50 BRAZILIAN EMPIRE. [1838. 



archy, with a sovereign styled an Emperor. The legislative 

 power is vested in two houses — the Senate, and the Chamber 

 of Deputies. The people seem to be well satisfied with their 

 form of government, but there exists a very friendly feeling 

 towards the United States and their institutions, which it 

 is for the pecuniary interest of both countries sedulously tf 

 cultivate. 



Brazil is not wanting in the elements of greatness. She 

 embraces within her boundaries a vast area of territory — 

 over three million square miles — and her soil is highly fertile 

 and productive. Nature has projected almost everything 

 that belongs to her on a magnificent scale : she has four 

 thousand miles of sea coast ; her plains and valleys are vast 

 and extensive, and her rivers* and mountains grand and 

 imposing. Her population is computed to be five millions. 

 About one fourth are whites, who chiefly occupy the narrow 

 strip along the Atlantic and the province of JMinas Geraes; 

 and the remainder are negroes, mulattoes, and Indians. 

 Many of the savage tribes in the interior, who live remote 

 from the white settlements and mission establishments, are 

 exceedingly ferocious. 



Few countries surpass Brazil in the richness of her Flora, 

 and her forests are truly magnificent; — although the second 

 growth is generally thickly matted with the bamboo that 

 furnishes the material for the huts of the half-civilized 

 Indians, which are covered with thatches of palm, in their 

 primeval state they are comparatively free from underbrush; 

 and the unsightly daddocks, which so often mar the beauty 

 of northern scenery, are rarely encountered. Cedars, as 

 stately as those which, in ancient days, shaded the brow of 

 unt Lebanon, rear their giant limbs towards the sky. 

 Oaks, of various fantastic forms, lofty palms and csesalpinias, 

 \\ i Le spreading mangos and tall and slender oecropias, are 

 mingled with sycamores, myrtles and acacias, — with the 



* Steamboats can ascend the Amazon, and its main tributary near its source, 

 the Ucayali, to the mouth of the Rio Tambo, or Apiirimac, nearly four thousand 

 miles above Para. 



