14 



TRAVELS ON THE AMAZON. 



[June, 



rockets are looked upon as quite a part of the religious 

 ceremony : on asking an old Negro why they were let off in 

 the morning, he looked up to the sky and answered very 

 gravely, " Por Deos " (for God). Music, noise, and fireworks 

 are the three essentials to please a Brazilian populace ; and for 

 a fortnight we had enough of them, for besides the above- 

 mentioned amusements, they fire off guns, pistols, and cannon 

 from morning to night. 



After many inquiries, we at last succeeded in procuring a 

 house to suit us. It was situated at Nazare, about a mile and 

 a half south of the city, just opposite a pretty little chapel. 

 Close behind, the forest commences, and there are many good 

 localities for birds, insects, and plants in the neighbourhood. 

 The house consisted of a ground-floor of four rooms, with a 

 verandah extending completely round it, affording a rather 

 extensive and very pleasant promenade. The grounds contained 

 oranges and bananas, and a great many forest and fruit trees, 

 with coffee and mandiocca plantations. We were to pay 

 twenty milreis a month rent (equal to £2 5^.), which is very 

 dear for Para, but we could get no other house so convenient. 

 Isidora took possession of an old mud-walled shed as the 

 domain of his culinary operations ; we worked and took our 

 meals in the verandah, and seldom used the inner rooms but 

 as sleeping apartments. 



We now found much less difficulty in mustering up sufficient 

 Portuguese to explain our various wants. We were some time 

 getting into the use of the Portuguese, or rather Brazilian, 

 money, which is peculiar and puzzling. It consists of paper, 

 silver, and copper. The rey is the unit or standard, but the 

 milrey, or thousand reis, is the value of the lowest note, and 

 serves as the unit in which accounts are kept; so that the 

 system is a decimal one, and very easy, were it not complicated 

 by several other coins, which are used in reckoning; as the 

 vintem, which is twenty reis, the patac, three hundred and 

 twenty, and the crusado, four hundred, in all of which coins 

 sums of money are often reckoned, which is puzzling to a 

 beginner, because the patac is not an integral part of the 

 milrey (three patacs and two vintems making a milrey), and 

 the Spanish dollars which are current here are v/orth six patacs. 

 The milrey was originally worth 55-. ']\d., but now fluctuates 

 from 2S, id. to 2s. 4^/., or not quite half, owing probably to the 



