RIO DE JANEIRO. 99 
of the chimney sweepers' girls, or rather boys dressed in girls' 
clothes, on the first of May ; and few of the saints carried 
about in their processions have a much more respectable ap- 
pearance than Guy Fawkes, on the fifth of November. Yet 
these wretched figures, thus borne about in procession, are 
sometimes loaded with real diamonds, topazes, and other 
precious stones, beside gold and silver lace and tassels, fur- 
nished in some instances by the church to which they belong, 
and borrowed in others for the occasion from the wealthier 
inhabitants, few of whom are so wanting in piety as to refuse 
her ladyship the loan of their jewels, whenever she may con- 
descend to make her appearance in public. Little as such 
objects may appear, to rational beings, to be calculated 
for inspiring that veneration which they are intended to 
produce, they serve at least as so many contrivances to divert 
the mind from any train of thinking. Indeed the long con- 
tinued habit of daily witnessing such scenes does not seem to 
have in the least diminished the attention. When the bell 
tolls every person in the street takes ofi" his hat, and he ob- 
serves the same ceremony when he passes one of the cages in 
which is contained the image of the holy Virgin ; and when 
the rockets, squibs, and crackers are let off, the eye naturally 
turns towards the eminences on which the churches and con- 
vents are generally situated. The effect produced on the 
mind by these noisy appendages of religion may be the same 
as that which, if my recollection serves me rightly, Dr. 
Johnson ascribed to music, namely, " that it takes away the 
" ideas we have, and gives us no new ones." 
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