502 A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 



dition, without additions or improvements. The mounted 

 animals, mammalia and birds, are faded ; and the fishes, 

 with the exception of a few beautifully stuffed specimens 

 from the Amazons, give no idea of the variety to be 

 found in the Brazilian waters. A better collection might 

 be made any morning in the fish-market. The Museum 

 contains some very fine fossil remains from the valley of the 

 San Francisco and from Ceard, but no attempt has as yet 

 been made to arrange them. 



The only learned society deserving a special mention is 

 the Historical and Geographical Institute. Its Transactions 

 are regularly published, and form already a series of many 

 volumes, full of valuable documents, chiefly relative to the 

 history of South America. The meetings are held in the 

 Imperial Palace of Rio, and are habitually presided over by 

 his Majesty the Emperor. 



I cannot close what I have to say of instruction in 

 Brazil without adding that, in a country where only half 

 the nation is educated, there can be no complete intellec- 

 tual progress. Where the difference of education makes 

 an intelligent sympathy between men and women almost 

 impossible, so that their relation is necessarily limited to 

 that of the domestic affections, never raised except in some 

 very exceptional cases to that of cultivated companionship, 

 the development of the people as a whole must remain im- 

 perfect and partial. I believe, however, that, especially in 

 this direction, a rapid reform may be expected. I have heard 

 so many intelligent Brazilians lament the want of suitable 

 instruction for women in their schools, that I think the 

 standard of education for girls will steadily be raised. Re- 

 membering the antecedents of the Brazilians, their inher- 

 ited notions as to what is becoming in the privacy and 



