146 A YEAR IN BRAZIL. 



altars. There is also a chapel, with a good exterior, but 

 much less decorated interior. The service was reverent, 

 but I disliked one feature connected with the hymns. 

 Two or three were started at intervals, sometimes by the 

 men, at other times by the women, and very well sung in 

 harmony, without accompaniment ; but they were disturb- 

 ing, first, because they were generally addressed to the 

 Virgin, and secondly, they distracted one's attention from 

 the Great Service, as the priest's voice was drowned thereby ; 

 and but for the genuflections and bell-ringing, it was 

 difficult to discern what part of the Liturgy was going on. 

 There was no sermon. How I long for the same service at 

 our church, where, at least, one is quiet and one's thoughts 

 undisturbed ! 



February 5. — There have been several changes lately. 

 Mr. Large, chief of the second section, who lived in a 

 house with two other members of the staff at the other 

 end of the village, has now come to live at the hotel 

 opposite. My good partner, Roberts, is soon leaving, but 

 I intend remaining alone in this house, as it is large and 

 airy ; besides which, the privacy and quiet are very great 

 considerations. At the small house, yclept hotel, there is 

 no privacy. Being the post-office, the mails come in every 

 other day in the evening, leaving at about seven or eight 

 the next morning. When the mails arrive, the whole village 

 is in and out of the hotel, in which the only three bed- 

 rooms open into the main room — call it as you please, 

 post-office, hall, or general reception-room. 



The postal arrangements are of the simplest and most 

 unsatisfactory description. The mail-bags arrive on mule- 

 back ; they are then brought into the room and opened on 

 the mud floor, in the midst of a surging crowd all anxious 

 for letters, etc. The postmaster has a table on which is 



