n the landscape here peculiarly agreeable. The verdure, the
wood, the steep banks, and gently sloping lawns, generally opening to
the sea or the lake behind the town, have a freshness and amenity that I
scarcely remember seeing before. We saw but little of the upper city,
but that little was handsome, in our way to the consul's. His house,
like those of all the British merchants, is a little way out of town,
and is in the suburb Vittoria, which occupies the greater part of a long
narrow ridge extending from the town towards Sant Antonio: between it
and the town is Fort Pedro, built, I think, originally of mud, by the
Dutch. It was faced with stone, on the recovery of Bahia from the Dutch,
about the beginning of the last century. We found the Consul and his
daughter ready to receive us at their very pleasant garden-house, which
literally overhangs the bay,--flowers and fruits mingle their sweets
even down to the water's edge,--while

"Seaborn gales their gelid wings expand,
To winnow fragrance round the smiling land."

Eager to seize the opportunity of walking out after our voyage, we
accepted Miss Pennell's kind offer, to show us some of the surrounding
country before dinner, and accompanied her as far as the church
dedicated to N.S. da Graca. It was the first offering of piety, I
believe, to Christian worship by a native Brazilian.

When the famous Caramuru was wrecked, together with the Donatory
Coutinho, on Itaparica, Coutinho was put to death; but, Caramuru, being
beloved by the natives, was spared, and he returned to his old
settlement of Villa Velha. His wife, Catherine Paraguaza, who had
accompanied him to France, saw an apparition in the camp of the Indians,
and believing it to be a real European female, Caramuru followed in the
direction his wife pointed out: he discovered, accordingly, in one of
the huts, an image of N.S. da Graca; and according to the directions his
wife had received from the vision, built and dedicated the church, and
bestowed it, and a house by it, on the Benedictines. It was at first
of mud, but soon after was built of stone.

[Illustration]

_Thursday, 18th._--We rode out before breakfast, through landscape so
fine, that I wished for a poet or a painter at every step. Sometimes we
went through thick wild wood into bushy hollows; then emerged on clear
lawns, sprinkled with palm trees, through which country-houses, farms,
and gardens were seen; and from every eminence, the bay,