Chap I. PRIVATE MOKALITY. 43 



position, and Brazilian fathers were opening their eyes 

 to the advantages of education for their daughters. 

 Reforms of this kind are slow. It is, perhaps, in part 

 owing to the degrading position always held by women, 

 that the relations between the sexes were and are still 

 on so unsatisfactory a footing, and private morality at so 

 low an ebb in Brazil. In Para I believe that an im- 

 provement is now taking place, but formerly promiscuous 

 intercourse seemed to be the general rule amongst all 

 classes, and intrigues and love-making the serious 

 business of the greater part of the population. That 

 this state of things is a necessity depending on the 

 climate and institutions I do not believe, as I have 

 resided at small towns in the interior, where the habits, 

 and the general standard of morality of the inhabitants, 

 were as pure as they are in similar places in England. 



