Dancing is kept up for hours, and all is conducted with much decorum and propriety.

A party of this kind meets about once a week, the principal inhabitants taking it by turns, and all who please come in without much ceremony.
It is astonishing how little these people have altered in three hundred years, although in that time they have changed their language and lost all knowledge of their own nationality.

They are still in manners and appearance almost pure Portuguese, very similar to those with whom I had become acquainted on the banks of the Amazon.

They live very poorly as regards their house and furniture, but preserve a semi-European dress, and have almost all full suits of black for Sundays.

They are nominally Protestants, but Sunday evening is their grand day for music and dancing.