The Indianapolis journal., 1899-04-23

pound. 1t is the food of the common people
and is much liked by all classes. 1t is
brought by the shipload TO Rio Janeiro
from the Argentine and Uruguay, being
corded up in the stores as we cord up hides.
The meat is sold in fiat sheets, each about
one two inches thick. 1t has a strong
smell and is salty. When sold it is cut up
in strips and weighed out by the kilo.
Another high-priced meat is fat pork.
This is stripped from the hogs, sated and
rolled up in rolls of about foot in dame
ter and two feet in length. A slice from the
roll is cut off for each customer and then
weighed. The fat is used for cooking with
beans. and, together with the carne secca,
or jerked meat, ii forms a part of almost
every Brazilian meal.
There are plenty of chickens and game to
be had. The chicken stalls are walled with
cages, in some of which are guinea hens.
chickens and turkeys, and in others black
sucking pigs, who squeal as they lie in
them, apparently apprehensive of death.
Chickens bring about 20 cents each. Eggs
are worth 20 cents a dozen, and you will
pay s. for fat sucking pig.
Among the queer characters of the Rio
markets are the porters, who move about
among the crowd with fiat baskets as big
around as q washtub and about half
foot deep upon their heads While wait
ing for job the porter carries his basket
balanced upon its side upon his head. 1t is
only when he gets a job that he turns it
down and rests it on the bottom. For the
baskets are so large that all others must
stand out of the way while the porters go
through. All the porters are men, mostly
Italians. Among the market sellers are
many negro women, some of whom wear
turbans. They wear low-necked dresses and
their arms are bare to their shoulders. Not
few still bear the wounds of slavery days
upon them, but they laugh as they sell. and
they are. L am told, very sharp traders.
IN THE CAFES.
There are restaurants and cafes near the
market. There are indeed, cafes every
| where in Rio. The people drink coffee like
| the Germans drink beer. They drink so
| much that it gets into the compilations. and
every other man you meet is coffee colored.
| Some are jet black, brown and
| some sallow, but all are darker than the
| Lord made them. The usual price for cof-
| fec is a cent and half a cup, and for this
| you get coffee fit for king 1t is freshly
| made and it strs up your nerves like a
cocktail. According to a naughty Brazilian
|
| the devil, as black as ink, as hot as hell
| and sweet as love-" 1 have not had a
great deal of experience with hell and the
| devil. but from what / have heard of them
| / am inclined to think that Brazilian coffee
| fits the bill. 1t is perfectly black and Is
| poured directly from the stove into the
| cups. The usual cup is about as large as
an egg cup and the black fluid which goes
| into 1T is of the consistency of Vermont
| maple syrup as 1t is thinned by our dear
| Yankee friends for the market. AS to the
| sweetness. This is produced by half filling
| the cup with cane sugar, the sort used In
| Brazil and sweeter than the beet sugar we
| buy In the lump.
| Drinking such coffee has a serious effect
upon the nerves, and, as the Brazilians
| drink all day through, they are among the
most nervous Of people. They are never
| still. If you see man in a cafe with his
| feet on the floor in nine times out of ten
| one of his legs is bobbing up and down as
| though he were running a sewing machine.
| IL he tries to rest his muscles he can do SO
| for only a few moments before they begin
to twitch and move about in all the antics
| of St. Vituss dance.
Another thing which is conducive to nerv-
BUSINESS is smoking. Next to every cafe is
a cigarette shop Nearly every one you
meet has cigarette in his mouth. The
| people smoke them between the courses al
their meals and the majority of the men,
| women and children are saturated with
| nicotine. FRANK G. CARPENTER.