The town of the fortress of Searà is built upon heavy sand, in the form of a square, with four streets leading from it, and it has an additional long street on the north side of the square, which runs in a parallel direction, but is unconnected with it. The dwellings have only a ground floor, and the streets are not paved; but some of the houses have foot paths of brick in front. It contains three churches, the governor’s palace, the town-hall and prison, a custom-house, and the treasury. The number of inhabitants I judge to be from one thousand to twelve hundred. The fort, from which the place derives its name, stands upon a sand-hill close to the town, and consists of a sand or earth rampart towards the sea, and of stakes driven into the ground on the land side; it contained four or five pieces of cannon of several sizes, which were pointed various ways; and I observed that the gun of heaviest metal was mounted on the land side. Those which pointed to the sea were not of sufficient calibre to have reached a vessel in the usual anchorage ground. The powder magazine is situated upon another part of the sand-hill, in full view of the harbour. There is not much to invite the preference given to this spot; it has no river, nor any harbour, and the beach is bad to land upon; the breakers are violent, and the _recife_ or reef of rocks affords very little protection to vessels riding at anchor upon the coast. The settlement was formerly situated three leagues to the northward, upon a narrow creek, where there exists now only the remains of an old fort. The beach is steep, which renders the surf dangerous for a boat to pass through in making for the shore. A vessel unloaded during my stay there, and part of her cargo consisted of the flour of the mandioc in small bags; the long boat approached as near to the shore as it could without striking, and the bags were landed on men’s heads; the persons employed to bring them ashore passed through the surf with them; but if they were caught by a wave the flour was wetted and injured, and indeed few reached the shore perfectly dry. The anchorage ground is bad and exposed; the winds are always from the southward and eastward; and if they were very variable a vessel could scarcely ride upon the coast. The reef of rocks forms a complete ridge, at a considerable distance from the shore, and is to be seen at low water. Upon this part of the coast the reef runs lower than towards Pernambuco, which has obliged the people of Searà to take advantage of the rocks being rather higher here, and affording some little protection to ships at anchor. The spot seems to have been preferred owing to this advantage, trifling as it is, though the rocks are much inferior to those which form the bold reef of Pernambuco. The ridge runs parallel with the shore for about one quarter of a mile, with two openings, one above and the other below the town. A small vessel may come to anchor between it and the shore; but a large ship