red, dressed in various
costumes, as Highlanders, Poles, Spaniards, etc.; nor was there any
scarcity of danseuses, who, of course, were likewise private
soldiers. What pleased me most was, that both the dress and
behaviour of the military young ladies were highly becoming. I had
expected at least some little exaggeration, or at best no very
elegant spectacle; and was therefore greatly astonished, not only
with the correctness of the dances and evolutions, but also with the
perfect propriety with which the whole affair was conducted.

The last fete that I saw took place on the 2nd of December, in
celebration of the emperor's birth-day. After high mass, the
different dignitaries again waited on the emperor, to offer their
congratulations, and were admitted to the honour of kissing his
hand, etc. The imperial couple then placed themselves at a window
of the palace, while the troops defiled before them, with their
bands playing the most lively airs. It would be difficult to find
better dressed soldiers than those here: every private might easily
be mistaken for a lieutenant, or at least a non-commissioned
officer; but unluckily, their bearing, size, and colour, are greatly
out of keeping with the splendour of their uniform--a mere boy of
fourteen standing next to a full-grown, well-made man, a white
coming after a black, and so on.

The men are pressed into the service; the time of serving is from
four to six years.

I had heard and read a great deal in Europe of the natural
magnificence and luxury of the Brazils--of the ever clear and
smiling sky, and the extraordinary charm of the continual spring;
but though it is true that the vegetation is perhaps richer, and the
fruitfulness of the soil more luxuriant and vigorous than in any
other part of the world, and that every one who desires to see the
working of nature in its greatest force and incessant activity, must
come to Brazil; still it must not be thought that all is good and
beautiful, and that there is nothing which will not weaken the
magical effect of the first impression.

Although every one begins by praising the continual verdure and the
uninterrupted splendour of spring met with in this country, he is,
in the end, but too willing to allow, that even this, in time, loses
its charm. A little winter would be preferable, as the reawakening
of nature, the resuscitation of the slumbering plants, the return of
the sweet perfume of spring, enchants us all