lowest, may be observed seated on the pavement on the shaded side of the street deeply employed in gambling; the more respectable generally play for dollars, the poorer either for copper money, or more commonly make use of spotted beans in lieu of counters; quarrels on these occasions are of course very common, which are not unfrequently settled with the knife. Scarcely any of the better class live with their wives: a few years after their marriage, they generally turn them out of the house to live separately, and replace them by young women who are willing to supply their place without being bound by the ties of matrimony. In this manner these people have two houses to keep up: among others who are living in this condition I may mention the Juiz de Direito, the Juiz dos Orfãos, and most of the larger shopkeepers; such a state of immorality is not to be wondered at, when the conduct of the clergy is taken into consideration, the vicar (vigario), who was then an old man between seventy and eighty years of age, is the father of six natural children, one of whom was educated as a priest, afterwards became president of the province, and was then a senator of the Empire, although still retaining his clerical title. During my stay in Crato he arrived there on a visit to his father, bringing with him his mistress, who was his own cousin, and eight children out of ten he had by her, having at the same time five other children by another woman, who died in child-bed of the sixth. Besides the vigario there were three other priests in the town, all of whom have families by women with whom they live openly, one of them being the wife of another person.