The Sun.
London, England, 1866-12-26 00:00:00

Liverpool Cotton Market—This Day.

Market opens with a brisk demand. Sales pro.
ably 15,000 bales or more.

EXPEDITION TO MATTO-GRO3SO.

AWFUL SUFFERINGS OF THE BRAZILIANS,

Our readers will remember that nearly two years
ago a well-equipped Brazilian force started overland
from Rio Janeiro to re-conquer from the Para-
guayans the province of Matto-Grosso. The ex-
pedition was fully supplied with provisions, moun-
tain artillery, &c., and accompanied by a corps of
Engineers to erect a passage through the woods,
mountains, &c., that intervened. The same journey
was made by the Spaniards in the 17th century,
but the present expedition found insuperable dif-
ficulties. At one time they were delayed two
months in crossing a river not marked on any
map, and the men were constantly occupied in
killing enormous snakes, as will be seen from the
first part of the diary over a year ago at Rio and
reproduced in our columns.

We now take from the Siglo the following melan-
choly account of the second year of the expedition :
" A correspondence, dated August 14, from the
banks of the Rio Dabaco, gives a most heart-rend-
ing account of the sufferings and privations of the
expedition to Matto-Grosso. The soldiers, reduced
to hunger and nakedness, died in great numbers and
amid the most horrible sufferings; the first symptom
was a swelling of the legs, after which the patient
wore away and lost all strength. The prices for the
commonest articles were exorbitant---a hard dollar
for six sheets of letter paper, and ten dollars for a
bottle of brandy.
" The Paraguayans had evacuated Miranda,
but kept all the roads guarded ; their forces still
held the banks of the Aquidauna, and the following
places :--Port Souza, Maria Dominguez, Taqua -
russu, Furquilba, and Nioac.
" The Brazilians counted on assistance from the
tribes of Guaycurues and Galdocos, who had been
armed with Minie rifles.

" It must be borne in mind that the Brazilians
have never lost possession of the capital, Cuyaba,
but all the other important points, Curumba, Fort
&c., are in the power of the
Coimbra, Olympo,
Paraguayans."—From the Standard of Buenos
Ayres.

SHIPPING INTELLIGENCE—This Day,

(BY TELEGRAPH.

GuAvzsEND, Tuesday Morning.
Arrived, Dec. 25 —Behrens, from Memel.

Arrived, Dec. 26—Hannah, from Guernsey ; Bleneatha,
from Shanghai ; Eliza Forbes, from Dantzic ; Orion,
steamer, from Rotterdam ; Holland, steamer, from Ostend.
Sailed—Vigilant, steamer, for Calais ; Rosa Eliza, for
Dieppe ; Panther, steamer, for Boulogne ; Sir R. Peel,
steamer, for Dunkirk.

DEAL, 'Wednesday Morning.
Anchored—Theusia, from London, for Buenos Ayres
Elizabeth, from London, for Bathurst.

UNITED STATES POSTAL ARRANGEMENTS.

Mails for the United States are made up in London every
Saturday evening, Wednesday morning, and Wednesday
evening. Letters for the Saturday and Wednesday evening
mails must reach the General Post-office by 6 o'clock
p.m., and those of the Wednesday morning mails by 6
o'clock a.m. that day. Newspapers must always be posted
half an hour earlier. The Wednesday and Saturday's
mails are taken up at Queenstown, on the following day,
by the Liverpool steamers. The Wednesday morning
mails are taken by the Southampton steamers.
Mails from the United States aro due in London on
Mondays and Thursdays of each week.
Periodical works not of daily publication, issued in the
shape of pamphlets, may be sent to the United States,
California, and Oregon, by packet, at the following rates :
—Not exceeding 2 oz., id. ; above 2 oz., but not exceeding
3 oz., 6,1.; above 3 oz., but not exceeding 4 oz., Bd. ; with an
addition of 2d. for every additional ounce up to 16
ounces, above which the privilege does not extend. At
the same_ rate of postage, any Pamphlet not weighing more
than 8 oz (even though it be not a periodical publication)
may be sent to the United States, California, and Oregon.
This postage is only the British portion, a further sum
being charged on delivery. The periodical works
or pamphlets must always be sent in a cover open at the
ends (not more than one being sent in a single cover), and
the postage must be prepaid. Other printed papers or
books (except those specified above), addressed to the
places above named, are liable to lettei rate of postage.
There must be no writing, or other marks upon such
periodical works, pamphlets, &c., or upon the covers, ex-
cept the names and addresses of the persons to whom they
are sent; nor upon the covers must there be any printing,
except the names and addresses of the persons to whom
they are sent and the names and addresses of the senders
Any other writing, &c., will render the packetsliablo to
letter rates of postage.

A POOR PARSON'S ROOM.—It was a wretched,
poverty-stricken room. By degrees the carpet had dis-
appeared, which had been laid down some nine or ten years
since, when they bad first come to Hoggelstock, and which
even then had not been new. Now nothing but a poor frag-
ment of it remained in front of the fire-place. In the
middle of the room there was a table which had once been
large ; but one flap of it was gone altogetlyr, and the other
flap sloped grievously towards the floor, the weakness of
old age having fallen into its legs. There were two or
three smaller tables about, but they stood propped against
walls, thence obtaining a security which their own strength
would not give them. At the further end of the room there
was an ancient piece of furniture, which was always called
"papa's secretary," at which Mr. Crawley customarily sat
and wrote his sermons, and did all work that was done by
him within his house. The man who had made it, some time
in the last century, had intended it to be a locked guardian
for domestic documents, and the receptacle for all that
was most private in the house of some paterfamilias. But
beneath the hands of Mr. Crawley it always stood open ;
and, with the exception of the small space at which he
wrote, was covered with dogs-eared books, from nearly all
of which the covers had disappeared. There were there
two odd volumls of Euripides, a Greek Testament and
Odyssey, a duodecimo Pindar, and a miniature Anacreon.
There was half a Horace—the two first bdoks of the Odes
at the beginning, and the De Arte Poetica at the end, hav-
ing disappeared. There was a little bit of a volume of
Cicero, and there were Cmsar's Commentaries, in two
volumes, so stoutly bound that they had defied the com-
bined ill-usage of time and the Crawley family. All these
were piled upon the secretary, with many others--odd
volumes of sermons and the like; but the Greek and Latin
Jay at the top, and showed signs of most frequent use.
There was one arm-chair in the room—a Windsor chair,
as such used to be called, made soft by an old cushion in
the back, in which Mr. Crawley sat when both he and his
wife were in the room, and Mrs. Crawley when he was
absent. And there was an old horsehair sofa—now almost
denuded of its horsehair—but that, like the tables, required
the assistance of a friendly wall. ,Then there was half a
dozen of other chairs—all of different sorts—and they
completed the furniture of the room. It was not such a
room as one would wish to see inhabited by a beneficed
to rgyman of the Church of England; but they who know
what money will do and what it will not will understand
how easily a man with a family and with £l3O a year may
be brought to the need of inhabiting such a chamber.--
The Last Chronicle of Barset,
MADAME TUSSAUD'S.—Boxing-day is invariably
great with the holiday folk at Madame Tussaud's
Exhibition, and on the present occasion it has lost none
of its hitherto universal great popularity. Visitors have
been pouring in since its opening this morning, and we
feel convinced that all are well pleased with the " thousand
and one" objects which are to be seen in the various
galleries of the exhibition. The life-size portrait models
of our kings and queens, from the Norman monarch to
that of her present most gracious Majesty, appear to at-
tract no small amount ol interest. The costumes of the
figures having been carefully studied from illuminated
manuscripts, and the effigies in the tombs in the cathedrals
in which their remains were interred. Every visitor is
recommended to purchase a catalogue, which contains an
ample explanation of the exhibition, and which will be
found to be an excellent guide to the study of English
history.

THE FISHERY CONVENTION BETWEEN FRANCE
AND ENGLAND.—The International Commission to revise
the Fishery Convention between France and England will
meet this week in Paris. The commissioners for England
are the Right Hon. Stephen Cave, M.P., Vice President
of the Board of Trade ; Mr. G. Shaw Lefevre, M.P. (of the
late Deep Sea Fisheries Commission); Mr. H. Goulburn,
of the Customs; and Captain Hove, R.N., Naval Attach 6
at Paris.

CoxsoLA-noN.—When Lord Cockburn was at
the bar he once defended a prisoner who, in spite of his
exertions, was sentenced to be htinged on the 17th of the
month. After the sentence the condemned man com-
plained to his counsel that he had not had justice.
" Never mind (saidOookbarn), you'll have it on the 17th,"