310 PSYCHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION. [PART II. | 



provinces of the empire, is both lazy and proud ; he despises ! 

 labour as dishonourable; he cares little for habitation and ; 

 dress, suffering rather from wet and cold ; ] his religious ideas, 

 his belief in wood-spirits and other spectres, is as absurd as that 

 of the Botocudes. 2 The children of the Portuguese settled in 

 the Sertajo grow up indolent and become prodigal; their 

 farms fall into decay. Ignorance and superstition, belief in 

 witchcraft, spectres, and amulets, are universal ; they have lost 

 all the dignity of human nature, and only pass from their 

 apathy to the grossest sensuality. Though pacific and hospit- 

 able, they are devoid of any intellectual or moral activity. 

 Women and gambling form the sole objects of interest; 

 and there are here some few Portuguese refugees who have 

 forgotten religion, the knowledge of the use of money, and 

 even of salt. 3 



In Groyaz it is not much better ; the colonists are enervated 

 by early excesses ; concubinage is so common among them 

 that a married man is an object of mockery. Poverty is pre- 

 valent ; their indolence is remarkable ; fraud, especially falsi- 

 fication of the gold, is general. Something similar may be 

 found in other mining, and gold districts. 4 The thirst 

 for gold and labour is succeeded by wealth and prodi- 

 gality; then succeed enervation, misery, poverty, and all 

 vices. There has for a long time existed in the islands Fer- 

 nando Noronha, a Portuguese criminal colony. No trace of 

 agriculture is visible there, nor is any amelioration of their 

 miserable condition thought of. The people smoke, gamble, or 

 lie in their hammocks ; they have but a miserable ferry boat, so 

 that Webster 5 exclaims in astonishment : " is it possible that 

 these people are the progeny of the seafaring Portuguese, who 

 were so eminent as navigators ?" In Africa, the condition of 

 the Portuguese is equally miserable. On the west coast, where 

 they settled in the sixteenth century and have intermixed with 



1 Rendu, " Etudes top. med. et agron. sur le Bresil," p. 24, 1848. 



2 Prinz Max, " Eeise nach Brasil," ii, p. 59, 1820. 



3 A. de St. Hilaire, loc. cit., ii, p. 304. 



4 A. de St. Hilaire, " Voyage aux sources de la riviere San Francisco," i, 

 pp. 127, 173, 218, 316, 373; ii, pp. 75, 243, 1847. 



5 " Narrative of a voyage to the South Atlantic Ocean," ii, p. 23, 1834. 



