188 



NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



most seriously, dilating on the vast value of the pottery. Never did the 

 richest service of Porcelain elicit from a fine lady more regard than these 

 English platters drew from the old gentleman. And he was as much in 

 the right as the lady could have been, our ideas of wealth and splendour 

 depending almost entirely on circumstances. Here was, probably, the 

 only dinner and tea equipage of the kind in the country ; and I had, not 

 long before, seen a yellow pint basin sold for a dollar, and a small yellow 

 tea-pot for two. 



For the temporary use to which my house was destined I had little 

 occasion to go beyond the common custom of the country in the article 

 of furniture. In the sitting-room were a few cliairs, with seats and 

 backs of embossed leather, which folded up into a small compass, and 

 were convenient for carriage, and an useful table of dark coloured wood, 

 supported by four curved legs, each pair being joined together in the 

 middle of the curve. I had not the small ordinary looking-glass, which, 

 in most of the houses, adorns one side of the room, nor the Oratory, 

 supported by two candles, which is usually placed on the other. In the 

 furniture of the Alcove I was more of a conformist ; this sleeping apart- 

 ment, if so it may be called, generally containing a bedstead, sometimes 

 richly carved, having laths instead of sacking, and contrived, like the 

 chairs, for occupying little room, in case of removal. The bed is a bag 

 of coarse cotton-cloth, filled with wool or fiocks ; the bolster and pillows 

 the same, stuffed so hard as to give them the form and something like 

 the consistency of a garden-roller. The sheets are of cotton, beautifully 

 bleached, and, — at least, in the opinion of the contrivers, — handsomely 

 flounced ; the pillow-cases made to fit close, and drawn at each end with 

 a blue or pink ribbon. I do not know that there is either fire-place or 

 chimney in any of the kitchens of St. Pedro, which, in common, answers 

 exactly to the account given of my own. In one of the corners there is 

 a sort of divan, made of plank, and raised about six inches above the 

 earthen floor, which forms the bed-place of the domestics, both male and 

 Ifeliiale, each wrapping him or herself in a couple of yards of blue baize, 

 to keep off the mosquitoes. For the same purpose wood fires are 



