VOYAGE UP THE COAST TO PARA'. 129 
strain t upon the free blacks, the fact that they are eligible 
to office, and that all professional careers are open to them, 
without prejudice on the ground of color, enables one to 
form some opinion as to their ability and capacity for 
development. Mr. Sinimbu tells us that here the result 
is on the whole in their favor ; he says that the free 
blacks compare well in intelligence and activity with the 
Brazilians and Portuguese. But it must be remembered, 
in making the comparison with reference to our own coun- 
try, that here they are brought into contact with a less 
energetic and powerful race than the Anglo-Saxon. Mr. 
Sinimbu believes that emancipation is to be accomplished 
in Brazil by a gradual process which has already begun. 
A large number of slaves are freed every year by the 
wills of their masters ; a still larger number buy their 
own freedom annually ; and as there is no longer any 
importation of blacks, the inevitable result of this must 
be the natural death of slavery. Unhappily, the process 
is a slow one, and in the mean while slavery is doing its 
evil work, debasing and enfeebling alike whites and blacks. 
The Brazilians themselves do not deny this, and one con- 
stantly hears them lament the necessity of sending their 
children away to be educated, on account of the injurious 
association with the house-servants. In fact, although 
politically slavery has a more hopeful aspect here than 
elsewhere, the institution from a moral point of view has 
some of its most revolting characters in this country, and 
looks, if possible, more odious than it did in the States. 
The other day, in the neighborhood of Rio, I had an 
opportunity of seeing a marriage between two negroes, 
whose owner made the religious, or, as it appeared to 
me on this occasion, irreligious ceremony, obligatory. The 
6 * i 
