FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE — 309 
seats, and instantly each gentleman walks hur- 
riedly into the anteroom, and for ten minutes 
there is as absolute a separation of the sexes 
as in a Friends’ Meeting. Nobody approves 
this arrangement, in the abstract ; it is all very 
well, they think, for foreign gentlemen to re- 
main in the room, but it is not the Portuguese 
custom. Yet, with this exception, the manners 
are agreeably simple. Your admission to the 
house guarantees you as a proper acquaintance, 
there are no introductions, and you may address 
any one in any language you can coin into a sen- 
tence. Many speak French, and two or three 
English, — sometimes with an odd mingling 
of dialects, as when the Military Governor an- 
swered my inquiry, made in timid Portuguese, 
as to how long he had served in the army. 
“ Vinte-cinco annos,’ he answered, in the same 
language ; then, with an effort after an unex- 
ceptionable translation, “ Vat you call, twenty- 
cing year!” 
The great obstacle to the dialogue soon be- 
comes, however, a deficit of subjects rather 
than of words. Most of these ladies never go 
out except to mass and to parties, they never 
read, and if one of them has some knowledge 
of geography, it is quite an extended educa- 
tion; so that, when you have asked them if 
they have ever been to St. Michael, and they 
