- end_line
- 8192
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:36.274Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 8134
- text
- in Egypt, and Saul, and Judas Maccabeus, and Solomon.
Archipelago Rio! ere Noah on old Ararat anchored his ark, there lay
anchored in you all these green, rocky isles I now see. But God did not
build on you, isles! those long lines of batteries; nor did our blessed
Saviour stand godfather at the christening of yon frowning fortress of
Santa Cruz, though named in honour of himself, the divine Prince of
Peace!
Amphitheatrical Rio! in your broad expanse might be held the
Resurrection and Judgment-day of the whole world’s men-of-war,
represented by the flag-ships of fleets—the flag-ships of the
Phoenician armed galleys of Tyre and Sidon; of King Solomon’s annual
squadrons that sailed to Ophir; whence in after times, perhaps, sailed
the Acapulco fleets of the Spaniards, with golden ingots for
ballasting; the flag-ships of all the Greek and Persian craft that
exchanged the war-hug at Salamis; of all the Roman and Egyptian galleys
that, eagle-like, with blood-dripping prows, beaked each other at
Actium; of all the Danish keels of the Vikings; of all the musquito
craft of Abba Thule, king of the Pelaws, when he went to vanquish
Artinsall; of all the Venetian, Genoese, and Papal fleets that came to
the shock at Lepanto; of both horns of the crescent of the Spanish
Armada; of the Portuguese squadron that, under the gallant Gama,
chastised the Moors, and discovered the Moluccas; of all the Dutch
navies red by Van Tromp, and sunk by Admiral Hawke; of the forty-seven
French and Spanish sail-of-the-line that, for three months, essayed to
batter down Gibraltar; of all Nelson’s seventy-fours that
thunder-bolted off St. Vincent’s, at the Nile, Copenhagen, and
Trafalgar; of all the frigate-merchantmen of the East India Company; of
Perry’s war-brigs, sloops, and schooners that scattered the British
armament on Lake Erie; of all the Barbary corsairs captured by
Bainbridge; of the war-canoes of the Polynesian kings, Tammahammaha and
Pomare—ay! one and all, with Commodore Noah for their Lord High
Admiral—in this abounding Bay of Rio these flag-ships might all come to
anchor, and swing round in concert to the first of the flood.
Rio is a small Mediterranean; and what was fabled of the entrance to
that sea, in Rio is partly made true; for here, at the mouth, stands
one of Hercules’ Pillars, the Sugar-Loaf Mountain, one thousand feet
high, inclining over a little, like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. At its
base crouch, like mastiffs, the batteries of Jose and Theodosia; while
opposite, you are menaced by a rock-founded fort.
The channel between—the sole inlet to the bay—seems but a biscuit’s
toss over; you see naught of the land-locked sea within till fairly in
the strait. But, then, what a sight is beheld! Diversified as the
harbour of Constantinople, but a thousand-fold grander. When the
Neversink swept in, word was passed, “Aloft, top-men! and furl
t’-gallant-sails and royals!”
At the sound I sprang into the rigging, and was soon at my perch. How I
hung over that main-royal-yard in a rapture High in air, poised over
that magnificent bay, a new world to my ravished eyes, I felt like the
foremost of a flight of angels, new-lighted upon earth, from some star
in the Milky Way.
- title
- Chunk 2