The country people, an active, agile, unmuscular race, mostly preserve the old national dress. Some men still wear, and both sexes once wore, the ridiculous _carapuça_, or funnel-cap with a rat-tail for a tassel. The rest of the toilet consists of homespun cottons, shirts and knickerbockers, with buff shoes or boots broad-soled and heelless. The traveller who prefers walking should always use this _chaussure_, and the 'little girl in topboots' is still a standing joke. The women affect parti-coloured petticoats of home-made baize or woollen stuff, dyed blue, scarlet, brown, or orange; a scalloped cape of the same material bound with some contrasting hue; and a white or coloured head-kerchief, sometimes topped by the _carapuça_, but rarely by the vulgar 'billycock' of the Canaries. In the villages crimson shawls and capes are general, and they cover the head like mantillas. The peasant's cot is of the simplest, and those in the plantations suggest African huts. Even the best houses, except when copied from the English, are scantily furnished; and little beyond a roof is absolutely wanted. The home of the _cazeiro_, or peasant tenant practically irremovable, is whitewashed and thatched, the straw forming a crest along the ridge. It covers only one room, converted by a curtain into 'but' and 'ben.' A parental bed, a rickety table, and two or three stools or settles compose the necessaries; the ornaments are the saints hanging to the walls, and for windows there are shutters with a sliding panel. The feeding apparatus consists of a kind of quern for grinding corn, especially maize, [Foonote: The word is of doubtful origin, generally derived from the Haytian _mahiz_. But in northern Europe _mayse_ (Irish _maise_) bread, and the Old High German _maz_ (Hind. _mans_) means meat] which, however, is now too dear for general use; sundry vegetable baskets, and an iron pot for boiling fish and porridge, arums (_Inhame_), and koko (_Colocasia esculenta_). They have some peculiar dishes, such as the _bolo de mel_, a ginger cake eaten at Christmas, and the famous _carne de vinho e alhos_ (meat of wine and garlic). The latter is made by marinating pork in vinegar with garlic and the herb called _oragão_ (origanum, or wild marjoram); it is eaten broiled, and even Englishmen learn to appreciate a dish which is said to _conversar_. The stewed fowl with rice is also national. As everywhere in Portugal, _bacalháo_, [Footnote: Brevoort derives the word from _baculus_, the stick which keeps the fish open; others from the German _boloh_, fish. In 1498 Seb. Cabot speaks of 'great fishes which the natives call Baccalaos.' He thus makes the word 'Indian;' whereas Dr. Kohl, when noticing the cod-fisheries of Europe, declares that in Germany it is Backljau. Mr. O. Crawford (_Portugal, Old and New._ London: C. Kegan Paul, 1880) rightly notes that 'bacalháo' applies equally to the fresh fish and the dried fish.]