Explore "The Cruise of the Alerte" by E. F. Knight on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
All hands turned out early on the morning after our arrival anxious for shore leave, so that they might inspect the city that rose before them so majestically from the edge of the green water. Now could they realise better than by night what a magnificent harbour is this Reconcavo -- an extensive inland sea 100 miles in circumference, into which several large rivers pour their waters, surrounded by a country of prodigal fertility, and studded with beautiful islands!
The town was merry as usual with a sound of bells, crackers, and rockets. These are never silent in Bahia. It is a most religious city. It is called Bahia de Todos os Santos, the Bay of All Saints, and every day of the year is the saint's day of some parish or street or even family, and it has to be celebrated by fireworks, which, according to the custom of the country, are let off by day quite as much as by night. If there happened a sudden cessation of this noise of bells, crackers, and rockets, I believe the inhabitants would run out of their houses in consternation, under the impression that an earthquake or a revolution had come upon them.