Worse and worse! The wind is more ahead than ever, and in the last twenty-four hours we made six thousand and eighty feet of southing, or precisely one sea-mile. Between yesterday noon and six in the evening we did make a few miles of latitude, for we tacked ship at the latter hour close to Cape St. Agostinho in 8° 40′ south; but after standing over on the starboard tack till one o’clock to-day, we went back again to the northward, and at mid-day the sun told us that we had made only one mile of latitude to the good. I thought that the captain intended to stand off shore this time for at least two hundred and fifty miles; but when both watches had dined at one o’clock, we wore round again and once more stood in for the beach. What a pity it is that we can’t make better use of this magnificent breeze, which is too strong for even a main-royal! Free, eleven knots would be our speed now, instead of which we go diving hard into it jammed on the wind, pegging along at never more than six knots, four points off our course on the most favorable tack. Last evening we were presented with a most exquisite panorama of the Brazilian coast. At noon we were immediately east of Pernambuco, about thirty-five miles off shore; and, continuing on our southwesterly course, we brought the land aboard twenty-five miles south of that city at five o’clock. All that we could make out of the shore at that time was that it consisted of a succession of lofty hills; and it was not until we came up from supper at six o’clock that we saw the land distinctly enough to appreciate aught of its beauty, lying as it did at that hour broad on the starboard beam and ahead. On the quarter appeared dimly the snow-white angular walls of a little town lying snugly on an arm of the sea, glowing warm and mellow in the rich light; while by the aid of glasses we perceived, shrouded in the mists of a thundering surf, broad stretches of coral sand fringed at high-water mark with clusters of palmettos and cabbage-palms; back of these, dancing and shimmering in heat-waves, rolled the sand-dunes; and then came the series of lovely hills rising tier on tier into the interior, rich in that wonderfully luxuriant vegetation that clothes the surface of equatorial Brazil, with the veils of night mist just beginning to form in the valleys and deep ravines. The whole of this fascinating scene lay steeped in the after-glow of a superb sunset, which touched everything with a reddish-golden tinge to be observed only in the tropics.