AND PORTO SANTO. 99 



(who had served in Brazil), the agreeable manners of liis lady, the 

 liberal views of the priest, and the humour of the Itahan, prolonged 

 our sitting over the dessert, almost to the opening of the soiree. 



A soir6e in Porto Santo forms a singular contrast to the weekly 

 soiree of a private family in Funehal. From fifty to sixty persons, 

 and sometimes more, meet together, spontaneously, about eight 

 o'clock, without a single effort on- the part of the lady of the 

 house ; four or five musicians are in attendance, and while one 

 large room is thrown open for cards, the largest is reserved for 

 quadrilles and sarabands. Nothing can exceed the agreeable and 

 well bred ease of the higher class of Portuguese ladies ; a stranger 

 almost immediately ceases to feel that he is so, from their amiable 

 and judicious condescension. They generally dress with more 

 splendour than taste, but they dance elegantly, and if the in- 

 stances of beauty are not near so numerous as in the higher 

 classes of neighbouring nations, they are sometimes very striking. 

 Their figures are generally diminutive, and, too frequently, ill-pro- 

 portioned and clumsy, but the former fault, rarely wanting, is 

 sometimes redeemed by a fairy-hke symmetry. I have often 

 been electrified by the sudden glance of the sparkhng dark eye, 

 which is raised to bewitch the foreigners in France — l)ut, when 

 the dark eye of the Portuguese beauty is slowly raised from the 

 ground, where it generally reposes, as if the jealous eyelash would 

 be admired in its turn, it beams with so soft and sweet a melan- 

 choly, that it excites the deepest interest, and can never be for- 

 gotten. The balls given on particular occasions at private houses, 

 are much more splendid than those of the castle, where a foreigner 

 cannot but feel distinguished, from the kindness and politeness of 

 the present governor, Don Antonio de Noronha. They are often 

 varied by instrumental and vocal music (the former generally good) 

 between the dances, and sometimes by a ballet, performed by the 

 elder children, with great ease, spirit, and humour. As I pushed 



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