78 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



fruits pouring into the town, you are apt to wonder at 

 the little attention these people pay to the common 

 comforts which one always expects to find in a large 

 and opulent city. However, if the inhabitants are 

 satisfied, there is nothing more to be said. Should 

 they ever be convinced that inconveniences exist, and 

 that nuisances are too frequent, the remedy is in their 

 own hands. At present, certainly, they seem perfectly 

 regardless of them; and the Captain- General of Per- 

 nambuco walks through the streets with as apparent 

 content and composure, as an English statesman would 

 proceed down Charing- cross. Custom reconciles every- 

 thing. In a week or two the stranger himself begins 

 to feel less the things which annoyed him so much 

 upon his first arrival, and after a few months' residence, 

 he thinks no more about them, while he is partaking 

 of the hospitality, and enjoying the elegance and 

 splendour within doors in this great city. 



Close by the river-side stands what is 



Palace of 



the Captain- called the palace of the Captain-General of 

 Pernambuco. Its form and appearance alto- 

 gether, strike the traveller that it was never intended 

 for the use it is at present put to. 



Eeader, throw a veil over thy recollection for a little 

 while, and forget the cruel, unjust, and unmerited cen- 

 sures thou hast heard against an unoffending order. 

 This palace was once the Jesuits' college, and originally 

 built by those charitable fathers. Ask the aged and 

 respectable inhabitants of Pernambuco, and they will 

 tell thee that the destruction of the Society 



Destruction . . . 



of the Society of Jesus was a terrible disaster to the public, 



of Jesus. . 



and its consequences severely felt to the 

 present day. 



