You visit an English bride who came with her new husband on your steamer, and is to live in São Paulo. Her wedding presents have been delayed in the custom house, and are but just received after paying duties the equal of $400, in American money! It was only the usual collection of gifts to the average bride, but the duties are excessive on silverware and on any bric-à-brac or furniture having gilt mountings. Fabrics and even rugs are dutiable by weight. You have lifted an Oriental rug. She had one. She also had, unfortunately, a whole “bolt of American muslin”--too close-woven and heavy for Brazilian customs. She is trying to decide whether her _sala_ shall be altogether British or partly Brazilian in arrangement. An afternoon tea-table will seem like home to her. She settles upon bentwood furniture, cane-seated of course, and arranges sofa and chairs with elastic reference to Brazilian custom. The sofa occupies a prominent place, two mate armchairs face each other at right angles to the sofa, making three sides of a conversational square, nicely accommodating four persons. The genuine Brazilian would go on adding to the two chairs at least two more on either side of the sofa. His guest would take the chair farthest from the sofa while waiting for the host, and a seat on the sofa at the end of the aisle of chairs would be the high honor which could be extended by the host when he comes in. She has an oil-stove, too, which is an occasional comfort in the cool evening or on a rainy day when even an umbrella will not dry. Her handsome mahogany furniture is a comparative trial here, for the Brazilians have a cheaper hard wood of the same color from which many ordinary articles are made, and some other would have been far more elegant, black walnut for instance! You are by this time entirely accustomed to the universal toothpick, smoothly made of orangewood, really a perfection of a toothpick; for every Brazilian has used one at intervals throughout every meal on the steamer and at hotels since you left Lisbon; also to the universal cigarette, welcome in dining-room and salon. You also find that they hold American dentists in high esteem, and there are several good ones in Petropolis, Rio and São Paulo. Walking down the street men lift their hats as they pass each Romish church. Every sort of package is carried on porters’ heads, and the colored porters often fall into a rhythmical walk or trot as peculiar to them as the flourish of a black waiter in a restaurant in America. A pleasant invitation comes to you to attend the English cricket match, a gay affair, with plenty to eat--and drink.