BOA CONSTRICTOR. 
47 
1848.] 
for fifteen years ; so we miglit now hope to be free from 
any disturbances which might have arisen from this cause. 
Nothing impressed me more than the quiet and or- 
derly state of the city and neighbourhood. No class 
of people carry knives or other weapons, and there is 
less noise, fighting, or drunkenness in the streets both 
day and night, than in any town in England of equal 
population. When it is remembered that the population 
is mostly uneducated, that it consists of slaves, Indians, 
Brazilians, Portuguese, and foreigners, and that rum is 
sold at every corner at about twopence per pint, it says 
much for the good-nature and pacific disposition of the 
people. 
August ^rd . — We received a fresh inmate into our 
verandah in the person of a fine young boa constrictor. 
A man who had caught it in the forest left it for our in- 
spection. It was tightly tied round the neck to a good- 
sized stick, which hindered the freedom of its move- 
ments, and appeared nearly to stop respiration. It was 
about ten feet long, and very large, being as thick as a 
man’s thigh. Here it lay writhing about for two or 
three days, dragging its clog along with it, sometimes 
stretching its mouth open with a most suspicious yawn, 
and twisting up the end of its tail into a very tight curl. 
At length we agreed with the man to purchase it for 
two milreis (4^. 6</.), and so fitted up a box with bars at 
the top, and got the seller to put it into the cage. It 
immediately began making up for lost time by breathing 
most violently, the expirations sounding like high-pres- 
sure steam escaping from a Great Western locomotive. 
This it continued for some hours, making about four and 
