As you approach the shore the view is charming. The hills are clothed with wood, gradually rising towards the interior, none of them of any considerable height. A singular reef of rocks runs parallel to the coast and forms the harbour of Pernambuco. The vessels are moored betwixt it and the town, safe from every storm. You enter the harbour through a very narrow passage, close by a fort built on the reef. The hill of Olinda, studded with houses and convents, is on your right-hand, and an island thickly planted with cocoa-nut trees adds considerably to the scene on your left. There are two strong forts on the isthmus betwixt Olinda and Pernambuco, and a pillar midway to aid the pilot.
Pernambuco probably contains upwards of fifty thousand souls. It stands on a flat, and is divided into three parts: a peninsula, an island and the continent. Though within a few degrees of the line, its climate is remarkably salubrious and rendered almost temperate by the refreshing sea- breeze. Had art and judgment contributed their portion to its natural advantages, Pernambuco at this day would have been a stately ornament to the coast of Brazil. On viewing it, it will strike you that everyone has built his house entirely for himself, and deprived public convenience of the little claim she had a right to put in. You would wish that this city, so famous for its harbour, so happy in its climate and so well situated for commerce, could have risen under the flag of Dido, in lieu of that of Braganza.
As you walk down the streets the appearance of the houses is not much in their favour. Some of them are very high, and some very low; some newly whitewashed, and others stained and mouldy and neglected, as though they had no owner.
The balconies, too, are of a dark and gloomy appearance. They are not, in general, open as in most tropical cities, but grated like a farmer's dairy- window, though somewhat closer.
There is a lamentable want of cleanliness in the streets. The impurities from the houses and the accumulation of litter from the beasts of burden are unpleasant sights to the passing stranger. He laments the want of a police as he goes along, and when the wind begins to blow his nose and eyes are too often exposed to a cloud of very unsavoury dust.
When you view the port of Pernambuco, full of ships of all nations; when you know that the richest commodities of Europe, Africa and Asia are brought to it; when you see immense quantities of cotton, dye-wood and the choicest fruits pouring into the town, you are apt to wonder at the little attention these people pay to the common comforts which one always expects to find in a large and opulent city. However, if the inhabitants are satisfied, there is nothing more to be said. Should they ever be convinced that inconveniences exist, and that nuisances are too frequent, the remedy is in their own hands. At present, certainly, they seem perfectly regardless of them; and the Captain-General of Pernambuco walks through the streets with as apparent content and composure as an English statesman would proceed down Charing Cross. Custom reconciles everything. In a week or two the stranger himself begins to feel less the things which annoyed him so much upon his first arrival, and after a few months' residence he thinks no more about them, while he is partaking of the hospitality and enjoying the elegance and splendour within doors in this great city.
Close by the river-side stands what is called the palace of the Captain- General of Pernambuco. Its form and appearance altogether strike the traveller that it was never intended for the use it is at present put to.
Reader, throw a veil over thy recollection for a little while, and forget the cruel, unjust and unmerited censures thou hast heard against an unoffending order. This palace was once the Jesuits' college, and originally built by those charitable fathers. Ask the aged and respectable inhabitants of Pernambuco, and they will tell thee that the destruction of the Society of Jesus was a terrible disaster to the public, and its consequences severely felt to the present day.
When Pombal took the reins of power into his own hands, virtue and learning beamed bright within the college walls. Public catechism to the children, and religious instruction to all, flowed daily from the mouths of its venerable priests.
They were loved, revered and respected throughout the whole town. The illuminating philosophers of the day had sworn to exterminate Christian knowledge, and the college of Pernambuco was doomed to founder in the general storm. To the long-lasting sorrow and disgrace of Portugal, the philosophers blinded her king and flattered her prime minister. Pombal was exactly the tool these sappers of every public and private virtue wanted. He had the naked sword of power in his own hand, and his heart was hard as flint. He struck a mortal blow and the Society of Jesus, throughout the Portuguese dominions, was no more.