622 Anecdotes of Brazil. [JUNE, 



laugh, " Your intended victim is now beyond the reach of dishonour !" 

 Among a people entertaining such extravagant notions of honour, it 

 would be but natural to expect to find the purity of the female character 

 fixed at an elevated point. This, however, is unfortunately not the case ; 

 few places, perhaps, present a more lamentable picture of vice and licen- 

 tiousness than Villa- Rica, the capital of the province of Minas. To such 

 a pitch is it carried, that a proposal to form a " liaison" the most 

 "equivoque" with a young female would not be received by her family 

 as an insult, but acceded to, or declined, according as they might deem it 

 advantageous. But, on the other hand, a clandestine correspondence, 

 although carried on with the most honourable intentions, would, if pre- 

 maturely discovered, bring down the vengeance of the family on the 

 offender. The Mineheiro never forgives an affront ; he will track his 

 victim with the ruthless spirit of a tiger, till he has an opportunity of 

 wreaking his revenge. The knife in the hands of these people is a 

 most formidable weapon. With his left arm enveloped in the thick 

 folds of his poncho, the Mineheiro, under cover of this shield, advances 

 fearlessly against an experienced swordsman : if foiled in his onset, 

 he will spring back ten or fifteen paces with the agility of a mountain- 

 cat, and throw his knife at his advancing foe with unerring and 

 fatal precision. From these two provinces the emperor draws his 

 best cavalry. Most of the higher offices of state are also filled by Mine- 

 heiros and Pauliotos, whose activity and energy of character fit them 

 better for the duties of office than the more indolent inhabitants of the 

 maritime provinces. On a levee day the court of the emperor presents 

 a most brilliant spectacle. He has created a corps of noblesse, which 

 in numbers, at least, will vie with that of the oldest European courts. 

 Military talent, the never-failing stepping-stone to nobility, is not, how- 

 ever, one of the attributes of the newly privileged orders of Brazil. The 

 late revolution was sterile in talent, not having produced a single suc- 

 cessful soldier. At a levee held by the emperor towards the close of 

 the late war with the Buenos Ayrean republic, when a series of disasters, 

 crowned by the signal defeat of Ituzaingo, tarnished the lustre of the 

 imperial arms, Don Pedro turned to a distinguished foreign officer near 

 him, and pointing to the brilliant circle by which he was surrounded, 

 exclaimed in a tone of great bitterness, ' ' In all this glittering crowd 

 I cannot fiitd an officer fit to command a brigade." The character of 

 this prince is the very antithesis of that of his people. Simple in his tastes, 

 active in mind, of a manly and energetic temper, his unremitting exer- 

 tions and loftiest aspirations are for the welfare of his newly founded 

 empire. The political regeneration of his people is, however, an hercu- 

 lean task ; for the vices engendered by the old colonial system are of an 

 inveterate character. On few occasions can the morality of the Brazilian 

 functionary withstand the temptation of a bribe : the unaffected grace 

 with which he extends his greedy palm to clasp the glittering prize is 

 only surpassed by the singular felicity of the aphorism by which he re- 

 conciles it to his conscience ; " Viva el rey c do aca a capa." To such a 

 pitch was peculation carried under the old system, that full one-half of 

 the revenue of the country never found its way into the government 

 coffers. The dezimo alone produces a large revenue, but the mode of 

 levying it falls very heavy on the poorer classes, who have not the means 

 of propitiating the dezirneiro, for in many instances it is literally taken 

 numerically, rather than intrinsically. Many of the vices of the national 



