Villa Real de Santa Maria, situated upon an island three miles long, and a great distance below the preceding, has the aspect of an aldeia, with one hundred and sixty families, chiefly Indians, who are hunters, fishermen, and agriculturists, and are exempt from tribute. Their wives spin and weave cotton, and work in the manufactory of earthenware, of which a considerable portion is exported.
The town of N. Senhora d’Assumpçao takes the name from the patroness of its church. The inhabitants, comprising one hundred and fifty-four families, are all Indians; they fish, hunt, and cultivate mandioca, maize, water-melons, hortulans, and cotton. It is at the western extremity of an island eighteen miles long, and the same distance below the preceding town. In front of this island is the middling arraial and julgado of Quebrobo, with a church of Conceiçao, whose parishioners, about eighteen hundred and twenty-seven families of all complexions, are mostly dispersed over its vast district. Cotton and cattle are their productions.
Flores, erected into a town in the year 1810, is yet small and in the vicinity of the river Pajehu. A filial chapel of the parish of Quebrobo serves it for a church. The inhabitants draw their subsistence from the breeding of cattle, and the culture of cotton.
Symbres, formerly Ororoba, is a small town of Chucuru Indians, with some whites and mesticos, cultivators of cotton and the provisions of the country. The wives of the first make earthenware with considerable art, and spin and weave cotton. They utter great lamentations when their husbands do not bring home game from the woods. The church is dedicated to the Lady of the Mountain; and its population consists of four hundred and eighty families.
The considerable arraial, julgado, and parish of St. Antonio, in the district of Garanhuns, bordering upon the preceding, is of this comarca, having been, with the latter one, dismembered from that of the Recife. Its people grow cotton.
In this ouvidorship is also the parish of St. Anna do Sacramento do Angical, dismembered from that of Campo Largo, from which it is distant thirty miles, and ten from the margin of the Rio Grande.
Having concluded the description of the province, we will now proceed to a consideration of its capital, commonly called Pernambuco, (which name is a corruption of Paranabuco, by which the Cahetes designated the port, where at the present day the smallest class of vessels anchor,) and is understood to comprehend two distinct places, the city of Ollinda and the town of Recife, (so called from the reef in front of it,) with an interval of a league, communicating by a narrow sand-bank from north to south, also by an arm of the sea that enters the small river Biberibe, which runs along the said sand-bank from one place to the other, and likewise by a road on the main land, at no great distance from the western margin of the same river.
Recife, which is the official designation of the capital, the government documents being so signed, is large, populous, and commercial, with tolerable houses, handsome churches, a convent of priests of the congregation of Oratorio, another of Franciscans, a third of slippered Carmelites, an alms and entertaining house of Terra Santa, another of Italian Barbonios, a recolhimento of women, an episcopal palace, and an hospital of Lazarettos. The Jesuits had a college here, which now constitutes the palace of the governors. This town is divided into three portions, or districts, by the river Capibaribe, namely, Recife, St. Antonio, and Boavista. Each of these forms a separate parish, and they communicate by two bridges; that of Boavista, which is chiefly of wood, and paved, is three hundred and twenty paces long; that of St. Antonio, two hundred and ninety paces across, was in great part of stone, but having given way, the remainder is imperfectly supplied with wood, not admitting of the passage of a carriage, and has been allowed to remain for a considerable time in this condition, so disreputable to the town. At each end it has a stone arch of rather an elegant construction, above which there are small chapels, niches, and saints, where mass is celebrated. In the street, fronting the niches with saints, many of the inhabitants prostrate themselves, at dusk, for some time in a posture of devotion. The bridges are flat and not many feet above the level of the sea.
The first part, or the Recife, occupies a peninsula, and is the emporium of the town’s commerce, the stores of the merchants being situated in it. The tongue of land, or sand-bank before mentioned, which extends itself from Ollinda to the south between the sea and the river Biberibe, terminates here. It is the site of the custom-house, which of itself is an indifferent edifice. The Rua das Cruzes is the best street, and although short is wide and neat; the others are mostly paved, but are narrow and inelegant. Its church, which is handsome, and commonly designated Corpo Santo, has for its nominal patron St. Pedro Gonsalvez.
The second portion of the town, called St. Antonio, occupies another peninsula, which is the northern extremity of the island, formed by two arms of the Capibaribe. It was first planted with cocoa-nut trees by Prince Nassau, the Dutch governor, who erected Fribourg House for his own residence, and founded the town of Mauritius upon it. It has better streets than the Recife, although generally sandy, and not paved, with high footways laid with bricks. Here is a small square, surrounded with neat houses, having only a ground floor, with a piazza to the interior front, and may be denominated a species of bazar, consisting solely of shops, where a variety of articles are sold. The mother church is dedicated to SS. Sacramento. The treasury and the governor’s palace are situated here. The latter is not the residence of the governor, but contains various public offices, and is used for a sort of levee, held upon occasions of the birthday of any of the royal family.