in white
marble, with a wig like Sir Cloudesley Shovel's in Westminster Abbey,
stands at the first landing-place, and is the ugliest piece of carving I
ever saw.

[Note 67: Part of the funds for supporting this and other hospitals
is derived from lotteries. See advertisements in the different Bahia
newspapers.]

This hospital, besides its use as a refuge for the sick, of whom there
are generally about 120, maintains 50 young girls of decent parentage,
to whom a suitable education is given, and a dowry of 200 crowns
bestowed on them when they marry.[68] The building of the Misericordia
is a fair specimen of the style of the convents, public buildings, and
more noble houses,--rather handsome than elegant. It surrounds a large
area, subdivided into smaller courts; the staircase is of marble, inlaid
with coloured stucco, and the sides are lined with tiles of porcelain,
so as to form arabesques, often of very pretty design. This is both a
cool and a cleanly lining to a wall, particularly for an hospital. The
principal rooms are also decorated in the same manner; and many of the
fronts and cupolas of the churches are covered with similar tiles, the
effect of which is often exceedingly agreeable, when seen among the
trees and plainer buildings of the city. The chapel belonging to the
hospital is handsome, a little gaudy, however. The ceiling is
respectably painted, and was probably the work of an amateur monk of
the seventeenth century. The treatment of the sick is humane, and they
are well provided with food and other necessaries; but the medical
practice, though much improved of late years, is not the most
enlightened.

[Note 68: Joao de Matos Aguiar, commonly called Joao de Matinhos,
from his diminutive size, was the founder of this Recolhimento. He
bequeathed 800,000 crusadoes for the retired women, 400,000 for the
patients, one to each on leaving the hospital, and 400,000, dowry to 38
girls every year, at the period of the foundation, 1716.]

There is a great deal of jealousy of foreigners in the present
government, hence I was not able to enter many of the public buildings.
The government treasury was one I was desirous to see, but there were
objections. The treasury here was formerly considered as subordinate to
that of Rio de Janeiro, and accordingly paid a portion of its receipts
to bills drawn monthly by the treasurer in the capital, upon this, and
those of the other provinces. But since the revolution of the 10