NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



133 



Whatever vent it may find, or however it may be partially evaporated 

 and dried up by the heat, the dunghill by the shore accumulates perpe- 

 tually. Cloacina has no Altar erected to her in E,io, and a sort of Pot de 

 Chambre is substituted for her Temple. The beach, open spaces, and 

 back lanes, are thickly strewed witli ever fresh abominations. There are 

 no common sewers, no scavengers, no public characters, whose duty it 

 might seem to be to prevent or cure them, few private persons, that 

 appear to be sensible of their existence. One prevailing custom alone 

 may, possibly, have been adopted, or may have attained its almost 

 universal influence, as a precaution against the stench, which pervades 

 the whole atmosphere of the city. The Brazilians, and the Portuguese 

 also, take abundance of snuff ; in cleanlier places there is no occasion to 

 plug up the nose. 



A part of the Nuisances, with which this city is infested, may arise 

 from climate ; it would be unfair not to make considerable allowances 

 on this score. But after the most ample deductions, the great mass of 

 what is most disgusting may be traced to confirmed habit, and the insen- 

 sibility which it occasions. It is no wonder that strangers, on the irre- 

 sistible evidence of different senses, should consider Rio as one of the 

 dirtiest associations of human beings under Heaven. It is no wonder 

 that they dread lest, by the increase of population, it should become one 

 great pest-house. It would have been so long since, were not the climate, 

 with all its burning heat, singularly pure; it will be so, unless some 

 vigorous methods, which hitherto have not been thought necessary, nor 

 even expedient, be employed to keep it wholesome. The yellow fever 

 stands already at the door; if it enter, its ravages will be horribly deso- 

 lating. Even now« men have blotched and blainy skins ; females are 

 subject, from unnatural confinement, as well as deleterious air, to 

 different cutaneous disorders; and the flesh of children is flabby, their 

 countenances pale, their bodies full of eruptions, and their whole system 

 debilitated. 



Some highly disgusting'features of the Brazilian character have been 

 noticed ; worse remain to be brought forward. In the delineation of 



