106 A NATURALIST ON THE "CHALLENGER 



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them. A member of the House of Assembly has been known to 

 refuse to speak on an occasion of importance, because his foster 

 brother, a slave, had just died. 



The slaves are hired out as servants: and foreign residents, 

 especially English, who cannot hold slaves, hire them as domestic 

 servants. They make the engagements with the slaves them- 

 selves, and pay them the wages, and the slaves carry these wages 

 to their owners, who, if kind ones, give them a fourth part or so 

 as a present. Other slaves are hired from the owners, but not 

 the best ones. At the best hotel in Bahia, kept by a German, 

 most of the servants were thus hired slaves. The proprietor 

 said that was much better than buying slaves, since when they 

 were ill you sent them back to their owners and got fresh ones. 



Owners also employ their slaves as sellers of various goods 

 in the streets. The slaves are usually well treated, but in some 

 rare cases owners are cruel and beat them. At Caxoeira, a 

 pretty girl was collecting money to buy herself off because, 

 according to her story, her master beat her constantly. There is 

 no slave market in Bahia. The slaves that have not been born 

 in the country, but were brought from the coast, have marks 

 cut on their cheeks, the marks of the tribes to which they 

 belong, and of which they are proud. There are many of these 

 to be seen in the streets ; but there is no means of distinguishing 

 a slave from a freed man. The following slave statistics are 

 taken from the Anglo-Brazilian Times : — 



Brazil Slave statistics.—" In the province of Goyaz the 8,903 

 slaves registered in 1872, had on the 31st of December, 1875, 

 become reduced to 7,888 by 357 deaths, 222 liberations, and 436 

 removals. At the same date there existed 921 freebom children 

 of slaves. In the province of Pernambuco, during the same 

 four years, the 106,201 slaves diminished 3,386 by death, and 

 1,049^ by emancipations. From September 28th, 1871, to the 

 end of December last, the number of children of slaves born free 

 under the law of 1871 was 12,312, of whom 2,802 died, leaving 

 9,510. In the province of San Paulo there died, from April, 

 1872, to the end of 1875, of the 147,746 slaves registered, 8,561 

 and 3,410 were emancipated. In 111 of the 151 parishes the 

 ireeborn births were 18,176, of whom 5,861 had died. 



