[ 634 ] [JUNE, 



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WOMEN ARE THE DEVIL! 







IN the fall of the year 1822 I was at St. Salvador, at that time closely 

 invested by the-, patriot army. The city, strongly fortified by nature and 

 art, and defended by a numerous garrison composed of veteran Peninsular 

 regiments, that had marched from the Tagus to the Adour, laughed to 

 scorn any attempt of the raw and undisciplined levies of Brazil on the 

 outside to carry it by assault. But so effectually did the insurgents cut 

 off all supplies from the interior, that the garrison was reduced to the 

 greatest straights, while famine and its concomitant disease made fearful 

 havoc among the inhabitants. Under these circumstances I held a 

 council of war with myself, the result of which was the resolution to 

 march out of the garrison without delay. 



" Toujours perdrix" has been pronounced by a high authority to be an 

 intolerable hardship, but " toujours bacalhao" and hard biscuit, upon 

 which I had fared for upwards of ten months, without exaggeration, 

 would have palled on the appetite of his most voracious majesty the late 

 king of the Sandwich Islands himself. I lost no time, therefore, in en- 

 gaging my passage on board an English vessel on the eve of sailing for 

 the Rio de Janeiro. 



This was my first reason for leaving, and a most prudent one it was. 

 My second was curiosity a desire to behold the working of the revolu- 

 tionary system in the south, and to watch the growth of the new institu- 

 tions just budding into political life this was philosophical. Thirdly, I 

 was ambitious of figuring on the theatre of events myself, even though 

 in the only way in which a foreign adventurer in such cases generally 

 does figure, viz., " comme de la chaire au canon ^ this last was down- 

 right madness. 



On the morning of my departure, as we pulled off to the ship that was 

 to carry me to my destination, my eyes rested on the flag of Portugal, 

 that with lordly pride was giving its ample folds to the morning breeze. 

 As I gazed on that banner which had so often waved on the field of vic- 

 tory; under whose dominion the magnificent city I was leaving had 

 sprung from the bosom of the wilderness, and European civilization taken 

 root in the soil, I could not help sympathising with its fallen fortunes j 

 and a feeling of deep melancholy came over me, when I reflected on the 

 "instability of all human greatness,' 7 and on the possibility of a similar re- 

 verse clouding at some future day the lofty destinies of my own country. 

 But on getting on board the ship this gloomy train of thought was soon 

 dispelled dispelled by a vision of loveliness, that, were I to live for cen- 

 turies, would be to the last green in the memory. This was a young 

 Monte Videan lady. Tall, slender, and graceful as the palmettos of her 

 native clime, cast in the most faultless mould of Andalusian symmetry, 

 with lustrous eyes, dark as Erebus, a classical paleness of complexion, 

 the upper lip slightly pencilled by a tinge of down, a profusion of luxu- 

 riant raven locks confined by a single comb of costly workmanship, from 

 which hung the jealous mantilla in graceful folds over her polished 

 shoulders, such was the lovely creature to whom the captain introduced 

 me, and who, on learning that I was to be her compagnon de voyage, 

 exclaimed, in the sweetest tone in the world, " Me allegro muchossimo ;" 



