On the muddy shore in the background, the fishing canoes are drawn up on their arrival to discharge their cargoes, chiefly at this time consisting of a kind of sprat and an anchovy with a broad lateral silvery band.

Baskets of land crabs covered with black slimy mud, of handsome Lupeae, and the large well-flavoured prawns, called Cameroons, are scattered about, and even small sharks (Zygaenae, etc.) and cuttlefish are exposed for sale.
The streets, which, with few exceptions, are very narrow, are paved with large rough stones--they have usually a gutter in the centre, and occasionally a narrow pavement on each side.

For building purposes, unhewn granite is chiefly used, the walls being afterwards smoothed over with a layer of plaster, whitewashed, and margined with yellow or blue.
The two principal streets are the Rua Direita, the widest in the city, and the principal scene of commercial transactions, and the narrow Rua do Ouvidor, filled with shops, many of which equal in the richness and variety of their goods the most splendid establishments of European capitals.

Of these the most tempting, and the most dangerous to enter with a well-filled purse, is the famous feather-flower manufactory of Mme.

Finot, where the gorgeous plumage of humming birds and others of the feathered tribe is fabricated into wreaths and bouquets of all kinds.
Although the absence of sewerage is everywhere apparent, the town is well supplied with water from numerous large fountains, filled by pipes from an aqueduct five or six miles in length, communicating with the Corcovado mountain.