Horne, in his very entertaining voyage. round the world, about the beginning of the seventeenth century, states that "a great fish or a sea monster, having a horn like a common elephant's tooth, not hollow but full, struck the ship with such great strength that it entered into three planks of the ship, two of

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green and one of oaken wood, and into a rib, where it turned upward to their great good fortune." In the year 1801, a Danish ship came into the Cape of Good Hope, in consequence of springing a leak off the Brazil coast. On examination it was found that she had been struck by a sword-fish, the snout of which had penetrated the bottom, where it still remained, having snapt close to the plank on the exterior side of the vessel. In the same year a small English ship came into Table bay, having received in the Southern Atlantic a stroke from a sword-fish, which buried part of the boney snout so deep in the stern post as to impede the action of the rudder. These two facts consist with my own knowledge, which, together with the piece of plank from the bottom of an East Indiaman, now in the British Museum, transfixed by the sword of this fish, may satisfy the doubts of the most sceptical on a subject which was known to the ancients perhaps more than two thousand years ago, as it is mentioned by Pliny to be a fact indisputably established long before his time.'

In his schemes of English aggrandizement, we think differently from Mr. B.: but we sympathize sincerely with his truly English Indignation, when he describes the ship The Resolution of the immortal Cook transformed into a smuggling whaler, under the colours of France. The Resolution, as Mr. B. remarks, should have been preserved for a national monument, as Queen Elizabeth preserved the ship in which Drake sailed round the world.

The next object visited was Rio de Janeiro; and the animated description of the author, aided by his coloured plates, has so far prevailed over our sedentary indolence, that we have ventured to wish to visit its beauties. The written description. of Mr. B., however, goes beyond the sketches of his companion; and if it has not given us clear conceptions, it has at least warmed us: but as we cannot exactly separate the feeling from the conception, we forbear to quote the description, since it may be inefficacious with other readers. We rather extract what is sufficiently intelligible: viz. Mr. B.'s description of the annoyance with which winged and crawling venomous animals infested the voyagers:

We had little reason to complain of the climate of Rio during our stay. Though the sun was just on the southern tropic, and consequently nearly vertical, during our residence here, yet we seldom suffered any inconvenience from heat, or were prevented from taking our usual quantity of exercise. The general tempera ture of the air in the day was from 76 to 84° of Fahrenheit. The nights were by far the most disagreeable. If we attempted to walk in the open air, the bats or the fire. flies (Lampyrus) were every moment threatening to dart against our faces; if we remained in the house, scorpions, and centipedes, and scolopendras were constantly crawling over the foor; and a disagreeable, disgusting,

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but perfectly harmless insect, a species of cricket (Gryllus Gryllotal pa), as constantly skipped about the plates and into the glasses during supper. But of all the torments I ever experienced, in any part of the world, none in my opinion can be put in comparison with those produced by the stings of the musquitoes of Rio de Janeiro. I have felt the venom of their little pointed beaks in many parts of the world, but never suffered from its virulence any thing like the degree of pain which their puncture occasioned at this place; nor could the exquisite torment which we suffered be owing to any extraordinary degree of irritability in the habit of body at the time, because the whole party, without a single exception, laboured under the same severity of pain. The eyes, the lips, the forehead, and the cheeks of every individual who slept on shore were inflamed and swollen in such a manner as completely to disfigure the face. Those who had taken the precaution to furnish themselves with curtains of net-work, though they might not suffer in an equal degree with the rest, were not, however, entirely protected. If a single musquito, by any accident, found itself within the net, the perpetual humming noise with which it assailed the face, and the constant expectation of feeling its sting, were nearly as teasing and as preventive of sleep to those who lay enclosed in net-work as to those who were exposed to their open attack.

The swarms of these insects and other kinds of vermin may be attributed rather to the extreme filthiness of the people than to the heat of the climate. The ground floors of the houses are rarely swept they serve as repositories for fire-wood, for lumber, and for the lodgings of their numerous slaves. The same want of cleanli ness is visible in their dress and in their persons. Few, if any, are free from a certain cutaneous disorder, which is supposed in our country to be the joint effect of poverty of food and filth; many have confirmed leprosy; and the elephantiasis is by no means uncommon. A great part of their diet consists of fish, fruit, and vegetables, with the never-failing dish of farinha de pao, or flour of the maniota root; all their substantial food, whatever it may be, is first dipped in oil or grease, and then rolled in this flour and made up into little balls in the palm of the hand. Milk, butter, and cheese, are rarely used. With the utmost difficulty we procured a little of the first for our tea, and it was miserably bad. Their beef is lean and very indifferent, and mutton is scarcely to be had at any rate. Fowls and tur kies are abundant, and tolerably good; and the market is well supplied with a great variety of very excellent fish. The bread which is made of wheaten flour, the produce of the southern provinces, is exceedingly good. The fruits in general are not excelled in any part of the world.'

In Rio, the travellers discovered, after considerable search, two booksellers' shops, but their contents were absolutely of no value; yet books might here be manufactured which would be interesting and valuable, since ample materials are to be found in the manners of the people and in natural history. The Monks and Friars, however, who have time and oppor

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tunity, consume neither their days nor their nights in lean and wasteful learning their occupation consists of tittle-tattle, interference with the domestic concerns of private citizens, and the collection and distribution of scandal. They learn curious and piquant anecdotes by officiating as confessors, and are not, according to Mr. B.'s representation, very honourably retentive of information so obtained.

The ladies of Rio have been accused of easy gallantry: but Mr. B. consigns two or three pages to the vindication of their chastity, and of the playful custom of tossing flowers at strangers. It is a vindication, however, which might well have been omitted, since it is by no means satisfactory.

Chapter V. contains general observations on the Brazils.What New Holland is to us now, Brazil was formerly to the Portuguese thither they sent all persons accused of witchcraft and heresy, Mohammedans, and Jews. The latter were glad to escape tyranny and persecution in Europe, and, fleeing from oppression, they found riches in South America. Their first object was to gain the favour of the natives; and they were readily permitted to put into the earth both seeds and the cuttings of plants. The sugar cane was raised in Brazil, fróm cuttings brought from Madeira; it was first cultivated and used as a medicine, then as a luxury, and in a short time it was exported to Europe in such abundance that the court of Lisbon really began to think that a colony might be useful to the mother country, even if it did not produce gold and diamonds,

The question of the Slave Trade is now, we hope, decided for ever, and to the eternal honour of the British Parliament of 1807. It is superfluous, then, to say any more on that subject but it would be unfair not to notice that the present yolume contains several arguments and representations, all urging the abolition.

It is worth the while, on the grounds of laudable curiosity, to know what Brazil produces and is capable of producing, even if we do not attempt to annex it to the British Empire:

The fertile and extensive plains (says Mr. B.) of South America abound with innumerable herds of horses and horned cattle; but the richness of the soil, and its total want of culture, produce only such grasses as are too coarse, and their juices too acrid, for the sustenance of sheep. Oxen even do not thrive upon them, without the oc casional use of salt; and as the exclusive privilege of importing this article, essential for the preservation both of man and beast, from the islands of Sal and Mayo, is farmed out as a monopoly of the Crown, it is necessarily sold at an extravagant price, and is frequently not to be purchased on any terms. The salt that would be required to preserve the carcase of an ox costs in general about thrice as much as the whole animal. Yet there is no want of salt on the coast of

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Brazil, if the inhabitants were permitted to manufacture it. Wherever it is made with facility, or deposited by spontaneous evapora tion, it is immediately claimed as the exclusive right of the Crown; which, however, has condescended to bestow a remarkable indulgence to the inhabitants of certain parts of the sea-coast, by allowing them to collect, for their own use, what nature has spontaneously thrown in their way; but they are forbidden, in the most positive terms, to carry a single grain of it either to St. Salvador, Rio de Janeiro, or any of the principal governments of the Brazils. The monopoly of salt is estimated to produce to the Crown of Portugal about 15,000l. a year. Thus, for the sake of realizing so pitiful a sum, thousands of cattle are suffered to perish, the carcases of such as are slaughtered, for the sake of the hides only, to be thrown away, the fisheries on the coast are checked, and in a great degree rendered useless, and one great source of commerce and navigation entirely dried up. At Rio the price of a moderate sized ox is not more than twenty shillings, and in the interior only from five to ten shillings. In fact, the hide is considered as the only valuable part, and the carcase is left to the tyger or the panther, the eagle, the condor, and such other birds and beasts of prey as abound in the country. The condition of the graziers in the Brazils appears to be pretty much the same as that of the Dutch boors at the Cape of Good Hope. Rich in the possession of thousands of cattle, they are deficient in every comfort of life; without society, without clothing, and without decent habitations. They are even worse than the Dutch boors, for these can move about in their covered waggons over their barren heaths, but in the fertile and well-wooded regions of South America there are yet no reads that will admit the conveni. ence of a wheel carriage.'

Mr. B. confirms the statement which has been frequently made, and from various quarters, that a smuggling trade to a very considerable extent is carried on between the Portuguese in Brazil and English Whalers and Americans. The latter, according to the present writer, take off the surplus produce of the colonies, and pay an annual balance of half a million in hard specie. The colonists employ this cash to purchase slaves our manufactories, by means of the Whalers and Americans, find an entrance into Brazil; and from the Brazils they are smuggled into the Spanish settlements, by the way of the Rio de la Plata.

Considering the colonizing temperament of the author, we were not surprized to find him ogling and holding dalliance with the Brazils and the Spanish colonies: yet he properly admits that a Protestant Government would have immense difficulties to encounter, if it attempted to control the former; and that the project of revolutionizing the latter is not only unsafe in regard to policy, but that in point of humanity, since the slaves

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