COIMiJRA. 109 



tlie river bauk, and indeed tlie whole city was full of 

 them. As a bod}^ they certainly bore a very creditable 

 appearance, had a gentlemanly look, and were very well 

 behaved; but they struck me as generally of slight form 

 and diminutive stature. Very dark hair and dark com- 

 plexions prevail, as one might expect in so southern a 

 clime. ^loreover, a considerable proportion of them are 

 Brazilians. The academical dress consists of black trow- 

 sers and a long black coat, single-breasted, buttoned 

 closely down the front, and strongly resembling a priest's 

 cassock ; over this they wear a long black gown, like a 

 Roman toga, the right end of which they catch up and 

 throw over the left shoulder, and thus envelop the throat 

 and mouth, just as the Spaniard does with his cloak, and 

 as none but a native of the Peninsula can do. As a 

 general rule, they wear nothing on the head — indeed, I 

 should say that ninety-nine out of every hundred were 

 bare-headed — but here and there one might be seen with 

 a black rjorro, as it is called, closely resembling a fisher- 

 man's cap, or old-fashioned night-cap, and anything but 

 becoming. This University costume is so far compulsory 

 that they cannot appear at lecture if they deviate in ever 

 so slight a degree from the prescribed colour and cut, and 

 the result is, that they wear no other, and never lay aside 

 their academical dress, as is so generally the fashion with 

 undergraduates at Oxford and Cambridge. The regular 

 University course extends through five years, but, inclu- 

 ding the preliminary and the subsequent additions, no 

 less than seven years are occupied in the student's full 

 career, before he can take his degree. This will, doubt- 

 less, appear to some an unnecessarily protracted period of 

 study; but when it is considered that the public school 

 system, which is of such unspeakable value with us, is 

 unknown in Portugal, and that the University must sup- 

 ply its place, in addition to its own more advanced re- 



