I think I may say in our own favour, that in this, as well as in all our subsequent Consulates, we never allowed any scandal to be told to us, or uncharitable talk, and we always forbid discussions on religion and politics, which served us in good stead in all our career. Indeed, in this particular place, there was a little bit of scandal, and we had seventeen calls on one Monday morning, but every one went away without daring to deliver themselves of their intended tale. "What is the meaning of this?" said Richard to me. I said, "It means that there is some scandal afloat, and nobody dares tell it to us." But a few days afterwards we saw it in the papers. One day a gentleman called upon us, and a few minutes later a lady came, of whom he was rather fond. After a while the lady got up and went down the street, and about five minutes after the jealous husband arrived on the scene, and saw the gentleman sitting there—his supposed rival. Without saying "How do you do?" he turned on me and said, "Have you seen my wife?" "Yes," I said; "I saw her go down the street a few minutes ago." The lover had turned very pale. Richard looked hard at me over the top of his newspaper, and the man had hardly got down the stairs in pursuit of his wife, when my Irish maid poked her face through the door and said. "Well, after that, ye'd swear a hole through a tin p-hot." Now, what on earth would have been the use of making a row and a scandal, and setting on the husband to ill-treat his wife? He did not say, "Has my wife been here?"—he said, "Have you seen her?" Rousseau says, "Mensonge plein d'honnêteté, de fidelité, de generosité, tandis que la verité n'eut été qu'une perfidie;" and without some feeling of this kind—not a lie, but a harmless throwing one's self into the breach to save another's reputation, not one's own, nor from base fear—the milk of human kindness would turn into cream of tartar.

I do not think that a list of the aboriginal tribes of Brazil at the time of its discovery (one hundred discovered by Cabral in 1500) would amuse my readers, or fit in with my subject, but they were mostly destroyed or driven inwards in three hundred and sixty-seven years.

There is an intervening race called the Caboclas; they are the progeny of the Indians and Portuguese settlers. They are a very handsome race, much addicted to superstition and fortune-telling, and the only thing I can remember was learning from them to tell fortunes by the cards, which I afterwards perfected amongst the Mogháribehs in Syria; but it is a practice which, though it interested my husband enormously, and I constantly told them for him, I have long since given up as wicked. For those who tell them ill, it is foolery; for those who tell them well, it is better let alone.

I am not going to give a description of Brazil, because by so doing I should take away from the subject of the book, which is solely Richard Burton, and if I mention incidents, or myself, it is only because I or they are woven up with his life, and cannot well be separated from it, each one showing how he behaved, or what he did or thought on any particular occasion.

The 14th of February was the opening day of the railway, as far as Jundiahy, and this time we were invited and had a very gay time.

Here, in São Paulo, Richard worked hard at Camoens, and we both worked together at our translations—"Iraçema, or Honey-lips," and "Manuel de Moraes, the Convert," and the "Uruguay," all from great Brazilian authors; but we found, although we printed the two first, that they were not well received in England, because they were translations, and I could write a page or two upon the amount of literature and education we lose by boycotting that of other countries.

In spring of 1867 there was fighting in the streets for a couple of nights, about the election time.

The staple food of the people of the country, which takes the place of what the potato would be to the Irish, is a savoury mess of small brown beans, called fejão; a very coarse flour, called farinha, which looks like a dish of shaved horse-radish, is usually sprinkled over the beans, and then it is called a fejoada. It is delicious, and I should have been quite content to, and often did, dine on it. Another favourite dish is a scone of milho, the full-grown Indian corn, made hot and buttered. The only way to eat it, is to take it up in your two hands and gnaw it up and down like a bone, which is rather disagreeable, because it covers you with butter. A pepper-pot is also a usual thing, and is kept up à perpétuité; it comes on the table in its native earthenware pot, and everybody takes a little bit at the end to digest dinner, in lieu of cheese. Of course Europeans have their own dishes besides.

The greatest difficulty that I found was, that I was obliged to have five relays of every meal. First of all, Richard and I sat down, and our guests, if we had any; after we left the table, succeeded my Irish maid, who had become Donna Maria, and an Irish brother that she had imported, who was very like the "Mulligan" in "Perkinses' ball," and for whom I was fortunate enough to get a good berth on the railway at £200 a year, through the kindness of Mr. Daniel Fox and Mr. Aubertin, and he rose to £600 in course of time, traded, but unfortunately died after some years. After these the food was removed to some other room, where the German servants dined, because they would not sit down with the blacks. When they had finished the emancipated slaves sat down, who would not sit down with the slaves; these being too near their own kind, they obliged them to stand or to sit on the floor in the corners, where they gave them the leavings. But do not let anybody imagine that the slaves suffered, because when they had been about three months with me, from having had a little rice at their old masters', they would sometimes clamour for ducks and chickens, not being content with the good meat and bread and everything else that they got in plenty.