On the following morning, the 23rd of July, I first put foot on the shores of the great continent of the new world. If the aspect of the country, and the nature of the vegetation were so different from those of the old country, how much more strange were the human beings which first met my sight on landing. The numerous small boats and canoes which ply about in the harbour, are all manned with African blacks; the long narrow streets through which we passed were crowded with the same race, nearly naked, many of them sweating under their loads, and smelling so strongly as to be almost intolerable. Scarcely a white face was to be seen. The shops, in the most of which both the doors and windows are thrown open during the day, seemed to be attended to by mulattos, or by Portuguese of nearly as dark a hue. Seen from the ship in the morning, the city had a most imposing appearance, from its position, and the number of its white-washed churches and houses; but nearer contact with it dispelled the illusion. The streets are narrow and dirty, and what with the stench from the thousands of negroes which throng them, and the effluvia from the numerous provision shops, the first impressions are anything but agreeable. I could not help recalling to mind the lines in ‘Childe Harold,’ which Byron has applied to the capital of the mother country:— “But whoso entereth within this town, That, sheening far, celestial seems to be, Disconsolate will wander up and down, ’Mid many things unsightly to strange ee; For hut and palace show like filthily: The dingy citizens are reared in dirt.—” The city of Rio occupies part of an irregular triangular tongue of land, which is situated on the west side of the Bay, about three miles northward from the entrance. The ground on which it stands is, for the most part, level, but towards the north, the west, and the south-east, it is bounded by a series of hills. The long narrow streets run at right angles to each other, by which the houses are thrown into great square masses. The new town stretches out in a north-west direction, and is separated from the old one by a large square called the Campo de Santa Anna. Beyond it a narrow branch of the Bay runs inland, to the left of which is the extensive suburb of Catumbi, and farther on those of Mataporco and Engenho Velho. Besides the Campo de Santa Anna there are two other large squares, one before the theatre, and another at the landing-place, in which is situated the palace formerly occupied by the Viceroys. The Royal Palace of S. Cristovão, the residence of the Emperor, is a great and irregular mass of building, situated a little way beyond the new town.