not yet reached the higher ranks of life, as gentlemen, as planters, and as merchants. Some of thein have accumulated considerable sums of money, and possess many slaves, to whom they teach their own trade, or these slaves are taught other mechanical employments by which they may become useful. They work for their owners, and render to them great profits, for every description of labour is high, and that which requires any degree of skill bears even a higher comparative value than the departments of which a knowledge is more easily attained. The best church and image painter of Pernambuco is a black man, who has good manners, and quite the air of a man of some importance, though he does not by any means assume too much. The negroes are excluded from the priesthood, and from the offices which the mulattos may obtain through their evasion of the law, but which the decided and unequivocal colour of the negro entirely precludes him from aspiring to. In law all persons who are not white, and are born free, class equally; manumitted slaves are placed upon the same footing as persons born free. However, although the few exclusions which exist against the negroes are degrading, still in some instances they are befriended by them. They are unable, owing to their colour, to serve in the regiments of the line, or in any regiments excepting those which are exclusively their own; but by means of this regulation they escape the persecutions under which the other casts suffer during the time of recruiting. The officers and men

of the Henrique regiments are so united to each other, that the pri vates and subalterns are less liable to be oppressed by any white man in office even than the soldiers of the mulatto regiments. Of these latter the officers, having a considerable tinge of white, sometimes lean towards the wishes of the capitam-mor, or some other rich white officer, instead of protecting his soldiers.

The men whose occupation it is to apprehend runaway negroes, are, almost without exception,” creole blacks; they are called capitaens-do-campo, captains of the field; and are subject to a capitam-mor-do-campo who resides in Recife, and they receive their commissions either from the governor or from this officer. By these they are authorised to apprehend and take to their owners any slaves who may be found absent from their homes without their master's consent. Several of these men are to be found in every district, employing themselves in such pursuits as they think fit, when their services are not required in that calling which forms their particular duty. They are men of undaunted courage, and are usually followed by two or three dogs, which are trained to seek out, and if necessary to attack and bring to the ground those persons whose apprehension their masters are desirous of effecting. The men who bear these commissions can oblige any unauthorised person to give up to them an apprehended negro, for the purpose of being by them returned to his owner.

It is scarcely necessary to name the mestizos, for they usually class

with the mulattos; nor are they to be easily distinguished from some of the darker varieties of this cast. A dark-coloured man of a disagreeable countenance and badly formed person is commonly called a mestizo, without any reference to his origin.

Yet one race of human beings remain to be spoken of; but the individuals who compose it are not sufficiently numerous to permit them to take their place among the several great divisions of the human family which form the population of Brazil, and therefore I did not rank this among the others which are of more import

Still the ciganos, for thus they are called, must not be forgotten. I frequently heard of these people, but never had an opportunity of seeing any of them. Parties of ciganos were in the habit of appearing formerly once every year at the village of Pasmado, and other places in that part of the country; but the late governor of the province was inimical to them, and some attempts having been made to apprehend some of them, their visits were discontinued. They are represented as being a people of a brownish cast, with features which resemble those of white persons, and as being tall and handsome. They wander from place to place in parties of men, women, and children; exchanging, buying, and selling horses, and gold and silver trinkets. The women travel on horseback, sitting between the panniers of the loaded horses, and the young ones are placed within the panniers among the baggage. The men are excellent horsemen, and although the packhorses may

be overburthened, these fellows will only accommodate matters by riding slowly upon their own horses, and never think of dividing the loads more equally; but they preserve themselves and the animals upon which they ride quite unencumbered. They are said to be unmindful of all religious observances; and never to hear mass or confess their sins. It is likewise said that they never marry out of their own nation.

SLAVERY.

(From the same.)

The general equity of the laws regarding free persons of colour in the Portuguese South-American possessions, has been to a certain degree extended to that portion of the population which is in a state of slavery; and the lives of the slaves of Brazil have been rendered less hard and less intolerable than those of the degraded beings who drag on their cheerless existence under the dominion of other nations. The Brazilian slave is taught the religion of his master, and hopes are held out of manumission from his own exertions ; but still he is a slave, and must be guided by another man's will, and this feeling alone takes away much of the pleasure that would be felt from the faithful discharge of his duty, if it was voluntarily performed. The consciousness that if the directions were not willingly attended to, the arbitrary will of the master would enforce their performance, removes much of the desire to please; obedience to a command is not required with any idea that refusal can possibly ensue, and therefore no merit is

attached

attached to its accomplishment by him whose orders are obeyed; nor does the slave feel that he is doing in any degree more than would be enforced if he had made any doubts. The world has heard so much, and from so many quarters, of the enormities which have been committed by slave-owners in the colonies with which England has had any communication; both from her own possessions, and from those of other nations, that no doubts can be entertained of their existence. That such evil deeds are of frequent occurrence, I would not wish to suppose, though that they are dreadfully too frequent is too well known; 1 had rather not be persuaded that a man in so depraved a state is often to be met with ;-that many civilized beings should have made such rapid returns to barbarism. I have to say, that in Brazil, too, such instances of barbarity are spoken of-that they do exist; they are, however, of rare occurrence, they are seldom heard of, and are always mentioned with abhorrence; but it is enough that instances should be recorded, of the abuse of this absolute power of one man over another; it is enough that this absolute power itself should be allowed to continue, to render the system upon which it is founded an evil of such great importance, as to sanction all exertions for its removal, as to make any government overlook many inconveniences rather than increase the numbers of those human beings who suffer this dreadful degradation.

The Indian slavery has been for many years abolished in Brazil, and the individuals who are now

in bondage in that country are Africans, and their descendants on both sides, or individuals whose mothers are of African origin; and no line is drawn at which the near approach to the colour and blood of the whites entitles the child, whose mother is a slave, to freedom. I have seen several persons who were to all appearance of white origin, still doomed to slavery.

Slaves, however, in Brazil have many advantages over their brethren in the British colonies. The numerous holidays of which the Catholic religion enjoins the observance, give to the slave many days of rest or time to work for his own profit; thirty-five of these, and the Sundays besides, allow him to employ much of his time as he pleases. Few masters are inclined to restrain the right of their slaves to dispose of these days as they think fit, or at any rate few dare, whatever their inclinations may be, to brave public opinion in depriving them of the intervals from work which the law has set apart as their own, that their lives may be rendered less irksome. The time which is thus afforded enables the slave, who is so inclined, to accumulate a sum of money; however this is by law his master's property, from the incapability under which a slave labours of possessing any thing which he by right can call his own. But I believe there is no instance on record in which a master attempted to deprive his slave of these hard-earned gains. The slave can oblige his master to manumit him, on tendering to him the sum for which he was first purchased, or the price for

which he might be sold, if that price is higher than what the slave was worth at the time he was first bought. This regulation, like every one that is framed in favour of slaves, is liable to be evaded, and the master sometimes does refuse to manumit a valuable slave; and no appeal is made by the sufferer, owing to the state of law in that country, which renders it almost impossible for the slave to gain a hearing; and likewise this acquiesence in the injustice of the master proceeds from the dread, that if he was not to succeed he would be punished, and that his life might be rendered more miserable than it was before. Consequently a great deal depends upon the inclinations of the master, who will however be very careful in refusing to manumit, owing to the well known opinion of every priest in favour of this regulation, to the feelings of the individuals of his own class in society, and to those of the lower orders of the people, and likewise he will be afraid of losing his slave; he may escape with his money, and the master will then run much risk of never seeing him again, particularly if the individual is a creole slave. In general therefore no doubts are urged, when application is made for mammission by a slave to his master; who is indeed oftentimes prepared for it by the habits of industry and regularity of his slave, and by common report among the other slaves and free persons upon the estate, that the individual in question is scraping together a sum of money for this purpose. The master might indeed deprive the slave of the fruits of his own la

bour, but this is never thought of, because the slave preserves his money in a secret place, or has intrusted it to some person upon whom he can depend, and would suffer any punishment rather than disclose the spot in which his wealth lies concealed. A still more forcible reason than any other, for the forbearance of the master, is to be found in the dread of acting against public opinion; in the shame which would follow the commission of such an act; and perhaps the natural goodness which exists in almost every human being, would make him shun such gross injustice, would make him avoid such a deed of baseness.

A slave is often permitted by his owner to seek a master more to his liking; for this purpose a note is given, declaring that the bearer has leave to enter into the service of any one, upon the price which the master demands being paid by the purchaser. With this the slave applies to any individual of property whom he may wish to serve; owing to having heard a good report of his character towards his slaves, or from any other cause. This is a frequent practice, and at least admits the possibility of escape from a severe state of bondage to one that is less irksome.

A considerable number of slaves are manumitted at the death of their masters, and indeed some persons of large property fail not to set at liberty a few of them during their own lifetime. A deed of manumission, however simply it may be drawn out, cannot be set aside; a register of these papers is preserved at the office of every notary-public, by