66 



PROVINCE OF RIO DE JANEIRO. 



their consumption. The churches retail these articles at high prices, producing 

 a considerable revenue. In some of the parishes, at this time, the inhabitants, 

 by turns, are at the expense of a public feast, and it occasionally costs some 

 individuals seven or eight hundred pounds. A boy, the son of the person 

 giving this entertainment, sits upon a throne, attended by boys and girls of his 

 own age ; he is called the emperor, and, with a sceptre in his hand, presides 

 over the feast. I saw two exhibitions of this sort on the 1st of June, one in 

 the Campo St. Anna, and the other at the Lappa, accompanied with fireworks. 

 They are extremely ludicrous. The festival of Corpus Christi, on the 10th of 

 June, is one of their grandest processional displays. It is only upon these 

 occasions that the ladies appear in public. Early in the day cabriolets, drawn 

 by mules, are seen driving in every direction towards the Ruas Direita and 

 d'Aquitanda, containing females in their gala dresses, while the military of every 

 description are assembled in the streets to assist in the procession, which con- 

 sists principally of priests and friars, whose prodigious numbers are calculated 

 to swell out a cavalcade, together with numerous inhabitants of different 

 parishes, wearing cloaks peculiar to the churches, which are various and 

 showy. The whole form two lines, preceded with banners, each person, in- 

 cluding the priests, carrying a preposterous-looking wax candle, about six feet 

 high, one end of which is placed, at every step, upon the ground. The royal 

 horses, sumptuously caparisoned, and decorated with ribands from their noses 

 to the end of their long tails, are led by grooms dressed in the most tawdry 

 style, the royal servants of every order following ; then the judges, and all 

 classes of people employed by the government. The fidalgos and ministers 

 precede and follow the bishop, who carries the Host, under a superb canopy, 

 attended by Princes Don Pedro and Don Miguel, the supporters of his train ! 

 The King usually follows the bishop as a train-bearer, but on this occasion he 

 did not. The dresses of all were rich and costly ; and the procession, amount- 

 ing to some thousand persons, proceeded along the Rua Direita and returned, 

 by the Rua d'Aquitanda, to the palace chapel ; after which there was a grand 

 display of fire-works. All the balconies were crowded with females, adorned 

 with precious stones. The fronts of the houses were hung with silks and 

 crimson velvet, gilded with ornaments ; and the streets were strewed with 

 green leaves. The general effect of the whole was very imposing. 



There is rather a celebrated annual procession, on the 10th of October, in 

 the Rua dos Ourives, having its foundation in some religious observance peculiar 

 to the church of that street. All the houses are hung outside with tapestry and 



