Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1884-02-08
The Rio Market.

Worlds within themselves are the mar
kets or mercados of Rio. Great are they
in extent, rich in variety, teeming in in
terest and loud in smell. The visitor
will have no difficulty in finding these
interesting places if he follows the die"
tates of his own organ of SMELL for the
odor of the markets is greater, stronger
and richer than ali the other odors Of
the city, and can be detected square
or so away. The market would essay
to tell you about, and the one that
often attracted me at times when |
felt able to wade through the unpleas-
antness of the place, is situated on the
bay shore, and has its docks for the
fish and vegetable boats. You may
have seen the French market in
New Orleans. If you have, and are
gifted with an imagination that can
picture a similar place little larger I'M
size, many times more curious and
crowded, twenty times more dirty, you
may have a faint idea of what this mar
ket may be like. In its area, which is,
about equal to that of an ordinary city
square, are comprised greater assortment
of things than could be dreamed of in a
month. In sheds and stalls and stands,
are offered for sale most miscellaneous
lot of merchandise, perishable and other-'
wise. Everything you could find in the
North is here, beside the infinite variety
of things the existence of which the
people of the North never had the faint
est idea. Next to stall where is dis
played a chaotic stock of notions and
general store" goods, in many of which
we recognize the handiwork of the
Yankee, we find a vegetable stand,
where is offered for sale everything that
grows and possesses any value as food
the fruits of the tropics, pumpkins Sec
tions of the edible palm-trees, mandioca
and other vegetable looking things that
the Hoosier could not call by name.
This edible palm beats everything
in the food line l know of. We
see pieces of round, green, pithy
wood two or three inches in diameter
and as long as a stick of cordwood, and
can hardly be convinced that this should
be an article in the bill-of-fare of the
natives, yet we are assured that it is a
popular food among the poorer inhabi-
tants. The palm-tree serves the natives
manifold purposes. They build houses
and roof them with materials from the
tree, they make clothing and thread,
tools, household utensils, and forget to
what other uses they put the tree, beside
eating the trunk
Next to the vegetable stall we'll find
crockery establishment. The bulk of
this stock will be seen to be water cool
ers, bottles, etc., of the Dutch porous
ware, which is so well adapted for use
in the tropics. But of all the bewilder-
ing maze of things, animate and inani-
mate, the poultry booths will hold most
of the visitors attention. The boxes
of chickens, pigeons, ducks, etc.,
that are so familiar to our eyes we pass
with glance, but the cages of canaries,
fnches, famingoes, parrots, paroquets,
cockaroos, and others of the plumed
tribe, valued either for their musical abil-
ity, loquacity or plumage, retain our in
terest. You may say that the latter
named are queer poultry. 1t does seem
funny to see roosters and hens, that look
so natural we could almost believe in the
poultry department of Indiana county
fair, and the rarest birds of the tropics
side and side, but so we find it here.
Amid the scores Of birds, the species Of
which / am ignorant, l found sedate
and solemn toucan, with its preponder-
ance of bill We saw this same bird
every time we visited the place, and we
became very familiar, so familiar, in fact,
that the major felt free to call him doc
tor"-a name suggested by the size of the
bill.- WI Wdy0ard.