These numerous churches were each furnished with bells by the dozen, which were continually ringing, tolling, or playing tunes from morning until night, as if vieing with each other, in a paroxysm of desperation, which should make the most deafening clamor.
I have visited many Catholic cities, but never met with a people so extravagantly fond of the music of bells as the inhabitants of Maranham.
This perpetual ringing and pealing of bells, of all sizes and tones, at first astonishes and rather amuses a stranger, who regards it as a part of the rejoicings at some great festival.

But, when day after day passes, and there is no cessation of these clanging sounds, he becomes annoyed; at every fresh peal he cannot refrain from exclaiming "Silence that dreadful bell!" and wishes from his heart they were all transformed to dumb bells! Yet, after a time, when the ear becomes familiar with the sounds, he regards the discordant music of the bells with indifference.
When the Clarissa left the port of Maranham, after having been exposed for months to such an unceasing clang, something seemed wanting; the crew found themselves involuntarily listening for the ringing of the bells, and weeks elapsed before they became accustomed and reconciled to the absence of the stunning tintinabulary clatter! The city of Maranham was inhabited almost entirely by Portuguese, or the descendants of Portuguese.

We found no persons there of foreign extraction, excepting a few British commission merchants.

There was not a French, a German, or an American commercial house in the place.
The Portuguese are a people by no means calculated to gain the kind consideration and respect of foreigners.

They may possess much intrinsic worth, but it is so covered with, or concealed beneath a cloak of arrogance and self-esteem, among the higher classes, and of ignorance, superstition, incivility, and knavery among the lower, that it is difficult to appreciate it.