lanes, in which, on one occasion I lost my way, about dusk, would have reminded me of those of the south of England on a fine autumnal eve, were it not for the scattered palms and papaw trees in the hedgerows, and the hedges themselves occasionally consisting of the coffee plant, concealing clumps of banana and sugar-cane. The Cicadae were singing their evening hymn from the branches overhead, and in due time the fireflies came out in all their glory.

DREDGING IN BOTAFOGO BAY.

I had looked forward with eager anticipation to the result of the first dredging of the Voyage. None of the ship's boats could be spared, so I hired one pulled by four negro slaves, who, although strong active fellows, had great objections to straining their backs at the oar, when the dredge was down. No sieve having been supplied, we were obliged to sift the contents of the dredge through our hands--a tedious and superficial mode of examination. Still some fine specimens of a curious flat sea-urchin (Encope marginata) and a few shells, encouraged us to persevere. Two days after, Mr. Huxley and myself set to work in Botafogo Bay, provided with a wire-gauze meat cover, and a curious machine for cleaning rice; these answered capitally as substitutes for sieves, and enabled us by a thorough examination of the contents of the dredge, to detect about forty-five species of mollusca and radiata, some of which were new to science. Among these acquisitions I may mention a new species of Amphioxus, a genus of small fishes exhibiting more anomalies than any other known to ichthyologists, and the lowest organisation found in the class; it somewhat resembles the sand-eels of Britain in habits, like them moving with extraordinary rapidity through the sand. By dint of bribery and ridicule, we had at length managed to get our boatmen to work tolerably well; and when we were alike well roasted by the sun and repeatedly drenched, besides being tired out and hungry, they had become quite submissive, and exchanged their grumbling for merriment. A more lovely spot can scarcely be found, than the secluded bay of Botafogo with its pretty village, and the noble Corcovado mountain immediately behind, and we paid it other visits.

SLAVERY.

One of the principal characteristics of Rio is slavery. Slaves here perform the work of beasts of burden; and in the business parts of the city the attention of a stranger is sure to be arrested by gangs of them heavily laden, proceeding at a jog-trot, timing their steps to a monotonous song and the noise of a tin rattle filled with stones, carried by their leader. What their domestic condition and treatment may be, I know not, but, among the slaves one sees out of doors, the frequency of iron collars round the neck, and even masks of tin, concealing the lower part of the face, and secured behind with a padlock, would seem to indicate extreme brutality in those capable of resorting to such means of punishment. Yet these, I was told, were rare exceptions, the Brazilians not being worse task-masters than the people of other slave-holding countries--and such may be the case.

RELIGIOUS PROCESSIONS.

Whatever he may think of the true state of religious feeling, it soon becomes obvious to a stranger that great care is taken to celebrate the numerous festivals of the Church with all possible pomp and splendour. One day I happened to encounter a procession in honour of St. Januarius, the patron saint of Rio. The number of ecclesiastics taking a part amounted to several hundreds, and a body of military brought up the rear. The streets and windows were crowded with people in their holiday costume, bands of music were playing, bells were ringing, flowers were scattered about and showered down from the houses. The profusion of tinsel and embroidery was very great, and the balconies and windows in the line of procession were hung with rich brocade in all the colours of the rainbow.

BRAZILIAN CHARACTER.

A short stay, such as ours, afforded very limited opportunities of judging of the national character; and my impressions on this point were, probably, often erroneous. The Brazilians and English did not then reciprocate very cordially, on account of the existing state of international relations. Of late years great advances appear to have been made upon the mother-country, judging from the increasing liberality of their institutions, the establishment of commercial relations abroad, the freedom of discussion and influence of the press, the attention paid to public education (especially of the middle classes) the support granted to literature and science, and the declining influence of the priesthood in secular matters. The national character, however, can scarcely be considered as fully formed; the Brazilians have been too recently emancipated from the thraldom of a modified despotism to have made, as yet, any very great progress in developing the elements of national prosperity and greatness which the vast empire of Brazil so abundantly possesses, and the foul blot of slavery, with its debasing influence, still remains untouched.

CROSS THE SOUTH ATLANTIC.

On February 2nd we sailed from Rio for the Cape of Good Hope. The morning being calm, we were towed out by the boats of the squadron until a light air, the precursor of the seabreeze, set in. While hove-to outside the entrance, a haul of the dredge brought up the rare Terebratula rosea, and a small shell of a new genus, allied to Rissoa. The remainder of the day and part of the succeeding one were spent in a fruitless search for a shoal said to exist in the neighbourhood, to which Captain Stanley's attention had been drawn by Captain Broughton, of H.M.S. Curacao.

At one P.M. of each day, when the weather was favourable, the ship was hove-to for the purpose of obtaining observations on the temperature of the water at considerable depths, under the superintendence of Lieutenant Dayman. As these were continued during our outward voyage as far as Van Diemen's Land, and the number of observations amounted to 69, the results will more clearly be understood if exhibited in a tabular form, for which the reader is referred to the Appendix. "Two of the Sixe's thermometers were attached, one at the bottom of the line of 370 fathoms, the other 150 fathoms higher up. The depth recorded is that given by Massey's patent sounding machine. As the same quantity of line was always used, the difference of depth of each day should be trifling, varying only in proportion to the ship's drift; yet on several occasions the depth recorded by the machine gives as much as 100 fathoms short of the quantity of line let out."*

(*Footnote. Lieutenant Dayman, R.N.)

BOAT CAPSIZED.

While engaged in sounding, a process which usually occupied three-quarters of an hour, a boat was always at my service when birds were about the ship, and the state of the sea admitted of going after them--by this means many species of petrels were obtained for the collection. On one of these occasions, owing to a mistake in lowering the stern boat before the ship had quite lost her way through the water, one of the falls could not be unhooked in time; consequently the boat was dragged over on her broadside, and finally capsized with eight people in her. Some reached one of the life-buoys, which was instantly let go, the others managed to roll the boat over and right her, full of water. All were eventually picked up by the leeward quarter-boat; the weather one, from the shortness of the davits, would not clear the ship's side, but turned over on her bilge, dipping in the water, and was rendered ineffective when most wanted. This defect in the davits was afterwards remedied by the substitution of other and longer ones, which had formerly belonged to H.M. steam vessel Thunderbolt, wrecked at Algoa Bay a short time previously.

OCEANIC BIRDS.

Among many interesting birds* procured in the above-mentioned manner, I may allude to Puffinus cinereus, a European species of shearwater, which was found to be generally distributed across the South