NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



103 



were not the first who owned them ; their waistcoats were of gayer 

 colours, with long embroidered bodies, large flaps and deep pockets ; 

 their breeches were black, so short as scarcely to reach either to the loins 

 or the knees, where they were fastened with square buckles of mock 

 brilliants; their stockings of homespun cotton, and their shoe-buckles 

 enormously large. Their heads were covered with powdered wigs, sur- 

 mounted by large, fantailed, greasy hats, in which was usually placed a 

 black cockade. The left thigh bore a very old and shabby dirk. It was 

 amusing to observe, with what punctilious ceremony these gentlemen, 

 and their subalterns, addressed each other ; how exactly in order they 

 bowed, and held their dirty hats ; with what precise forms, and cool 

 deliberation, they combined to pick the pockets of their clients. 



There were in the crowd a few respectable-looking men, but they 

 were, indeed, a small proportion ; the leading characters of the profession 

 did not find it necessary to attend these street meetings. In general, the 

 meagre and sharpened features of the persons present, and their keenly 

 piercing eyes, added to their sallow complexions, would have led a pre- 

 tender in the science of Lavater, to determine the features of their minds 

 with a glance, and to come to no very favourable conclusion. If there 

 be among them those who promote litigation, the people of Rio must be 

 peculiarly open to such influence ; otherwise bread could not be found for 

 five hundred legal practitioners, which is their computed number. 



If strangers concluded that the city was litigious, from the multitude 

 of lawyers, the number of medical men might lead them to think it 

 unhealthy. To speak of the utmost knowledge of medicine, which could 

 be acquired in Brazil, as an education for the highest rank of the pro- 

 fession, would be a disgrace to it ; and I believe that there was not a 

 single physician, before the arrival of the Court, who had been regularly 

 brought up in the medical schools of Portugal. Neither were there any 

 Surgeons, as a distinct branch of the profession ; inferior operations were 

 performed by barbers ; the more important ones by men utterly ignorant 

 of anatomy. The skill of Apothecaries in ascertaining and curing disease, 

 was little superior to their acquaintance with the human frame. A detail 



