A PORTUGUESE BALL.


The ladies are carried in palanquins, and each received at the street
entrance by the master of the house--or if there be more than one lady,
by some gentlemen deputed for that purpose--who takes her hand, and so
ushers her up stairs. There is much of this elaborate gallantry
observable in the manner of the Portuguese towards the sex. Thus, a man
never passes a lady in the street, or in her balcony, without taking off
his hat, and this whether he be acquainted with her or not. We
understand they used to offer a similar mark of respect to the English
ladies, but desisted on finding that our gentlemen did not reciprocate
in the same homage towards the fair _Portuguezas_. I don't think that
this difference in the manners of the two people does us credit. Not
that all that kind of homage means much. In this, as in a more serious
concern, our southern neighbours may seem to have the advantage in the
practices of external devotion; but it would be a mistake to infer from
thence, that there is with us less of that service of the heart, which,
after all, is the one thing needful. The party was large, probably two
hundred, including most of the native rank and fashion of the island. We
found the ladies all seated together in one room, and the effect of this
concentration was sufficiently dazzling. Some people deny that there is
any standard of female beauty; and, at any rate, there is no doubt but
that habits and associations, as well as complexional and sentimental
considerations, interfere more with our perceptions in respect to this
than any other object of taste. It is not immediately that we enter into
the merits of a style of beauty very different from that which we have
been accustomed to. Perhaps it is owing to this circumstance that I was
not struck by so many instances of individual attractiveness as might