It was dark before we entered the Villa, but I soon found the house of a respectable shopkeeper, Senhor Francisco Dios Azede e Mello, to whom I brought letters of recommendation. I was requested to enter the sitting room, where I found myself in the midst of more than a dozen ladies, all squatting on the floor on mats, and among them was the lady of the house, who, as usual, put many questions to me respecting myself and my country; I discovered that these visitors had come to condole the lady on the loss of her husband’s father, who had died on the previous day. Although within the more respectable houses in the Sertão, as the interior is called, chairs are to be seen in their principal room, they are seldom made use of, as the hammock (rede) is the favourite seat of the women, who are seldom out of it except at meal-time; in it, as upon the mat, they sit upright with their legs folded beneath them, and their principal occupation during the day is smoking, eating sweet-meats, and drinking cold water; it is generally slung so as to reach within about a foot and a half of the ground, when it answers all the purposes of a sofa, and often more than one person may be observed seated on the same hammock; at night it is commonly preferred to a bed, for which purpose, on account of its being much cooler, it is very generally used, and for which I can vouch from my own experience, as for three years I seldom slept out of one. They are generally made of a sort of strong cotton cloth manufactured by the inhabitants, and are either white, or white and blue, this colour being given by a dye which they prepare from a kind of wild indigo plant that grows abundantly in the neighbourhood; they are always made broader than long, which allows a person to lie in them diagonally, and hence more horizontally than if they were narrower; they have the advantage, however, of requiring no bedding, further than a thin blanket for a covering in the cool season, or a sheet in hot weather. Before I left Icó, one of the Pintos wrote to Senhor Mello asking him to procure a house for me on my arrival in Crato, but the only one he could obtain was a little dwelling attached to a shop, neither being in very good condition: however, it answered my purpose very well for the time, but I was obliged to look out for another residence in about six weeks, when it was required to be pulled down, in order that a new one might be erected in its stead; with some trouble I found two rooms which I hired at the rate of about five shillings a month, and where I remained till I left the place. My only furniture consisted of two chairs which Senhor Mello had the kindness to send me, an old packing-box that served as a table, and of course my hammock was my bed. The day after my arrival at Crato a report was spread through the town that I was a travelling merchant who had arrived there with goods for sale, and in the course of the day I had numerous visits from ladies who wished to look over my