"We have voted unanimously that most of the ladies of Para that we have seen are pretty, but unfortunately they are not many. The women of the upper classes are quite secluded; they rarely appear on the street except on their way to or from church, and they do not often receive company. Their features are Portuguese, with black hair, and a decidedly brunette tinge to their complexions. We have bought a photograph of one of the belles of Para and enclose it in this letter. "But though we have seen few of the ladies of Para, we have not been deprived of a sight of the people of the lower classes. The wealthy and commercial population includes Portuguese and native Brazilians, together with English, German, French, Italians, and a few North Americans from the United States. The great mass of the inhabitants are Indians, negroes, Chinese, and some others who cannot be readily classified. [Illustration: THE MARKET AT PARA.] "The best place to study the lower classes is at the market, which is an active place in the early hours of the day. We went there on our second morning, and our attention was at once drawn to the piles of bananas, pineapples, oranges, lemons, and all other tropical fruits you could think of, besides a great number you could not possibly name. Then there were garden vegetables and tobacco, baskets of flowers, heaps of fish, cages of chickens and other fowls, and a lot of monkeys and parrots that made noise enough for a menagerie. We have a suspicion that the parrots are disposed of as chickens to the restaurants, while the monkeys are useful as a substitute for spring lamb. "The Indian and negro women sat or stood in the vicinity of their stalls, and chatted freely with each other in the intervals of waiting on their customers. Most of the chatting was done by the negresses; the Indian women manifested a good deal of the taciturnity for which Indians are famous through both North and South America. Two or three priests wandered through the market, occasionally stopping to say a word to the peasant women, whose bright garments made a marked contrast to the ecclesiastical black robes. The market is held in a large building which surrounds an open square; the centre of the square is devoted to the sale of meat and fish, while the roofed portion contains the stalls where other edibles are displayed. [Illustration: THEATRE OF OUR LADY OF THE PEACE.]