“ These slopes make it difficult to use vehicles in the streets, but they afford a natural surface drainage which makes São Luiz cleaner and more healthy than the coast towns of tropical Brazil usually are. The city is regularly laid out with comparatively wide longitudinal, and steep, narrow transverse streets, roughly paved and provided with sidewalks. ”

“ The principal public buildings are the cathedral, a large and severely plain structure, the episcopal palace, the Carmelite church, the government palace, town hall, custom-house, hospital, and a number of asylums, convents and charitable schools. An excellent lyceum and a church seminary are the most important educational institutions, and São Luiz long enjoyed a high reputation in Brazil for the culture of its inhabitants. ”

“ It is irregular in outline, its greatest length from N.E. to S.W. being 34 m., and its greatest breadth 19 m. Its surface is broken by a number of low hills and short valleys. The city is built upon a tongue of land between two small estuaries, Anil and Bacanga, which unite and open upon the Bay of São Marcos. It covers two low hills and the intervening valley, the transverse streets sloping sharply to the estuary on either side. ”