270 A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 
former has a healthful out-of-door life ; she has her canoe 
on the lake or river and her paths through the forest, with 
perfect liberty to come and go ; she has her appointed daily 
occupations, being busy not only with the care of her house 
and children, but in making farinha or tapioca, or in drying 
and rolling tobacco, while the men are fishing and turtle- 
hunting ; and she has her frequent festa-days to enliven 
her working life. It is, on the contrary, impossible to 
imagine anything more dreary and monotonous than the 
life of the Brazilian Senhora in the smaller towns. In 
the northern provinces especially the old Portuguese no- 
tions about shutting women up and making their home- 
life as colorless as that of a cloistered nun, without even 
the element of religious enthusiasm to give it zest, still 
prevail. Many a Brazilian lady passes day after day with- 
out stirring beyond her four walls, scarcely ever show- 
ing herself at the door or window; for she is always in a 
slovenly dishabille, unless she expects company. It is sad 
to see these stifled existences : without any contact with 
the world outside, without any charm of. domestic life, 
without books or culture of any kind, the Brazilian Sen- 
hora in this part of the country either sinks contentedly 
into a vapid, empty, aimless life, or frets against her chains, 
and is as discontented as she is useless. 
On the day of our arrival the dinner was interrupted 
by the entrance of the Indians with their greetings and 
presents of game to the President ; yesterday it was en- 
livened by quite a number of appropriate toasts and speech- 
es. I thought, as we sat around the dinner-table, there had 
probably never been gathered under the palm-roof of an 
Indian house on the Amazons just such a party before, 
combining so many different elements and objects. There 
