CHAPTER XVIII.

RIO DE JANEIRO.

On a gorgeous tropical morning, when the _Princess_ was nearing her destined port, and when Morrison declared that already he could see the "land-blink" in the sky, Morley watched with some interest the result of what is termed in nautical astronomy, "taking a sight," or "making an observation," by noting the altitude of any heavenly body, in order to estimate the latitude and longitude.

"What is the time?" asked Bartelot.

"Twelve, sir, by the sun," replied Morrison.

"And by the chronometer?"

"Twelve."

"Then bring me the correct latitude, while I calculate the longitude. I have had a capital sight to-day."

He then relinquished the quadrant, and proceeded, compass in hand, to "prick off," as the sailors term it, the ship's place upon the chart.

Looking the while at a large chart of the Southern and Northern Atlantic, Morley asked:

"Where should a vessel, bound for the Mauritius, be now, if she left London at the same time I said the _Hermione_ would sail?"

"Always the same thought, Morley?" said Bartelot, looking up with a smile.

"Well, Tom?"

"If winds are fair, and all went well"--at these words Morley gave a sigh of anxiety--"she should now be here, about St. Helena, or a few miles to the southward, and off the African coast."

"And we are how far from that?"

"Farther than I should like to fly, Morley."

Poor Morley sighed again, and looked eagerly at the chart; thereon, by three spans of his hand, he could compass the world of waters that lay between him and Ethel Basset.

On the 6th July, the _Princess_ was in latitude 19 deg. 57 min. south; longitude, 37 deg. 48 min. west; and Cabo Frio (or the cold cape of South America) bore about forty-five miles to the westward.

They were drawing very near Rio de Janeiro, and many ships bound for the same quarter were in sight daily.

The trade-wind continued steady and fine; Morley looked with keen interest on the ships that veered from time to time in sight. Among them all, might be one that would have a freight for the Isle of France.

To search for such was to be his first object and occupation on landing; and worthy Tom Bartelot assured him that money should not be wanting to further his double purpose of joining Ethel and punishing Cramply Hawkshaw.

"But, ah, Tom," said he, on one occasion, "how, or when, is a poor devil such as I to repay you?"

"Think of that when the time comes," said Tom, laughing.

About 10 A.M., on the morning of the 9th, the look-out man, old Noah Gawthrop, who was in the forecrosstrees, sung out, in his queer voice:

"Land a-head!"

"Where away?" asked Morrison, jumping off the companion seat.

"Land on the starboard bow, sir," added Noah.

Morley's heart leaped at the sound, and the telescopes of Bartelot and Morrison were speedily levelled in the direction indicated.

"It should be Cabo Frio," said the Scotchman.

"And Cabo Frio it is!" added Bartelot, emphatically. "Look, Morley, that is the great headland on the coast of Brazil."

"It was there the _Thetis_ frigate was wrecked in 1830," added Morrison; "she had lost her reckoning, on a dark December night, and was borne more than twenty-four miles to leeward by the current."

"Then we shall see Rio to-night?" said Morley.

"No, no; Rio lies sixty-four miles beyond the Ilha de Cabo Frio--the cold cape, rather a misnomer in this season, at least," replied the mate.

"Steward, bring up the case-bottle; let the men forward have each a tot of grog, while we'll have a glass below on the head of this."

"Head of what, Tom?" asked Morley.

"Scenting the land, to be sure," replied Bartelot, as the three descended to the cabin.

"You are a clever seaman, Tom, and have made the land to a minute, at the time you foretold a week ago."

Bartelot laughed, and said:

"Father wanted me to go into the navy, where he said I was certain to shine, as I never was out of scrapes and turmoils at school and at home; but I had no ambition. What does old Topham's song end with?" and pouring out his grog, Bartelot began to sing:

"'Ambition, they tell me, has charms for us all, But well I'm convinced they are charms that must pall; The pageant of splendour may lure for a while, But soon we grow sick of its weight and its toil; Nor can it compare with us, Morley, my boy, Whose appetites strengthen the more we enjoy. Then deign ye, kind powers! with this wish to comply-- May I always be drinking, yet always be dry!'"

After the long voyage, sixty-four miles from the Cabo to Rio seemed a trifle to Morley. He strove to be thankful and content in his heart, that the first portion of his watery pilgrimage was nearly accomplished, and that he had now attained what was rather more than the beginning of a future end.

By 5 P.M. they were within seven miles of the land, and the rocky Cabo, a vast insular mass of granite, which terminates a long range of mountains, was glowing redly in the light of the Brazilian sun. The highest summit there has an altitude of more than 1,500 feet; the sea and sky around were both serene and beautiful.

The water possessed a strangely pure and crystalline aspect; so much so, that at times the bed, or what appeared to be the bed of the ocean, was visible, but this was only the flowers of the sea.

Long and mysterious plants (the _Nereocystis_), which, with a stem no thicker than a spunyarn, grow from their roots in the deep bed of the ocean to the length of 300 feet and more, and have at their upper end a huge bulbous-shaped vesicle, filled with air, which floats upon the surface, or near it, and from this bulb there springs a thick crown of dusky leaves.

These tremendous marine vegetables are more commonly found on the north-western than on the eastern shores of America, but many are to be seen at times off the coast of the southern continent.

Elsewhere Morley's eye could discern masses of rock or coral reefs, that rose to within fifty or sixty feet of the surface, showing a freight of shellfish, sea-anemones, wondrous creeping things, and fibrous tufts of giant seaweed.

But the scene changed with tropical rapidity, when with midnight there came on sudden black squalls, with heavy rain, deep hoarse thunder, and vivid red lightning, that seemed to flash and play about the granite summits of the Cabo Frio with a brilliance that eclipsed the gleam of its lighthouse, which marks now where our frigate, the _Thetis_, perished.

Bartelot reefed his fore and mizzen topsails; but when the weather faired he shook out the reefs again. He set his main topgallant-sail, mainsail, and jib, and the rising sun that gilded the mountains which bound the plain of the Corcovada saw the _Princess_ running fair into the lovely bay of Rio de Janeiro, with the British ensign flying at the peak, her private colours at the foremast-head.

Now were heard the rattle of the chain-cables, as they were hauled up from the tier, laid along the decks in French-fake, that is, in lines all clear, and bent to the working anchor.

The harbour of Rio, one of the finest in the world in size and form, stretches twenty nautical miles inland, widening to the breadth of eighteen miles at its centre. On its western slope stands the city of Rio, or, as it is sometimes called, San Sebastian, crowded with magnificent edifices.

The entrance to the bay from the ocean is bounded at its southern extremity by the Pao d'Asucar, or sugarloaf, a conical mountain, more than 1,200 feet in height.

On the northern side the ocean rolls in snowy foam, against a mighty rock of glistening granite, at the base of which stands the castle of Santa Cruz, with a triple platform, from which 120 pieces of cannon point towards the sea.

Looking beyond this entrance, the bay is seen to be studded with little isles, nearly eighty in number, clothed with glorious verdure, brilliant with fruit, giant flowers, and wondrous foliage, though here and there the grim muzzle of a cannon shows where a battery is built, and among these isles a fleet of small steamers are always puffing and gliding.

Beyond all this and around it--a new scene, indeed, to Morley--the great mountains of the new world rise in a thousand fantastic forms, covered to their summits with wood, forming a vast amphitheatre around Rio de Janeiro, the City of Palaces, a title which it well deserves.

Morrison, who had been getting the cable clear, and the anchors hoisted over the bows, now came to Morley's side, and pointed out the church of Nossa Senhora da Gloria, on the lofty hill that juts into the sea, between the city and the Praya de Flamengo; and then indicating the castle, on which the gaudy flag of the Brazilian Empire floated, he said, in his deep Scotch accent:

"In 1515, where that great castle stands, there stood only a wooden fort, built in that year by Juan Diaz de Salis, to be a place of refuge for Protestants, and forty years after they named it the Castle of Coligni; but the Portuguese came upon it in the night, and put every living thing in it to the sword. It was Juan Diaz who gave the place its name, Janeiro, as his ship ran into the bay in the first days of January. A wild place it must have been then."

"Hands prepare to shorten sail--stand by the anchor!" were now the orders of Bartelot.

The canvas was clewed up preparatory to being handed, and the light warm breeze from the wooded shore swept through the bared rigging and spars.

Already the seamen were hurrying up aloft; the small bower anchor was let go with a plunge; hoarsely rushed the chain-cable as it vanished from the deck through the hawse-hole; and now the _Princess_ rode at her moorings in eight-fathom water, in the noble harbour of Rio de Janeiro--the region where eternal spring and endless summer reign.

And now, leaving Morley Ashton to push his way among the skippers and merchant-officers in the Rua Direta, and all its branching streets, seeking a mode of transit to the Isle of France, while Tom Bartelot sends his crew ashore, and procures a copper-coloured gang to "break bulk" and start his cargo, we shall return to Ethel Basset, whom we left five chapters back, with her quondam lover, on board the _Hermione_, of London.