NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



Ill 



attempts to borrow for an unlimited time, or to purchase on an undefined 

 credit. Officers of the army, as living became expensive, humbled 

 themselves into solicitors for charity ; and it is to be regretted, but ought 

 to be recorded, that more than one person, who wore a star, fell into 

 deeper disgrace, stole, and were detected. 



It would be absurd to affect an equally detailed account of the 

 different orders of females, and of their various occupations. . These 

 must, of necessity, be chiefly of a private nature ; and it must be 

 remembered that women of the higher and middle classes, especially the 

 younger part of them, are much more secluded than in our own country. 

 The little intercourse with them, which custom allowed, soon displayed 

 their want of education and knowledge. This, indeed, was a part of the 

 avowed system ; it was settled that their reading was not to extend 

 beyond the prayer-books, because it would be useless to a woman, nor 

 were they to write lest, as was sagely remarked, they should make a bad 

 use of the art. The ignorance which prevailed among them, about the 

 time when the Regent and his followers made their appearance, was 

 extreme, was generally acknowledged, and by the new comers greatly 

 lamented ; in a few years after the matter might be somewhat mended, 

 but the improvement was not material. 



Of their dress and appearance we strangers were more competent 

 judges than of their minds. The former is of the lightest sort ; among 

 their familiar friends they are seen with a shift only, bound about the 

 waist by the strings of a petticoat, and the bosom of it often falling off 

 from one shoulder ; they wear no stockings, and seldom either slippers 

 or the wooden clogs, with brown upper leathers, called tamancas. Their 

 hair is long, and too commonly uncombed, bound with a riband close 

 behind the head, the ends turned up to the crown, and there twisted 

 about a sort of bodkin. Sometimes a wreath of artificial flowers is added, 

 ingeniously made by themselves of silk, beads, coloured paper, tinsel, 

 and the wings of some of the brilliant insects of the country ; these are 

 arranged and worn with taste. Their manners are a contrast to every 

 tiling graceful ; coarse, boisterous, and pert. They talk fluently, but 



