50 



NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



We were led by report, to expect a daily return of these sublime 

 exhibitions, until November. We found, however, that they, ere longs 

 constantly declined in violence, and settled into what is called the rainy 

 season ; while the heat became gentle and unoppressive, like that of a 

 warm day in an English spring. The steady and more general rains, 

 which came on about the end of October, proceeded from the North, 

 and were probably much under the influence of the mountains, which, in 

 that direction, were at least four thousand feet above the level of the sea. 

 They condense the clouds, which, at that season, hang below their sum- 

 mits, and are driven in by the daily breeze, until the whole basin of the 

 bay is filled with vapour. On the third of November, the midst of the 

 rainy period, I find it noted, that the weather is generally cloudy, and 

 that we have sometimes, what in our country is called a showery day, 

 which is followed by a steadily wet evening ; but we sufler little incon- 

 venience from it. At the end of the same month, some of the days were 

 extremely hot, some very cold as well as wet. 



Such changes were injurious to the health ; they probably produced, 

 certainly now excited, and now struck in, an eruption, called the prickly- 

 heat. Sometimes it rises to such a height as to produce an almost univer- 

 sal sore; and when, in that state, a glass of cold water is drunk, its 

 immediate effect is highly distressing ; it is as though the body were 

 scratched or pricked with ten thousand pins. The Brazilians, however, 

 consider it as salutary ; and congratulate themselves and one another, 

 when it is perceived. They, who are unable to regard this complaint as 

 a subject for congratulation, on account of its severity, generally come 

 out of it with an entirely new skin. 



From causes, which a stranger can hardly be expected correctly to 

 ascertain, the Brazilian Constitution seems to be uncommonly feeble. It 

 is not mended by the mismanagement to which it is usually subjected in 

 infancy and youth ; and as a man advances, filthiness and vice add their 

 quota to its formation. The people are very subject to fevers, to bilious 

 complaints, and what are called diseases of the liver, to dysentery, and 

 elephantiasis, and to other disorders of a similar, and probably connected. 



