1830.] Anecdotes of Brazil. 623 



character have their source in the maladministration of justice. A law- 

 suit in Brazil, both in duration and intricacy of proceedings, realizes 

 the fable of Penelope's web. After years spent in useless litigation, 

 during which time a dozen decisions may have been pronounced in your 

 favour, and as often reversed, you are at last finally nonsuited, not 

 from any conviction in the mind of the judge of the badness of your 

 cause, but from the more sporting character of the opposing litigant, who 

 fairly outbids you in the last result. The laws, however, for the pro- 

 tection of the slave population are an honour to humanity. The Brazilian 

 is a humane master ; and the horrors of slavery are in Brazil greatly 

 mitigated by the mild spirit of Christianity. Negroes are eligible to 

 holy orders ; and with a laudable attention to their prejudices, a black 

 virgin and one or two sable saints have been placed in the calendar, 

 whom they venerate as their patrons. The condition of the negro, when 

 transplanted from his native Africa to the colonies, is an epitome of the 

 more extended chapter of human life as various in its colouring as 

 diversified in lot. 



Throughout all the provinces are innumerable tribes of gipsies, who 

 in fact carry on the commerce of the interior. The period of their first 

 migration to Brazil I could never ascertain ; but in their physiognomy 

 and predatory habits they closely resemble the gipsy tribes of Europe. 



Crimes are rare in Brazil, at least such as spring from the pressure 

 of want. In these fruitful regions the earnings of two days' labour will 

 subsist the labourer the other five. Few countries, indeed, are more 

 blessed by the bountiful hand of nature than Brazil. A prodigious 

 extent of territory, diversified by every variety of soil and climate, her 

 resources, mineral, as well as agricultural, are immense ; while the cha- 

 racter of her prince and the theoretical spirit of her government are 

 favourable to their full and rapid development. At a period of universal 

 depression and stagnation like the present, it is gratifying to be able to 

 direct our attention to a country which presents so wide and extended 

 a field for the operation of British capital and enterprise as Brazil. That 

 there are still some dark clouds hovering round her political horizon 

 I am not free to deny. But it has been justly remarked by a celebrated 

 writer of the present age, " When a man forms schemes in politics, 

 trade, economy, or any business in life, he ought not to draw his argu- 

 ments too fine, or connect too long a chain of consequences together, 

 for something is sure to happen to disconcert his reasoning." If, in the 

 present instance, awed by the remote contingents of future evil, we 

 neglect availing ourselves of the present good, we should realize the 

 fable of the countryman, who waited till the river flowed away to pass 

 over to the opposite bank : 



" Rusticus expectat dum defluit amnis." 



