heir religious books for "Would to God."

We were treated with great courtesy and hospitality by our Portuguese
neighbors, and an evening party in Fayal is in some respects worth
describing. As one enters, the anteroom is crowded with gentlemen, and
the chief reception-room seems like a large omnibus, lighted, dressed
with flowers, and having a row of ladies on each side. The personal
beauty is perhaps less than one expects, though one sees some superb
dark eyes and blue-black hair; they dress with a view to the latest
French fashions, and sometimes rather a distant view. At last a lady
takes her seat at the piano, then comes an eager rush of gentlemen into
the room, and partners are taken for cotillons,--large, double, _very_
double cotillons, here called _contradancas_. The gentlemen appear in
scrupulous black broadcloth and satin and white kid; in summer alone
they are permitted to wear white trousers to parties; and we heard of
one anxious youth who, about the turn of the season, wore the black and
carried the white in his pocket, peeping through the door, on arrival,
to see which had the majority. It seemed a pity to waste such gifts of
discretion on a monarchical country, when he might have emigrated to
America and applied them to politics.

The company perform their dancing with the accustomed air of civilized
festivity, "as if they were hired to do it, and were doubtful about
being paid." Changes of figure are announced by a clapping of hands from
one of the gentlemen, and a chorus of such applauses marks the end of
the dance. Then they promenade slowly round the room, once or twice, in
pairs; then the ladies take their seats, and instantly each gentleman
walks hurriedly into the anteroom, and for ten minutes there is as
absolute a separation of the sexes as in a Friends' Meeting. Nobody
approves of this arrangement, in the abstract; it is all very well, they
think, for gentlemen, if foreigners, to remain in the room, but it is
not the Portuguese custom. Yet, with this exception, the manners are
agreeably simple. Your admission to the house guaranties you as a proper
acquaintance, there are no introductions, and you may address any one in
any language you can coin into a sentence. Many speak French, and two or
three English,--sometimes with an odd mingling of dialects, as when the
Military Governor answered my inquiry, made in timid Portuguese, as to
how long he had served in the army. _"Vinte-cinco annos,"_ he