264 



TRAVELS ON THE AMAZON. 



[June, 



In the towns in the interior every shop sells spirits, and 

 numbers of persons are all day drinking, taking a glass at 

 every place they go to, and, by this constant dramming, 

 ruining their health perhaps more than by complete intoxication 

 at more distant intervals. Gambling is almost universal in a 

 greater or less degree, and is to be traced to that same desire 

 to gain money by some easier road than labour, which leads so 

 many into commerce ; and the great number of traders, who 

 have to get a living out of an amount of business w^hich would 

 not be properly sufficient for one-third the number, leads to 

 the general use of trickery and lying of every degree, as fair 

 means to be employed to entrap a new customer or to ruin a 

 rival trader. Truth, in fact, in matters of business is so seldom 

 made use of, that a lie seems to be preferred even when it can 

 serve no purpose whatever, and where the person addressed 

 must be perfectly aware of the falsehood of every asseveration 

 made ; but Portuguese politeness does not permit him by word 

 or look to throw any doubt on his friend's veracity. I have 

 been often amused to hear two parties endeavouring to cheat 

 each other, by assertions which each party knew to be perfectly 

 false, and yet pretended to receive as undoubted fact. 



On the subjects of the most prevalent kind of immorality, it 

 is impossible to enter, without mentioning facts too disgusting 

 to be committed to paper. Vices of such a description as at 

 home are never even alluded to, are here the subjects of 

 common conversation, and boasted of as meritorious acts, and 

 no opportunity is lost of putting the vilest construction upon 

 every word or act of a neighbour. 



Among the causes which tend to promote the growth of 

 such wide-spread immorality, we may perhaps reckon the 

 geographical position and political condition of the country, 

 and the peculiar state of civilisation in which it now exists. 

 To a native, a tropical climate certainly offers fewer pleasures, 

 pursuits, and occupations than a temperate one. The heat in 

 the dry, and the moisture in the rainy season do not admit of 

 the outdoor exercise and amusements, in which the inhabitants 

 of a temperate zone can almost constantly indulge. The 

 short twilights afford but a few moments between the glare of 

 the descending sun and the darkness of night. Nature itself, 

 dressed in an eternal and almost unchangeable garb of verdure, 

 presents but a monotonous scene to him who has beheld it 



