we raised the American flag, amid hearty cheers, three times three, and afterward a handkerchief, representative of the Brazilian, in honor of the emperor. On one side we perceived a portion of rock, about eight feet wide, rent from the main body, as if by a volcanic effort, leaving a fissure two or three hundred feet deep and four or five feet wide. Intoxicated with our success, and not satisfied with the dangers past, I madly sprang upon it-easy enough that; but how to return, there was the rub: for I found, what I had not till then perceived, that it was lower than the main rock, and my situation was truly alarming. Necessity, so fruitful in suggestion, led my companions to think of our flag-staff, on which, with their aid, I safely recrossed the frightful chasm. But never was my own folly or the divine goodness more apparent, than when I saw that, with our afore-mentioned staff, and but little effort, we caused the shelving rock to totter, and at length becoming detached, it fell with a thundering noise into the abyss below.

I cannot pause to describe the beautiful, picturesque, and sublime view we enjoyed from this bold summit. The descent was much less laborious, though great caution was needful, notwithstanding the aid of the rope. Having passed the gorge on our return, we set fire to the grass, which was here quite abundant; and in a few moments the conflagration was awful; the swiftness with which it spread absolutely threatening our lives. The startled lagartos, (lizards,) from one to three feet in length, sprang from their lairs, and rushing past us, many of them jumped into the sea. Our appearance on arriving at the bottom was anything but prepossessing; full of bruises and scratches, our clothes in tatters, covered with slime and wet moss, the reader would have thought us objects of pity.

On arriving at the base, another impediment presented itself in the form of a tremendous surf, the tide running out and the wind increasing every moment; but embark we must; so I beckoned to the negroes, who had been lying outside the surf during our absence, to approach sternward, carefully watching the time after the wave had broke; but owing to their carelessness, or miscalculation, they allowed the boat to approach too near, and just at the time the wave was rising, so that

in a few moments I expected to see our only hope cut off by the dashing in pieces of the boat; but a kind Providence otherwise directed-the boat rose on the huge wave several feet above the rock, and was carried completely over it. With much difficulty we were again embarked; and, as we pulled for the city, felt ourselves to be heroes of no common order.

Our readers have had enough of our wild adventures for the present. Henceforth, while in Rio, we were contented to lead a more prudent life, and our passeio'day by day was amid the institutions of the city and the quiet beauties of the environs.

The Convent of San Antonio is situated | on a hill of the same name, and has an imposing appearance. Adjoining the chapel is the church of the order of St. Francis, which is second in splendor only to that of San Bento; it is covered in the interior with carving and gilding of the richest description. At the entrance and on the walls are rather inferior paintings illustrating the life of St. Francis. Attached to this church is a beautiful oratory, in which the novices are received into the brotherhood. The vestments and plate are very ancient and splendid, and some of the relics are of solid gold set with costly gems.

The Convent of N. S. d’Ajuda consists of Franciscan nuns of the order of the Immaculate Conception. Of the interior I can say but little, as nunneries are not opened to visitors. It consists of an oblong pile inclosing a cloister, also a garden surrounded by a high wall: the chapel is one of the largest in Rio, having a plain exterior and interior, with the exception of a high altar, which is ornamented in the richest manner. In this place mass is celebrated on Sundays and holydays by a French abbe, on which occasion the French inhabitants, who are very numerous, attend. In the vault of this chapel are buried the remains of the royal family of Brazil.

The Convent of the nuns of St. Ursula (Carmelites) is situated on a rising ground to the south-west of the city. The chapel is small. The nuns sing sweetly. The abbot, one of the old Portuguese nobility, who descended from the royal family, is above ninety years old, but still very active. He is a fine old gentleman, and enjoys the decline of life, doing deeds of love, and residing on the brow of the hill whence the prospect is most enchanting.

the Turks. If, for instance, you can induce any one to sing you only a verse from some Turkish melody, the vocalist must needs go through many preparatives before he commences. First, he has his pipe fresh filled; then, he strokes down his beard; next, he looks gravely round to see that all are giving attention; after that, he hums a few words gently to himself, to see that there is no mistake about the words or the music; then again, he raises his right hand to his jaw, passes the

imaginary notes with the other three fingers in the air; finally, he stretches his mouth open to such an alarming extent that you prepare for a start simultaneously with himself, and the first quaver is an effort productive to European ears of the most discordant tones. But we have nothing particular at present to do with oriental musicians and strains, except to observe that as there is such etiquette to be observed in commencing a musical performance, so is it in every other pastime

or occupation of eastern nations generally, from the stout Brahmin, who ties a straw round his waist to regulate the quantity of curry and rice to which he is limited at each meal, or the sedate Turk, who has his head and limbs scalded at barbers' shops, and who then, as though to create a corresponding irritation, causes a shampooing-master to crack and stretch these already injured members to an extent that makes those not accustomed to the art shudder at the sight of the operation.

But, the better to understand these processes, we may imagine ourselves pacing a main street in Aleppo, and pausing at the open windows of a barber's shop to scrutinize the barber himself and the contents of his establishment, with the shampooing-master also and his victims. Barbers all over the East have been for many ages noted as important subjects of the State. In India, they are the great newsmongers of the town. Almost every English officer indeed, and every civilian, has his own particular barber; but it often happens that the same individual, with perhaps an assistant or two, serves the whole community. They are regular attendants at regular hours of the morning, and the habitué in India looks forward to their arrival with much impatience.

In China, a barber's experience is extensive; he has to do not only with the heads, but the tails of the people; and his skill is generally acknowledged by all, from the emperor downwards. In Siam, barbers are next in importance to prime ministers, and they rank with physicians, being usually conversant with blood-letting and a few other minor duties belonging to the apothecaries' art. But it is in Turkey, the land of the Califs, that we meet with the barber in his proper soil, enjoying all the dignity of his sharp profession, looked up to and honored by the multitude, and admitted to the confidence of the pasha. He is the advertiser of all the baths in the neighborhood, the terror of young gentlemen with a weak growth of beard or a tender head, and the aversion of laborers, who are compelled to submit an eight days' beard to his rough management; yet all flock to him and pay him lip-homage. Besides other things, the barter in Turkey is generally the vender of cunning drugs and charms, anti-fleabite mixtures, deadly doses for rats, with occasionally some favorite remedy for danger

ous diseases. Exercising as he does such diversified functions, the Turkish barber has little spare time on his hands. He is always an early riser, and commences his day's operations by experiments upon himself. His moustache is a perfect pattern for curl, gloss, and enormous length; his head is as smooth and hairless as a monk's at eighty; his costume is in the height of Turkish fashion; and in the season he is sure to have a bouquet of sweetsmelling flowers in his bosom. Thus equipped, and having partaken of his early coffee and pipe, the barber sets forth for his shop, which is usually in the heart of the most thronged bazaar; and there, long before the busy world is astir, he and his assistant have set all things in apple-pie order; they have swept up the floor, dusted the shelves, spread out fresh napkins, rinsed the pewter basins, set on the fire huge caldrons of water to boil, garnished the soap-dishes with sweet-smelling herbs and flowers, set forth chairs and stools in goodly array, in preparation for the business of the day, which, by the time these arrangements are completed, commences in right earnest.

The first customer that comes in is an old man skilled in the art of shampooing, who undergoes the operation of being shaved gratis, he being a kind of sleeping partner in the barber's establishment. The napkin is no sooner removed from his throat than the usual every-day customers appear. Foremost among them is an old gentleman who is sadly tormented with rheumatism; he is very particular that not one item in the etiquette of Turkish shaving operations should be omitted; the barber is aware of this, and prizes him as a regular customer, and one that may be counted upon for at least ten paras (about one cent) a day. After a long string of compliments has been exchanged, and the fineness of the weather adverted to, the old man seats himself ceremoniously in the barber's state chair, and there groans involuntarily as he sees the mighty preparations going forward for an attack upon his head and beard. The barber next, drawing near, respectfully relieves him of his weighty turban, which is carefully laid upon a shelf and covered over with a white napkin. Then he is enveloped from his neck to his heels in a huge apron that ties behind, pinning his arms to his side. In this defenseless condition he immedi

ately becomes the victim of half-a-dozen flies, which tickle his nose and flap against his eyes till he is reduced to the necessity of calling the barber to his assistance. On hearing the summons, this worthy, who has been preparing a huge basin of hot suds and sharpening his uncouth razors, rushes to the rescue, and in about a minute afterward we have lost sight of the old victim, whose whole face and head, and every visible portion of the neck, present one extensive field of soap-bubbles, froth, and hot vapor. Now the barber may be seen scrubbing away, with a huge hair bag on either hand; then he darts to one side and fetches a huge basinfull of very hot water; and the next instant the victim's head, soap-suds and all, are forcibly immersed in this. In a few seconds it emerges red and inflamed, with the eyes starting nearly out of their sockets, the victim meanwhile sputtering and grunting for breath. Barely has he had time to implore a few moments' respite before another basin is produced, and the head again disappears beneath its depths. This time the water is cold almost to freezing, and the whole frame quivers again, as though quite electrified by the sudden shock. On being withdrawn, a death-like pallor has taken the place of the rubicund complexion so lately exposed to view. Soon, however, the friction of a dry towel restores the circulation, succeeded by the application of lukewarm soap and water, after which the razor almost imperceptibly, certainly unfelt by the customer, passes from the crown of the head and rounds the promontory of the chin with marvelous speed, leaving only a small tuft on the crown, and the much-prized oriental mustache. Turks who wear beards seldom, we may observe, resort to a barber's shop, as their heads only require to be manipulated, and to dress these is a department in the barber's art which is generally left to young practitioners.

The ordeal just described having been passed through, the napkin is removed, and the customer is at liberty to rinse his hands and face; but before the turban is restored to his head he again submits himself to the barber's care, for the purpose of having all his minor joints cracked. First, the head is seized, and wrenched with such violent jerks from side to side, that one unaccustomed to the spectacle would think the barber intent on violence.

After this, every tender bone of the ear undergoes a similar process, and the joints of the fingers go off like a small battery of Chinese crackers. This completes the cracking process, which is anything but agreeable to those who have not been inured to it. The Turks, however, like it.

The old customer now under consideration, released from the barber, calls loudly for pipe and coffee. When these are produced, he sips the one and whiffs the other, while seated in a large easy chair by the window-side, where the science of the shampooing-master is about to be put to the test. The leg of the old gentleman, tender perhaps from rheumatism, is hoisted upon a wooden stool, and the shampooer commences by gradually and softly pressing, between his fingers and thumb, the flesh from the ankle to the knee. By degrees, the nipping becomes harder and the movement more rapid, till by-and-by the cries from the old man, of Thumum! thumum! (It is enough!) indicate that the pressure has reached to such an extent as to be no longer endurable. The operation, however, has promoted a free circulation of blood in the ailing limb, and the old man stalks forth upon it as securely as though it were made of iron, and were impregnable to to-morrow's twitches.

The next customer the barber has to deal with is an oriental dandy, who, after undergoing the operation of being shaved,. stands at least five minutes while he twists his mustaches into a variety of shapes, and gazes with evident complacency on both sides of the circular mirror; in one of these he admires a giant, and in the other a pigmy. At length he takes himself off, and a day-laborer, it may be, with his staff and bundle of day's provisions, heaves in sight, while shortly after him a whole posse arrive. By an hour before mid-day the barber's shaving and shampooing occupations may be said to be over, and he passes his afternoon in alternately notching scores against creditors and notching the bald heads of patients suffering from sick headaches. The latter is a common practice in Syria. Every man suffering from the headache goes to the barber, and gets him to make some half-dozen notches with a razor on his head, absurdly supposing that the blood thus escaping will immediately give ease. The remedy is a painful, and, in many instances, we should think, a dangerous one.