40 
VOYAGE op THE POTOMAC. 
[October^ 
social relations of life. They are, in fact, as suspicious and jeal- 
ous of foreigners as their ancestors were before them; and so 
politely forbidding, generally, are their manners towards visit- 
ers, that no traveller, or temporary sojourner, can penetrate the 
mystery of their domestic economy. 
All travellers agree in charging the Brazilians with the want 
of hospitably to strangers, and many futile reasons have been 
adduced as the cause of this peculiar trait in their national char- 
acter. It is said that they were not always so ; but having 
found their hospitality so frequently requited by ingratitude and rid- 
icule on the part of their guests, they have of late years assumed 
this reserve. This explanation, however, is not satisfactory. 
The effect seenas to be too disproportioned to the cause ; and, on 
looking further for the solution, it is thought that it may be found . 
deeply rooted in their feelings and prejudices, and strongly mark- 
ing their national character. Yet still, as a people, they are cer- 
tainly entitled to the appellation of polite :; and many of our 
officers while on shore, and visiting some of their finest gardens, 
were very civilly treated by the owners, who not only seemed to 
take a pleasure in showing their visiters all that was interesting, 
but in treating them to fruits and flowers, which were tastefully 
arranged^in the gardens. 
The lower classes, however, the filthiness of whose exteriors 
is thought to be a correct indication of the pollutions within, 
are said to be revengeful in the extreme ; and assassinations 
sometimes occur among them.. This is often the case in most 
countries where the protection of the church is paramount to 
secular power, and where offenders find, or think they find, if not 
sanction, at least acquittal, in the forms of their religion ; and 
beheve that clerical absolution is divine justification. In its true 
spirit, we know that they do not, In Rio, many of their priests 
are not what they ought to be, and most of them follow but slowly 
in the moral and scientific improvements of the age. For, often 
hypocrites themselves, they are prone to practise on the credulity 
and superstitions of their ignorant followers ; and, in the support 
of their dominion over the minds of the lower orders, they hesi^ 
tate not to commit acts, which, under laws human and divine, ren^ 
der the laity obnoxious to punishment. But more of this anon. 
With respect to a majority of the higher classes, persons of 
