"Ladies are the greatest lovers of the Intrudo sports, and if you have any lady acquaintances here I warn you not to make any formal calls on them to-day, if you wish to preserve your dignity unruffled. It is a proverb here that 'Intrudo lies are no sin;' and while a lady is inviting a friend to a chair, and promising not to molest him in any way, she is getting ready to crush an Intrudo ball in his neck, or upon his shoulder, or arranging for him to sit down upon a dozen of them."
INTRUDO BALLS AND BOTTLES.
The gentleman sent a servant for some Intrudo balls and bottles, and gave the youths an opportunity to examine them. They were composed of wax thin enough to be easily broken in the hand or when striking an object a few feet away, and were filled with scented water. "They were formerly," said their informant, "made much larger than at present, and immense quantities were sold and used. At present they are small. The throwing of Intrudo balls in the streets is forbidden by the police, but occasionally the unruly urchins will embrace the opportunity to use them on each other, as you have already discovered. In many houses the balls are filled with flour instead of water, and the sport of the season resembles that of Naples and Venice. Thirty years ago every negro boy on the street was armed with a large 'squirt-gun,' which he used freely upon those of his own color; white people were at liberty to pelt any one of their complexion, and the sport became so riotous that its suppression was a public necessity."
WOODEN CANNON.
Among the curiosities in the museum they found a fine collection of living and stuffed specimens of the wild animals of Brazil. It included several jaguars and other carnivora from the interior provinces; a large cage filled with monkeys of every sort; another of snakes, among which was an anaconda seventeen feet long—at least, so said the attendant, and they were willing to take his word for it without personally measuring the reptile. There were stuffed humming-birds of many kinds; eagles, and their kindred, the vulture and condor; beautiful specimens of the ibis, which recalled the sacred bird of Egypt; together with many other winged creatures that have no names in our vocabulary. One of the condors had been recently used in a bull-baiting; the attendant narrated, with great animation, how the bird had been chained to the back of a young bull, and then turned into a ring. Bird and beast were maddened by the explosion of fireworks fastened to the animal's head; in his efforts to escape the condor tore great gashes in the flesh of his companion in misfortune. It is pleasant to record that these amusements are every year less and less appreciated in South America, and it is to be hoped the day is not far distant when they will cease altogether.