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page 133 ---writ of safe passage---European
influences---
A residence of several years in Brazil had made them both very well acquainted with the interior of the country,
and the former happened to be just then at Rio
de Janeiro, whither he had come to visit from his garrison at Vila Rica. By the intervention of the Austrian minister, Baron Von Neveu, who interested
himself in the success of our undertaking with the warmest zeal, and in
a truly literary spirit, we soon received a safe conduct (portaria), which
allowed us to travel through, and to examine at our pleasure the province
of Rio de Janeiro, and most strongly recommended us to the assistance
of the authorities, in every case where we should stand in need of it.*
If any person, considering that this is a new continent, discovered only
three centuries ago, should fancy that Nature is here still entirely rude,
mighty, and unconquered, he would believe, at least here in the capital
of Brazil, that he was in some other part of the globe; so much
has the influence of the civilization of ancient and enlightened Europe
effaced the character of an American wilderness in this point of the colony,
and given it the stamp of higher cultivation. The language, manners, architecture,
and the influx of the productions of the industry of all parts of the
globe, give a European exterior to Rio de Janeiro.
View of old city and bay, Rio de Janeiro
page 134 --- Rio's geography --- Dungeon
Island --- Cobra Island ---
But the traveller is soon reminded that he is in a strange quarter of
the world, by the varied crowd of negroes and mulattoes, who, as the laboring
class, everywhere meet him, when he sets his foot on shore. To us this
sight was less agreeable than it was striking. The degraded....... nature
of these half-naked men, offends the feelings of the European, who has
but just quitted the seat of polite manners and agreeable forms.
Rio de Janeiro,
or properly St. Sebastiano, commonly called only Rio,
lies on the shore of the great bay, which extends from the city northwards
into the continent three times as far as the distance to the anchorage.
It occupies the northeast part of a tongue of land, of an irregularly
quadrangular shape, situated on the left bank, which stretches towards
the north, and towards the south is connected with the continent. The
most easterly point on this tongue of land is the Punta
do Calabouco [Dungeon Point]; the most northerly, opposite to
which is the little Ilhas
das Cobras [Island of the Cobras], is that of the Armazem
do Sal [Salt Warehouse]. The oldest and most important part of
the city is built between these two points, along the shore, in the direction
of northwest to southeast, and in the form of an oblong quadrangle.
 
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