THE JOURNEY TO THE AMAZON 269 



ment. The public buildings handsome, but out of repair or 

 even ruinous. The squares and public places covered with 

 grass and weeds like an English common. Palm trees of 

 many different kinds, bananas and plantains abundant in all 

 the gardens, and orange trees innumerable, most of the roads 

 out of the city being bordered on each side with them. 

 Bananas and oranges are delicious. I eat them at almost 

 every meal. Beef is the only meat to be constantly had, not 

 very good, but cheap — 2§ d. a pound. Coffee grows wild all 

 about the city, yet it is imported for use, the people are so 

 lazy. Every shade of colour is seen here in the people from 

 white to yellow, brown, and black — negroes, Indians, Bra- 

 zilians, and Europeans, with every intermediate mixture. The 

 Brazilians and Portuguese are very polite, and have all the 

 appearance of civilization. Naked nigger children abound in 

 the streets. 



" Within a mile of the city all around is the forest, extend- 

 ing uninterruptedly many hundreds and even, in some 

 directions, thousands of miles into the interior. The climate 

 is beautiful. We are now at the commencement of the dry 

 season. It rains generally for an hour or two every evening, 

 though not always. Before sunrise the thermometer is about 

 75 , in the afternoon 85 ° to 87 °, the highest I have yet noted. 

 This is hot, but by no means oppressive. I enjoy it as much 

 as the finest summer weather in England. We have been 

 principally collecting insects at present. The variety is 

 immense; we have already got about four hundred distinct 

 kinds." 



In fulfilment of a promise I made before I left Neath, I 

 wrote a letter to the members of the Mechanics' Institution, 

 after I had been nine months in the country, and as my 

 mother preserved a copy of it, I will give the more important 

 parts of it here. After a few preliminary observations, I 

 proceed thus : — 



" Previous to leaving England I had read many books of 

 travels in hot countries, I had dwelt so much on the enthusi- 

 astic descriptions most naturalists give of the surpassing 



