132 Voyage of Hie Novara. 



Minister, Chevalier de Sonnleithiier, and our Consul-General, 

 as well as from some German families, and also from the 

 " Germania," a Club founded by twelve Germans as far 

 back as 1821. This Society numbers now about 200 mem- 

 bers, and is well supplied with German newspapers and peri- 

 odicals, besides possessing a well-selected library of several 

 thousand volumes, and a reading-room, with restaurant, smok- 

 ing, billiard, and dancing-rooms attached. Of the various 

 nationalities represented at Rio, the Germans are the most 

 respected by the Brazilians. They are about 3000 in number, 

 and as the majority are Protestants they have their own church, 

 founded by three Germans in 1827, which now numbers 600 

 members, and has an annual income of 5000 milreis.* The 

 community is under the protection of the Supreme Ecclesias- 

 tical Council in Berlin, and accordingly, as often as public 

 worship is joined in, prayers are offered up for the King 

 of Prussia, as head of the church. Despite its existence for 

 more than- thirty years, the position occupied by the Evangelical 

 church with reference to the State, has never been accurately 

 defined, so that differences are constantly occurring. In con- 

 nection with the congregation are a school, and a society for 

 aiding distressed Germans, which numbers 200 associates, and 

 has an annual income of from 6OOO to 7OOO milreis (£600 to 



* One milreis = 1000 reis = about 2s. English. The BraziHan milreis is of 

 this small value as compared with that of the Portuguese (3 to 7), in consequence of 

 its being represented by paper-money of fluctuating value, wliich gi'adually became 

 so depreciated that Government, when regulating the value in 184G, were not in a 

 position to restore it to its par value of 3s. Ad. sterling. 



