NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



131 



Occasionally some of the apartments are swept with a sort of besom, 

 made of flags ; but water is seldom put upon the floors, in the houses of 

 merchants and shopkeepers, lest it should run through, and injure the 

 goods below. To obviate this inconvenience, and, at the same time, 

 secure the comfort of a well washed room, some of our countrymen had 

 their floors caulked, like the decks of a ship. They thus remedied, in 

 some measure, one of the evils here attendant upon the common neglect 

 of cleanliness ; for the accumulated dust favours the multiplication of 

 Fleas and Chigas, the former of which are very large and active, the 

 latter burrow under the skin, and produce painful, and, if neglected, 

 dangerous sores. Both appear to be perfectly at home, and are per- 

 mitted to dwell in peace, though there grows, in the very skirts of the 

 town, a species of Conyza which is fatal to them, but the people are too 

 lazy to gather and apply it. Another insect, too common in some 

 European bed-rooms, was said not to exist here, and it was even held 

 that it could not endure the heat of the country ; but this notion fact has 

 shown to be erroneous, for some of them have unfortunately been natu- 

 ralized, and seem to bear the climate well. The dampness of the lower 

 floors, some of which are the uncovered soil, others of boards laid 

 immediately upon it, is favourable to the breeding of Mosquitoes, which 

 gaily spend their ephemeral life, buzzing through every apartment, 

 and tormenting every inhabitant. The same circumstance is, probably, 

 no less favourable to Baratas, Avhich are as ugly as they are numerous ; 

 to Earwigs, of which there are but few ; to Lizards, with their unplea- 

 sant forms and peculiar chilliness to the touch ; to the white Ant, 

 which is, beyond calculation, voracious and destructive ; to the black 

 ones, which exist by millions, and bite most unmercifully; to Scorpions 

 and Centipedes, which, not content with the ground-floor, occasionally 

 mount the stairs, and annoy the bed-rooms ; and to the common Fly, 

 which fills every place, multiplies like the Ant, and teases beyond all 

 patient endurance. 



If one kind of care and pains, to counteract these plagues, be utterly 



neglected, it is the same with others. The inner walls of the houses, 



R 2 



