Chap. I. A GRAZIER. 37 



ignorant people seem totally unable to profit by these 

 advantages. The houses have no gardens or planta- 

 tions near them. I was told it was useless to plant 

 anything, because the cattle devoured the young shoots. 

 In this country, grazing and planting are very rarely 

 carried on together ; for the people seem to have no 

 notion of enclosing patches of ground for cultivation. 

 They say it is too much trouble to make enclosures. 

 The construction of a durable fence is certainly a diffi- 

 cult matter, for it is only two or three kinds of tree 

 which will serve the purpose in being free from the 

 attacks of insects, and these are scattered far and wide 

 through the woods. 



In one place, where there was a pretty bit of pasture 

 surrounded by woods, I found a grazier established, 

 who supplied Santarem daily with milk. He was a 

 strong, wiry half-breed, a man endowed with a little 

 more energy than his neighbours, and really a hard- 

 working fellow. The land was his own, and the dozen 

 or so well-conditioned cows which grazed upon it. It 

 was melancholy, however, to see the miserable way 

 in which the man lived. His house, a mere barn, 

 scarcely protecting its owner from the sun and rain, 

 was not much better built or furnished than an Indian's 

 hut. He complained that it was impossible to induce 

 any of the needy free people to work for wages. The 

 poor fellow led a dull, solitary life ; he had no family, 

 and his wife had left him for some cause or other. 

 He was up every morning by four o'clock, milked his 

 cows with the help of a neighbour, and carried the day's 

 yield to the town in stone bottles packed in leather 



