MANAOS AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD. 287 
himself, which was drank in a closing bumper with per- 
haps more animation than either of the others. The af- 
ternoon closed with dancing, and at sunset the canoes 
assembled and we returned to the city, all feeling, I 
believe, that the festival had been a very happy one. 
It certainly was so for those to whom it was intended to 
give pleasure, and could hardly fail to be likewise for 
those who had planned and executed it. It will seem 
strange to many of my readers that Sunday should be 
chosen for such a fete ; but here, as in many parts of 
continental Europe, even in Protestant districts, Sunday is 
a holiday and kept as such. 
November '2T(th. Yesterday I visited the prison where 
the wife of the chief of police had invited me to see some 
of the carved articles, straw work, <fec., made by the prison- 
ers. I had expected to be pained, because I thought, from 
the retrograde character of things in general here, the 
prison system would be bad. But the climate in these 
hot countries regulates the prison life in some degree. 
Men cannot be shut up in close, dark cells, without en- 
dangering not only their own lives, but the sanitary con- 
dition of the establishment also. Therefore the prison is 
light and airy, with plenty of doors and windows, secured 
by bars, but not otherwise closed. I infer, however, from 
a passage on the prisons of the province, contained in one 
of the able reports of President Adolfo de Barros (1864), 
that within the last year there has been a great improve- 
ment, at least in the prison of Manaos. He says : " The 
state of the prisons exceeds all that can be said to their 
disadvantage. Not only is it true that there is not to be 
found throughout the province a prison which fulfils the 
conditions imposed by the law, but there is not one which 
