Page:An account of a voyage to establish a colony at Port Philip in Bass's Strait.djvu/89

( 64 ) to assignation, is no longer to be found at Rio, and as we have no reason to doubt the veracity of the gentlemen who were thus favoured, we ought not to pass over this alteration in the manners of the Brasilian women, without endeavouring to account for it. Former travellers have always complained of the difficulty they found in even getting a transient view of women of condition; this is, however, far from being the case at present; indeed, we generally found the manners of the ladies, (particularly the unmarried ones) approaching nearer to the easy familiarity of the English, than to the prudish reserve which is said to be the exterior characteristic of Portuguese females. As the manners of a people improve, jealous