[Illustration: STREET SCENE IN PERNAMBUCO.]
The _recife_ or reef which forms the front of Pernambuco is connected with the city by an iron bridge; at its upper end it is joined to the land by a sand-spit, and the principal business of the place is centred there. As their time was limited, the youths confined their attentions to the old city and the sights of the streets of the newer portion.
Pernambuco stands in an enclosure of mountains that sweep in a semi-circle around a fertile plain. _Recife_ is the business part; _San Antonio_ is the middle district; and _Boa Vista_ may be called the suburb. The city has about one hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants, and is the third in commercial importance in Brazil. It is the greatest sugar-market of South America, its exportation often reaching twelve hundred thousand tons in a single year. Most of the sugar sent from Pernambuco is of a low grade, and must be refined in the United States or England before going into the market for consumption.
[Illustration: PACK HORSES LADEN WITH SUGAR.]
Frank and Fred were not long in finding by observation the chief industry of the city. At every step they saw sugar; it was on the lighters going to the ships in the harbor; it was in the warehouses, where the negro porters were handling sacks filled with it; it was on the backs of pack-horses, coming from the country in great droves; it was heaped on ox-wagons, which filled the streets; in fact, it was here, there, and everywhere. The very atmosphere was redolent with sugar, and the pavements were sticky with molasses. Pernambuco without sugar would be Hamlet without Hamlet.
The streets of the business portion are narrow, and there are traces of Flemish architecture in the buildings erected during the time when Count Moritz of Nassau and his followers were domiciled in Pernambuco. There are houses of many stories, such as we see in cities of Holland, but rarely find in the tropics, where the effort of ascending a stairway is one of the trials of existence. Farther on the streets are wide, and run in straight lines, and they have broad sidewalks, tracks for street cars, and handsome dwellings that might have come from Philadelphia or Baltimore. There are several public edifices that would be creditable anywhere; the market is a model of beauty and good arrangement, and the squares and gardens are handsome and spacious. Time did not permit an excursion into the country nor a visit to one of the sugar plantations in the neighborhood.