rnambuco are animated
beyond description. From November to March the weather is particularly
fine; then it is that rich and poor, young and old, foreigners and
natives, all issue from the city to enjoy the country, till Lent
approaches, when back they hie them. Villages and hamlets, where nothing
before but rags were seen, now shine in all the elegance of dress; every
house, every room, every shed become eligible places for those whom
nothing but extreme necessity could have forced to live there a few weeks
ago: some join in the merry dance, others saunter up and down the orange
groves; and towards evening the roads become a moving scene of silk and
jewels. The gaming-tables have constant visitors; there, thousands are
daily and nightly lost and won; parties even sit down to try their luck
round the outside of the door as well as in the room:--

"Vestibulum ante ipsum primisque in faucibus aulae
Luctus et ultrices, posuere sedilia curae."

About six or seven miles from Pernambuco stands a pretty little village
called Monteiro; the river runs close by it, and its rural beauties seem
to surpass all others in the neighbourhood; there the Captain-General of
Pernambuco resides during this time of merriment and joy.

The traveller who allots a portion of his time to peep at his
fellow-creatures in their relaxations, and accustoms himself to read
their several little histories in their looks and gestures as he goes
musing on, may have full occupation for an hour or two every day at this
season amid the variegated scenes around the pretty village of Monteiro.
In the evening groups sitting at the door, he may sometimes see with a
sigh how wealth and the prince's favour cause a booby to pass for a
Solon, and be reverenced as such, while perhaps a poor neglected Camoens
stands silent at a distance, awed by the dazzling glare of wealth and
power. Retired from the public road he may see poor Maria sitting under
a palm-tree, with her elbow in her lap and her head leaning on one side
within her hand, weeping over her forbidden banns. And as he moves on,
"with wandering step and slow," he may hear a broken-hearted nymph ask
her faithless swain,

"How could you say my face was fair,
And yet that face forsake;
How could you win my virgin heart,
Yet leave that heart to break?"

One afternoon, in an unfrequented part not far from Monteiro, these
adventures were near being brought to a speedy and a f