34 RIO DE JANEIRO CHAP, n 



attend, nor were gentlemen's sons ever excused ; each of 

 these was dressed in a black cassock with a short red 

 cloak reaching half-way down the shoulders, and carried in 

 his hand a lantern hung on the end of a pole about six or 

 seven feet long. The light caused by this (for there were 

 always at least 200 lanterns) is greater than can be imagined ; 

 I myself, who saw it out of the cabin windows, called my 

 messmates, imagining that the town was on fire. 



Besides this travelling religion, any one walking through 

 the streets has opportunity enough to show his attachment 

 to any saint in the calendar, for every corner and almost 

 every house has before it a little cupboard in which some 

 saint or other keeps his residence ; and lest he should not 

 see his votaries in the night, he is furnished with a small 

 lamp which hangs before his little glass window. To these 

 it is very customary to pray and sing hymns with all the 

 vociferation imaginable, as may be imagined when I say 

 that I and every one in the ship heard it very distinctly 

 every night, though we lay at least half a mile from the 

 town. 



The government of this place seems to me to be much 

 more despotic even than that of Portugal, although many 

 precautions have been taken to render it otherwise. The 

 chief magistrates are the Viceroy, the Governor of the town, 

 and a Council, whose number I could not learn, but only 

 that the viceroy had in this the casting vote. Without the 

 consent of this council nothing material should be done, yet 

 every day shows that the viceroy and governor at least, if 

 not all the rest, do the most unjust things without consult- 

 ing any one ; putting a man into prison without giving him 

 a hearing, and keeping him there till he is glad at any rate 

 to get out, without asking why he was put in, or at best, 

 sending him to Lisbon to be tried there without letting his 

 family here know where he is gone, as is very common. 

 This we experienced while here, for every one who had 

 interpreted for our people, or who had only assisted in buy- 

 ing provisions for them, was put into jail, merely, I suppose, 

 to show us their power. I should, however, except from 



