Cuap. XIII. CHANGES IN PARA. 387 
I found also the habits of the people considerably changed. Many 
of the old religious holidays had declined in importance, and given way 
to secular amusements ; social parties, balls, music, billiards, and so 
forth. ‘There was quite as much pleasure-seeking as formerly, but it 
was turned in a more rational direction, and the Paraenses seemed now 
to copy rather the customs of the northern nations of Europe, than those 
of the mother-country, Portugal. I was glad to see several new book- 
sellers’ shops, and also a fine edifice devoted to a reading-room, supplied 
with periodicals, globes, maps, and a circulating library. There were 
now many printing-offices, and four daily newspapers. The health of 
the place had greatly improved since 1850, the year of the yellow fever, 
and Parad was now considered no longer dangerous to new-comers. 
So much for the improvements visible in the place, and now for the 
dark side of the picture. The expenses of living had increased about 
fourfold, a natural consequence of the demand for labour and for native 
products of all kinds having augmented in greater ratio than the 
supply, through large arrivals of non-productive residents, and con- 
siderable importations of money on account of the steamboat company 
and foreign merchants. Pard,in 1848, was one of the cheapest places 
of residence on the American continent ; it was now one of the dearest. 
Imported articles of food, clothing, and furniture were mostly cheaper, 
although charged with duties varying from 18 to 80 per cent., besides 
high freights and large profits, than those produced in the neighbour- 
hood. Salt codfish was twopence per pound cheaper than the vile salt 
, piraruct of the country. Oranges, which could formerly be had almost 
gratis, were now sold in the streets at the rate of three for a penny; 
large bananas were a penny each fruit; tomatoes were from two 
to three pence each, and all other fruit in this fruit-producing country 
had advanced in like proportion. Mandioca-meal, the bread of the 
country, had become so scarce and dear and bad, that the poorer classes 
of natives suffered famine, and all who could afford it were obliged to 
eat wheaten bread at fourpence to fivepence per pound, made from 
American flour, 1,200 barrels of which were consumed monthly ; this 
was now, therefore, a very serious item of daily expense to all but the 
most wealthy. House-rent was most exorbitant; a miserable little 
place of two rooms, without fixtures or conveniences of any kind, having 
simply blank walls, cost at the rate of £18 sterling a year. Lastly, the 
hire of servants was beyond the means of all persons in moderate 
circumstances ; a lazy cook or porter could not be had for less than 
three or four shillings a day, besides his board and what he could steal. 
It cost me half a crown for the hire of a small boat and one man to 
disembark from the steamer, a distance of 100 yards. 
In rambling over my old ground in the forests of the neighbourhood, 
I found great changes had taken place—to me, changes for the worse. 
The mantle of shrubs, bushes, and creeping plants which formerly, 
when the suburbs were undisturbed by axe or spade, had been left free 
to arrange itself in rich, full, and smooth sheets and masses over the 
forest borders, had been nearly all cut away, and troops of labourers 
were still employed cutting ugly muddy roads for carts and cattle, 
through the once clean and lonely woods. Houses and mills had 
