64 



THREE YEARS IN THE PACIFIC 



that some have been imported, clandestinely, since 1830. At 

 the time I visited this market, I saw the poor slaves, seated on 

 benches, thirty or forty together, and entirely naked, except 

 the loins, which were covered by a fold of blue cotton cloth. 

 Many of them were suffering from the small pox, or just con- 

 valescing. While I was looking into one of these stalls of hu- 

 man life, a lady, attended by two servants, entered, and gazing 

 round at the group, fixed her eye upon one, and after survey- 

 ing him well, as a practiced jockey does a horse, she inquired 

 the price. The merchant ordered the individual indicated to 

 get up, and then put him through several exercises, to show 

 that his motions were perfect. All this took place with the 

 same indifference, or more, than is evinced generally in a bar- 

 gain for a pair of gloves. 



In the rear of the imperial chapel there is a public library, 

 containing fifty thousand volumes, open to the public every 

 day. The librarian is very urbane, and scrupulously attentive 

 to propriety, even in the dress of the visiters. I visited it one 

 day, when the thermometer was standing at 90° F., in com- 

 pany with a gentleman who wore a white jacket, after the fa- 

 shion of the place ; the librarian very politely told him that it 

 was against the rules of the institution for gentlemen to appear 

 there in such a costume, and begged him therefore to with- 

 draw ! 



The general taste for reading in any country, may be esti- 

 mated by the number and kind of various periodicals published 

 in it* In Rio Janeiro there are several daily and bi-weekly 

 newspapers printed, the largest of which is the Jornal do 

 CoMMERCio," and that is of half the size of the National 



* A valuable publication, like "Waldie's Library," a work which is doing 

 so much in the United States to diffuse a taste for reading, and consequently 

 for the diffusion of knowledge (the demand for which speaks well for the good 

 taste of our countrymen), would not be patronised in any State of South Ame- 

 rica ; simply for the reason that a taste for literature is not general. A volume 

 of ** Waldie," always delightful on land, is a desideratum at sea, from its com- 

 pact and portable form. Passengers in merchant ships, who find complete sets 

 on board, may deem themselves fortunate ; the libraries of United States ves- 

 sels should never be without them. 



