The Military Bands Are Certainly The Best, And These Are Generally Composed Of Negroes And Mulattoes.

The exterior of the Opera-house does not promise anything very beautiful or astonishing, and the stranger is, consequently, much surprised to find, on entering, a large and magnificent house with a deep stage.

I should say it could contain more than 2,000 persons. There are four tiers of spacious boxes rising one above the other, the balustrades of which, formed of delicately-wrought iron trellis- work, give the theatre a very tasty appearance. The pit is only for men. I was present at a tolerably good representation, by an Italian company, of the opera of Lucrezia Borgia; the scenery and costumes are not amiss.

If, however, I was agreeably surprised by my visit to the theatre, I experienced quite a contrary feeling on going to the Museum. In a land so richly and luxuriously endowed by Nature, I expected an equally rich and magnificent museum, and found a number of very fine rooms, it is true, which one day or other may be filled, but which at present are empty. The collection of birds, which is the most complete of all, is really fine; that of the minerals is very defective; and those of the quadrupeds and insects poor in the extreme. The objects which most excited my curiosity, were the heads of four savages, in excellent preservation; two of them belonged to the Malay, and two to the New Zealand tribes.

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Words from 11571 to 11820 of 187810