Upon landing in Pernambuco, I found Dr. Loudon, a Scotch physician resident in that city, awaiting my arrival, who kindly invited me to remain with him during my stay; and as he had then been sixteen years in the place, and was acquainted with most of the influential people, both foreign and Brazilian, I derived much advantage from his friendship, more particularly so, as he was very partial to the pursuit of natural history. Shortly after my arrival I delivered the letters of recommendation given me by Mr. Hamilton, the British Minister at the court of Rio, to Mr. Watts, the Consul, who obligingly offered to introduce me to the President of the province, Senhor Vicente Thomaz Pires de Figueredo Comargo. The permission to wait upon his Excellency having been given a few days afterwards, I accompanied Mr. Watts to the palace, together with Dr. Loudon, who was a personal friend of the President. He received me with great kindness, and when the object of my visit to the country was explained to him, he promised to afford all the assistance in his power, and, in the meantime, gave me a letter to Dr. Serpa, the Professor of Botany and Curator of the Botanic Garden at Olinda. I was accompanied in my visit to Olinda by Mr. Nash, a young Englishman, to whom I was indebted for many acts of kindness during my visit at Pernambuco. There are three routes to Olinda from Recife; one along the shore, which is seldom taken on account of the loose sandy nature of the soil, and the complete exposure of the traveller to the sun. Another is by canoes, up the stream before mentioned by which the surplus water from a large lake behind Olinda is discharged into the sea; this stream runs parallel with the shore, from which it is separated by a high sand-bank, and is fringed on each side by a strip of mangroves, the mud in which they grow emitting at low tide a very disagreeable effluvium, and abounding in crabs of various sizes and colours, while clouds of mosquitos always hover around and harbour among the branches. The third route, which we pursued, runs parallel with the river, at a considerable distance inland. This road is quite level, and at both ends are seen several fine country houses, though much of it passes through uncultivated, and often marshy land. Occasionally it is enclosed by Mimosa hedges, in which is seen a slender kind of Jasmine (_Jasminum Bahiense_, DC.), whose white flowers at the early hour we passed were perfuming the air with their delightful fragrance. The road-side was gay with the large pale yellow flowers of _Turnera trioniflora_, and the delicate pink heads of a sensitive plant. Several different kinds of this latter plant grow very abundantly all over the northern parts of Brazil. Shelley has truly said, that “The sensitive plant has no bright flower, Radiance and odour are not its dower,”—