are not
worn habitually, can only embarrass and cramp the native movements; and,
as Mademoiselle Clairon remarks, "she who would _act_ a gentlewoman in
public, must _be_ one in private life."

The Portuguese men have all a mean look; none appear to have any
education beyond counting-house forms, and their whole time is, I
believe, spent between trade and gambling: in the latter, the ladies
partake largely after they are married. Before that happy period, when
there is no evening dance, they surround the card tables, and with eager
eyes follow the game, and long for the time when they too may mingle in
it. I scarcely wonder at this propensity. Without education, and
consequently without the resources of mind, and in a climate where
exercise out of doors is all but impossible, a stimulus must be had; and
gambling, from the sage to the savage, has always been resorted to, to
quicken the current of life. On the present occasion, we feared the
young people would have been disappointed of their dance, because the
fiddlers, after waiting some time, went away, as they alleged, because
they had not their tea early enough; however, some of the ladies
volunteered to play the piano, and the ball lasted till past midnight.

_Tuesday, 23d._--I rode with Mr. Dance and Mr. Ricken along the banks of
the lake, decidedly the most beautiful scenery in this beautiful
country; and then through wild groves, where all the splendours of
Brazilian animal and vegetable life were displayed. The gaudy plumage of
the birds, the brilliant hues of the insects, the size, and shape, and
colour, and fragrance, of the flowers and shrubs, seen mostly for the
first time, enchanted us, and rendered our little journey to the great
pepper gardens, whither we were going, delightful. Every hedge is at
this season gay with coffee blossom, but it is too early in the year for
the pepper or the cotton to be in beauty. It is not many years since
Francisco da Cunha and Menezes sent the pepper plant from Goa for these
gardens, which were afterwards enlarged by him, when he became governor
of Bahia. Plants were sent from hence to Pernambuco, which have
succeeded in the botanical garden.

From the pepper gardens we rode on to a convent at the farther extremity
of the town, and overlooking both the bays, above and below the
peninsula of Bon fin, or N.S. da Monserrat. It is called the Soledad,
and the nuns are famous for their delicate sweetmeats, and for the
manufactur