After so brief a sojourn as ours, we can hardly offer more to the reader than a short sketch of our own few experiences, and some remarks regarding the alterations which took place in the appearance of the city and in its social and political condition, since the period when Martius and Spix, Rugendas, Prince Neuwied, Helmreichen, Natterer, Pohl, d'Orbigny, Wilkes, Castelnau, Burmeister, and others visited Brazil, and so accurately delineated it both by pen and pencil.[37]
[Footnote 37: Before we left Europe, the wish was repeatedly expressed to us that, during our stay in Rio, more accurate information should be obtained as to the fate of numerous scientific works and collections, by several German naturalists who died in Brazil in recent times, such as Frederick Sello, Dr. Müller (a companion of Castelnau), Dr. Engler, and others. Unfortunately, we can only give the little consolatory intelligence that, with the exception of the scientific memoranda left behind by Dr. Engler, chiefly relating to Itù in the province of St. Paul, there was nothing further to be hoped for. The collections have all been dispersed through want of care, and the manuscripts nearly all destroyed through ignorance of their value.]
The magnificent scenery of the Bay of Rio de Janeiro still continues to possess the same absorbing interest for the new comer, wherever it has not suffered by the expansion of the rapidly-increasing city, or the axe of the emigrant settler; it is but little one can add to or alter in the picturesque description which travellers, alive to its natural beauties, had already given, half a century ago, of the wonderful haven of the Brazilian metropolis! Very different, however, is the impression, when the stranger, on disembarking, sets foot on the new world, and has to make his way through narrow, steep, filthy streets, greeted by yelling crowds of blacks and whites, poor negro slaves, and wealthy planters, into the interior of this bustling port. An entirely altered state of affairs has sprung up since the separation of Brazil from Portugal, and he who has not seen Rio within the last ten years would hardly recognize the capital of the Brazilian empire. Along with the most conspicuous deficiencies, in numerous particulars, one finds such institutions as are not to be met with, in a similarly flourishing condition, in any other State of South America, or among the republics of the Isthmus. But Brazil is emphatically "The Land of Contrasts."