Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIV.djvu/246

 230 RECIFE RECOGNIZANCE RECIFE, or Pernambneo, a maritime city of Brazil, capital of the province of Pernambuco, 1,150 m. N. E. of Rio de Janeiro ; lat. 8 4' 8., Ion. 34 50' W. ; pop. about 100,000. It is at the common mouth of the rivers Beberibe and Capibaribe, which form a delta comprising sev- eral islands, and is divided into three quarters, Boa Vista, Sao Antonio, and Recife proper, united by bridges. Many of the streets are regular, particularly in Boa Vista, well paved, and lighted with gas ; and the houses are part- ly of brick, with three and four stories. Be- sides handsome parish churches, there are sev- eral others, mostly attached to convents ; the remaining edifices of note are the governor's and bishop's palaces, the city hall and provin- cial government buildings, the arsenal, custom house, lazaretto and other hospitals, and be- nevolent institutions. There are a lyceum, a law school, and a provincial gymnasium. The port, defended by several forts, is protected by a reef (whence the name Recife), to which masonry has been added. A breach in the reef forms the entrance to the river port, which, though very commodious, is inaccessi- ble to craft of over 700 tons, owing to a sand bank. Recife has three banks, flourishing to- bacco, soap, and paper factories, and two ma- chine shops. The total value of the exports in the year 1872-'3 was $12,808,788, the sta- ples being cotton, sugar, molasses, rum, and hides. The Pernambuco and Sao Francisco railway extends S. E. from the city. The' town is the western terminus of the subma- rine cable from Lisbon, completed in June, 1874. It was founded about 1530, by Duarte Coelho, and erected into a bishopric in 1676. The English occupied it in 1595 ; it was seized by the Dutch in 1629; and it has repeatedly been the scene of insurrections, particularly in 1661 and 1710. KECITiTIVE (Lat. recitare, to recite ; called by the Italians musica parlante, speaking mu- sic), a species of artificial declamation adapted to musical notes, imitating the inflections of natural speech, and forming a medium between ordinary recitation or speaking, which it near- ly resembles, and measured air or song. It was first introduced at Rome by Emilio del Cavaliere in 1600, and is now a recognized and indeed an essential form of vocal composition in the grand Italian opera, oratorios, and can- tatas, serving to express some action or pas- sion, to relate a story, or to connect scenes and situations, without injuring the effect of the performance by resorting to spoken words. Although written in common time, the recita- tive may be delivered by the singer according to his fancy, subject of course to the laws of prosody, the lengths of the notes as given by the composer being mere approximations. The accompaniment generally consists of a few oc- casional chords struck by the pianoforte to in- dicate the harmony, although sometimes the violoncellos take the chords in arpeggio. This, the simplest form of recitative, is called reci- tative secco ; when besides the bass the recita- tive is accompanied by other instruments of the orchestra, it is recitative istrumentato ; when interrupted by interjected passages per- formed by the orchestra, it is said to be ollli- gato. The more modern composers have given great attention to elaborating the recitative, Wagner having gone so far as to banish the aria and substitute in its place a kind of mu- sical recitation, between recitative and song. RECLL'S, Jean Jacqnes EUsee, a French geogra- pher, born at Ste. Foy la Grande, department of Gironde, March 15, 1830. He studied under Carl Ritter in Berlin, and travelled in Great Britain and North and South America from 1851 to 1857, when he returned to France and published a series of books of travel. For continuing to serve in the national guard of Paris after the establishment of the commune he was sentenced to death (1871); but the sen- tence was commuted to banishment, and he was finally pardoned. His principal works are: La terre (2 vols., 1867-'8; English translation, " The Earth," edited by B. B. Woodward, 2 vols., New York, 1871); Les phenomenes ter- restres, le mers et le meteor e* (1872 ; English translation, "The Ocean, Atmosphere, and Life," by B. B. Woodward, edited by Henry Woodward, New York, 1872); Voyage aux regiont minieres de la Transylvanie occiden- tals (1873); and Nouvelle geographic univer- telle (part i., 1875). RECOGNIZANCE (law Fr. reconisaunce ; law Lat. recognitio)^ an obligation of record en- tered into before a court of record or magis- trate duly authorized to take it, with condition to perform some specified act ; as to appear at the assizes or criminal courfc, to keep the peace, to pay a debt, or some other thing of a like description, upon the performance of which condition the obligation is to become null and void. The state or person in whose favor or to whom the recognizance is made is called the cognizee, and the person who enters into it the cognizor. The word recognizance is given to this kind of obligation, because, gen- erally, the form of it is this : the clerk or oth- er proper officer says to the cognizor : " You acknowledge yourself bound to," &c. ; to which the cognizor assents ; and it is then made matter of record. Recognizances are of sev- eral kinds and descriptions, and are used for various purposes both civil and criminal. Of the former kind was a recognizance of debt at common law, in the nature of a deed to charge or encumber lands. This was very similar in form and effect to an ordinary bond, the main distinction being that while a bond is the cre- ation of a fresh debt or obligation, a recog- nizance was the acknowledgment of a debt already existing upon record. It was certified to or taken by the officer of some court, and witnessed only by the record of such court, instead of having the cognizor's seal affixed to it. It was not strictly a deed, though in effect it was of greater force and obligation, and was