any occasion to use a medicine for such a purpose as he
meant to insinuate, 66 The lady abbess, he exclaimed with a
loud laugh, “ the lady abbess and all the ladies of Rio
“ pronee sunt omnes ac dedita V e n e r i and he concluded
^ by observing, in unequivocal terms, that most of them were
labouring under the ill effects arising from a free and unconstrained
indulgence of a licentious and promiscuous intercourse
with strangers. On the men he passed a still more
severe censure. Whether these sarcastical observations of the
reverend gentleman were or were not true, they were not the
less indecorous and unbecoming in the character of the person
by whom they were uttered. If not an impious it is at least an
unmanly proceeding first to extort, under the sacred garb of
religion, a confession of the failings and faults of those whom
we, mighty lords of the creation ! are pleased to call the
weaker sex, and then to expose them fo the ridicule, the obloquy,
and detraction of the world.
The familiarity which the ladies of Rio are apt to use to
strangers may not perhaps be quite consistent with our notions
of female modesty, but I am far from being convinced
of its implying that degree of criminality which has been imputed
to it in the most valuable voyages of Captain Cooke.
I t is herein stated to be a common trick of the ladies of Rio
to make assignations with strangers, by tossing flowers to
them as they pass along the streets. That the throwing or
exchanging of flowers by the ladies of Rio is a very common
practice cannot be denied; but I am inclined to believe,
what, however, I will not take upon me positively to assert,
that it arises more from a custom which they imbibe at the
seminaries in early life, than from any immoral motive; and
that this custom is continued afterwards, not only from long
habit, but also from a desire of appearing friendly and sociable.
At the grate of the convent of Santa Clara, winch some of our
party visited daily, the custom of presenting flowers was so
common, even with children of eight or ten years that, after a
few of the first visits, nobody thought of calling there without
being provided with a nosegay; and there was generally a
struggle among the young girls which of them should first get
to the grate and exchange her flower, always taking care previously
to apply it to her lips ; and having kissed the flower
she received in return, she then retired to make room for
another. So innocent did this custom appear to us, on the
part of the young ladies, and so unsuspecting of any thing
criminal was the abbess, that the latter openly encouraged it,
apparently without any other view than that of its contributing
to the few pleasures of which the strict confinement of a
nunnery admits. And as most of the ladies of Rio have acquired
their education in some of the convents, it may easily
be imagined that a favourite amusement of their e;i rl\ years,
in a country where so few amusements are to be found, would
naturally be remembered with pleasure in a different but not
much more enlarged sphere of life. Women who, I am inclined
to believe, are in all countries much more disposed
to be sociable than the other sex, and whose dispositions are
infinitely more benevolent, have also, in their demeanor, a
much more difficult task to perform. If they are shy and reserved,
'they incur the censure of affectation; if open and ingenuous,
they are liable to a censure of another kind.