Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/27

1848.] the only good shops in the city. The houses are many of them only one storey high, but the shops, which are often completely open in front, are very neatly and attractively furnished, though with rather a miscellaneous assortment of articles. Here are seen at intervals a few yards of foot-paving, though so little as only to render the rest of your walk over rough stones or deep sand more unpleasant by comparison. The other streets are all very narrow. They consist either of very rough stones, apparently the remains of the original paving, which has never been repaired, or of deep sand and mud-holes. The houses are irregular and low, mostly built of a coarse ferruginous sandstone, common in the neighbourhood, and plastered over. The windows, which have no glass, have the lower part filled with lattice, hung above, so that the bottom may be pushed out and a peep obtained sideways in either direction, and from these many dark eyes glanced at us as we passed. Yellow and blue wash are liberally used about most of the houses and churches in decorating the pilasters and door and window openings, which are in a debased but picturesque style of Italian architecture. The building now used as custom-house and barracks, formerly a convent, is handsome and very extensive.

Beyond the actual streets of the city is a large extent of ground covered with roads and lanes intersecting each other at right angles. In the spaces formed by these are the "rosinhas." or country houses, one, two, or more on each block. They are of one storey, with several spacious rooms and a large verandah, which is generally the dining-room and most pleasant sitting and working apartment. The ground attached is usually a swamp or a wilderness of weeds or fruit-trees. Sometimes a portion is formed into a flower-garden, but seldom with much care or taste, and the plants and flowers of Europe are preferred to the splendid and ornamental productions of the country. 'The general impression of the city to a person fresh from England is not very favourable. There is such a want of neatness and order, such an appearance of neglect and decay, such evidences of apathy and indolence, as to be at first absolutely painful. But this soon wears off, and some of these peculiarities are seen to be dependent on the climate. The large and lofty rooms, with boarded floors and scanty furniture, and with half-a-dozen doors and windows