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. On this coast
the currents of the sea tend to throw up in front of the land, long
spits and bars of loose sand, and on one of these, part of the town of
Pernambuco stands. In former times a long spit of this nature seems to
have become consolidated by the percolation of calcareous matter, and
afterwards to have been gradually upheaved; the outer and loose parts
during this process having been worn away by the action of the sea, and
the solid nucleus left as we now see it. Although night and day the
waves of the open Atlantic, turbid with sediment, are driven against
the steep outside edges of this wall of stone, yet the oldest pilots
know of no tradition of any change in its appearance. This durability
is much the most curious fact in its history: it is due to a tough
layer, a few inches thick, of calcareous matter, wholly formed by the
successive growth and death of the small shells of Serpulae, together
with some few barnacles and nulliporae. These nulliporae, which are
hard, very simply-organized sea-plants, play an analogous and important
part in protecting the upper surfaces of coral-reefs, behind and within
the breakers, where the true corals, during the outward growth of the
mass, become killed by exposure to the sun and air. These
insignificant organic beings, especially the Serpulae, have done good
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