"You never saw anything more perfect than these imitations of natural flowers. Put a cluster of them side by side with a bouquet of genuine flowers and you will have to guess 'which is which.' It would be nothing more than a guess so far as the eye is concerned, as the imitation is perfect in color, shape, size--in everything but smell. Here are lilies, budding, half-opened, or in full bloom; hyacinths with their delicate purple; orange-flowers that seem just crystallized from the snow; violets shrinking in their modest hue of blue; roses, in all the colors for which the rose is famed, and in all conditions of growth and bloom; together with buds and blooms and blossoms of many and many a flower unfamiliar to our eyes. [Illustration: BRAZILIAN HUMMING-BIRDS.] "They showed us admirable collections of humming-birds flying among leaves and flowers. The birds were the natural bodies, carefully preserved, and so poised in their positions as to present the appearance of life; the flowers and leaves were formed of the feathers of other birds, and simulated to perfection the growth of the forest. One collection embraced nearly five hundred humming-birds of all colors and combinations of colors, but we were told that it did not include all the varieties of humming-bird in South America. "We bought several dollars' worth of these flowers, and it was well that our time was limited, or we might have been tempted to spend more money than we could afford. The feather-flowers are made by the nuns in the convent; they have the natural flowers before them, or carefully drawn and tinted representations upon paper, to serve as models. Practice makes perfect in this as in everything else, but I imagine that those who achieve success in the work must have a natural aptitude for the selection of colors. We were assured that all the colors of the feathers were natural, though we have our suspicions that the establishment makes use of dyes. Whether our suspicions are correct or not it is certain that the birds of South America are blessed with brilliant plumage. [Illustration: MARKET SCENE, BAHIA.] "There is a fine market-house at Bahia, which we visited, and another which may be called 'the open market,' on the shore of the bay. Most of the frequenters of the latter market were negroes and other people of very dark complexions; there were a few planters on horseback, and from the way they remained close to their steeds when not sitting upon them we inferred that it would compromise their dignity to appear as pedestrians. Many of the negroes carried burdens on their heads; those who rolled casks or moved heavy bales acted as though they would prefer to transport them in the other fashion, but a barrel is too unwieldy to be carried on the summit of the skull. [Illustration: PORTERS AND CASK.]