42 PAKA. Chap. I. 



the Para people were much inferior to Southern Bra- 

 zilians in energy and industry. Provisions and house 

 rents being cheap and the wants of the people few — 

 for they were content with food and lodging of a quality 

 which would be spurned by paupers in England — they 

 spent the greater part of their time in sensual indul- 

 gences and in amusements which the government and 

 wealthier citizens provided for them gratis. The trade, 

 wholesale and retail, was in the hands of the Portuguese, 

 of whom there were about 2500 in the place. Many 

 handicrafts were exercised by coloured people, mulattos, 

 mamelucos, free negroes and Indians. The better sort 

 of Brazilians dislike the petty details of shopkeeping, 

 and if they cannot be wholesale merchants prefer the 

 life of planters in the country however small may be 

 the estate and the gains. The negroes constituted the 

 class of field-labourers and porters ; Indians were uni- 

 versally the watermen, and formed the crews of the 

 numberless canoes of all sizes and shapes which traded 

 between Para and the interior. The educated Brazilians, 

 not many of whom are of pure Caucasian descent — for 

 the immigration of Portuguese, for many years, has 

 been almost exclusively of the male sex — are courteous, 

 lively, and intelligent people. They were gradually 

 weaning themselves of the ignorant, bigoted notions 

 which they inherited from their Portuguese ancestors, 

 especially those entertained with regard to the treat- 

 ment of women. Formerly the Portuguese would not 

 allow their wives to go into society, or their daughters 

 to learn reading and writing. In 1848, Brazilian ladies 

 were only just beginning to emerge from this inferior 



