CHAPTER II.--JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD.


Prompted by a boundless thirst for knowledge and an insatiable desire to
see new places and new things, Madame Pfeiffer left Vienna on the 1st of
May 1846, and proceeded to Hamburg, where she embarked on board a Danish
brig, the _Caroline_, for Rio Janeiro. As the voyage was divested of
romantic incidents, we shall land the reader without delay at the great
sea-port of the Brazilian empire.

The traveller's description of it is not very favourably coloured. The
streets are dirty, and the houses, even the public buildings,
insignificant. The Imperial Palace has not the slightest architectural
pretensions. The finest square is the Largo do Roico, but this would not
be admitted into Belgravia. It is impossible to speak in high terms even
of the churches, the interior of which is not less disappointing than
their exterior. And as is the town, so are the inhabitants. Negroes and
mulattoes do not make up attractive pictures. Some of the Brazilian and
Portuguese women, however, have handsome and expressive countenances.

Most writers indulge in glowing descriptions of the scenery and climate
of the Brazils; of the cloudless, radiant sky, and the magic of the never-
ending spring. Madame Ida Pfeiffer admits that the vegetation is richer,
and the soil more fruitful, and nature more exuberantly active than in
any other part of the world; but still, she says, it must not be thought
that all is good and beautiful, and that there is nothing to weaken the
powerful effect of the first impression. The constant blaze of colour
after a while begins to weary; the eye wants rest; the monotony of the