The houses are built in the European fashion, but are small and
insignificant; most of them have only a ground-floor or single
story,--two stories are rarely met with. Neither are there any
terraces and verandahs adorned with elegant trellis-work and
flowers, as there are in other warm countries. Ugly little
balconies hang from the walls, while clumsy wooden shutters close up
the windows, and prevent the smallest sunbeam from penetrating into
the rooms, where everything is enveloped in almost perfect darkness.
This, however, is a matter of the greatest indifference to the
Brazilian ladies, who certainly never over-fatigue themselves with
reading or working.
The town offers, therefore, very little in the way of squares,
streets, and buildings, which, for a stranger, can prove in the
least attractive; while the people that he meets are truly shocking--
nearly all being negroes and negresses, with flat, ugly noses,
thick lips, and short woolly hair. They are, too, generally half
naked, with only a few miserable rags on their backs, or else they
are thrust into the worn-out European-cut clothes of their masters.
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