During our stay, we were obliged to live almost entirely on farinha and dried salt beef, neither rice, plantains, nor yams being obtainable. Occasionally I was able to purchase a kind of coarse biscuit, made of Indian corn flour, and once or twice I had a present sent me of a few small loaves, made from wheat grown on high lands, near the town of Cavalcante, a long way to the south. I never saw wheat cultivated in any of those places I visited, and this was the only time I ever tasted bread made from that grain grown within the tropics. Although the dress of the men is here much the same as in other northern parts of Brazil, that of the women differs greatly, for when dressed either for attending church, joining in processions, or visiting their friends, in place of the large white cotton shawl, which the women of Ceará throw over their heads, or the small white handkerchief used in Piauhy for the same purpose, I was rather surprised to find that here, they all wore cloaks made either of Scotch tartan or blue cloth, very similar to those worn by the factory girls of Glasgow in the winter season. Here it is a universal custom for the women to smoke; and the pipe, which has a wooden tube about three feet long, is seldom out of their mouths from morning till night. They work little, but eat and sleep a great deal; the lower classes of females are also much addicted to drinking the rum of the country (cachaça). The only prisoner confined in the jail while I was there, was a woman, who a few years before was condemned to twenty years’ imprisonment, for causing her own son to kill his father. The son, who was condemned to perpetual imprisonment and hard labour, broke through the walls of the prison shortly after his sentence, and effected his escape.