Broadway of Rio, which displays in its fancy shops the fabrics and fashions of foreign capitals; and where you can purchase every thing from a camel's hair shawl to a shoe-string, and from a Damascus blade to a toothpick. Crossed into the Rua d'Ourives, which flashes with all the jewels of Brazil. Their rays bewilder the eyes, and sometimes the wits. Doubloons, that are wanted for bread, are here parted with for a little pebble, that has nothing to recommend it but its light, and even that is a stolen ray. When Franklin's niece wrote to him at Paris to send her some ostrich feathers for her winter bonnet, the republican minister wrote her-"Catch the old rooster, my child, and pull the feathers out of his tail, they will do just as well." What is true of the rooster's feather, in comparison with the plume of the ostrich, is equally true of the common pebble by the side of the diamond. The brightest ray is that which flashes from intellect; the warmest that which melts. from the heart. Of the hotels in Rio the best is the Pharoux-an extensive establishment, under Parisian arrangements, and evincing a great want of cleanliness. If by good fortune your tester-bar keeps out the musqueto, you fall into the hands of a still worse enemy in the shape of the flea. Besides these annoyances, the night tubs, emptied on the beach of the bay, waft to your window odors which make you prefer heat to air. The goddess Cloacina ought to visit this place and order her altars under ground, where they belong, instead of having them transported on the heads of negroes, under the shadows of night, and sending up their exhalations, which are enough to make the man in the moon hold his nose. But let that pass. Flowers spring from corruption. Man pollutes, but nature purifies. A spirit of freedom is gradually working its way into the heart of the Brazilians. They have made a vast stride in constitutional liberty within the last twenty years. Their government has ceased to be a despotism. Its functions now embody the energies of the public will; its measures look to the welfare of the great masses. The throne merely holds in check the leaders of factions, without wantonly impairing the freedom of the patriotic citizen. Should the period arrive, when monarchical forms can safely be dispensed with, and the public will tranquilly work itself out in the shape of law, Brazil will take her station among free republics. As the old cathedral clock struck eleven, and the lights in the balconies grew dim, the barge of our commodore, in which we had been invited to take a seat, parted from the strand of Rio. Again on deck, a farewell look was thrown to its hills, sleeping in the soft moonlight. On those hills a Byron, a Cook, a Magellan have gazed. The morn still breaks over them, but they know it not. The world may still retain a faint echo of their fame, but where are they? and where, in a few years, shall we be? where are the millions, whose voices rang through the past? Death has hushed their exulting tunes, and their monuments have crumbled under the footstep of time. And we are passing to the same silent shore. As the furrows of our keel pass from the face of the deep, so will the strife, the sorrows, and the triumphs of our being, glide from the memory of man. "What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue !" 125 CHAPTER IV. PASSAGE FROM RIO TO CAPE HORN. GETTING UNDER WAY.—THE LETTER-BAG.-RUNAWAY SAILOR.-ISLE OF ST. CATHERINE.-PAMPEROES.-THE SHOTTED GUN.-LOSS OF OUR COON.THE SAILOR AND SHARK.-GENERAL QUARTERS AT NIGHT.—FIREWORKS IN THE SEA.—THE PHANTOM SHIP.-PATAGONIANS.—THE FALKLAND ISLANDS. THE CAPTURED ALBATROS.-TERRIFIC GALE.-CONDITION OF OUR FRIGATE. THE SAILOR'S BURIAL.-THE CAPE OF STORMS. All hands unmoor-the captain's brief command; The anchor quits its bed, the sails expand, The gallant ship before the quick breeze springs. WEDNESDAY, JAN. 14, 1846. This morning as the first rays of the sun lit the Corcovada peak, we tripped our anchors, and, under a light land breeze, stood down the bay of Rio. It being understood that we were to take our departure at this hour, the officers and crews of the national ships, which lay moored around us, were on deck to see us get under way. This being the first time we had gone through with these evolutions on the cruise, a slight solicitude was felt, lest some awkwardness in executing the orders, some want of perfect harmony and dispatch, should be evinced. The liability to those errors which we wished to avoid, was perhaps only enhanced by the presence of so many professional eyes. But the successive orders were executed with admirable promptitude and accuracy. We left our berth with the grace of the swan gliding from the place of her cradled sleep. We left at anchor the U. S. frigate Columbia, bearing the broad pennant of Commodore Rousseau, bound to La Plata; the U. S. sloop-of-war Plymouth, bound to the same place; and the U. S. frigate Raritan, bound to the Mexican gulf. To each and all we waved our adieu, and filled away for Cape Horn. What a contrast between what lay around us, and what lay before us! We were exchanging a quiet harbor for a tumbling ocean,-zephyrs too soft to ruffle the cheek of beauty, for storms which the sturdy ship can hardly withstand,--a clime of perpetual sunshine and flowers for one of eternal ice. THURSDAY, JAN. 15. We were to-day at 12 o'clock two hundred and sixty miles from our anchorage at Rio, a very good commencement of our run south. We have been looking out all day for some vessel to heave in sight, that we might throw on board her our last letter-bag, which, by a singular inadvertence, had been brought off to sea with us. It had been made up during our last night at Rio, and contained our last words of affection and remembrance; and here it was going with us towards Cape Horn, instead of our homes. This was vexatious, and e |