6 PARA. Cuap, I. 
no other medium through which we could make known our wants, 
we progressed rapidly in learning Portuguese. I was quite surprised to 
find little or no trace in Isidoro of that baseness of character which I 
had read of as being the rule amongst negroes in a slave country. 
Isidoro was an old man, with an anxious lugubrious expression of 
countenance, and exhibited signs of having been overworked in his 
younger days, which I understood had been passed in slavery. The 
first traits I perceived in him were a certain degree of self-respect and a 
spirit of independence: these I found afterwards to be by no means 
rare qualities among the free negroes. Some time after he had entered 
our service, I scolded him one morning about some delay in getting 
breakfast. It happened that it was not his fault, for he had been 
detained, much against his will, at the shambles. He resented the 
scolding, not in an insolent way, but in a quiet, respectful manner, and 
told me how the thing had occurred ; that I must not expect the same 
regularity in Brazil which is found in England, and that “ paciencia” 
was a necessary accomplishment to a Brazilian traveller. ‘There was 
nothing ridiculous about Isidoro ; there was a gravity of demeanour 
and sense of propriety about him which would have been considered 
becoming in a serving-man in any country. This spirit of self-respect 
is, I think, attributable partly to the lenient treatment which slaves 
have generally received from their white masters in this part of Brazil, 
and partly to the almost total absence of prejudice against coloured 
people amongst the inhabitants. This latter is a very hopeful state of 
things. It seems to be encouraged by the governing class in Brazil ; 
and, by drawing together the races and classes of the heterogeneous 
population, will doubtless lead to the most happy results. I had after- 
wards, as I shall have to relate in the course of my narrative, to number 
free negroes amongst my most esteemed friends > men of temperate, 
quiet habits, desirous of mental and moral improvement, observant of 
the minor courtesies of life, and quite as trustworthy, in more important 
matters, as the whites and half-castes of the province. Isidoro was not, 
perhaps, scrupulously honest in small matters: scrupulous honesty is a 
rare quality in casual servants anywhere. He took pains to show that 
he knew he had made a contract to perform certain duties, and he tried, 
evidently, to perform them to the best of his ability. 
Our first walks were in the immediate suburbs of Para. ‘The city lies 
on a corner of land formed by the junction of the river Guama with the 
Para. AsI have said before, the forest, which covers the whole country, 
extends close up to the city streets; indeed, the town is built on a tract 
of cleared land, and is kept free from the jungle only by the constant 
care of the Government. The surface, though everywhere low, is 
slightly undulating, so that areas of dry land alternate throughout with 
areas of swampy ground, the vegetation and animal tenants of the 
two being widely different. Our residence lay on the side of the city 
nearest the Guamd, on the borders of one of the low and swampy areas 
which here extend over a portion of the suburbs. The tract of land is 
intersected by well-macadamized suburban roads, the chief of which, 
Estrada das Mongubeiras (the Monguba road), about a mile long, is a 
magnificent avenue of silk-cotton trees (Bombax monguba and B. ceiba), 
