118 THE PRAZOES 



arm and maintain a force of what are practically 

 military police (" sypaes"), and to him come all the 

 native inhabitants of his prazo for the settlement 

 of their disputes and all other questions. Clearly 

 his first object is to collect as much tax-revenue 

 as he possibly can, since, as we have seen, an 

 important portion of his income consists of the 

 moiety which the Government permits him to re- 

 tain ; and this done, the average prazo-holder, I 

 fear, regards the greater portion of his year's work 

 as accomplished. Naturally his contract with the 

 State — his lease, as we should call it — which is 

 usually one of twenty-five years, obliges him to 

 undertake certain works for the purpose of im- 

 proving and developing the area conceded to him. 

 He covenants to cultivate annually a given area, 

 to open up roads, erect buildings, and, in some 

 cases I understand, to take steps towards educating 

 the natives over whom he exerts authority. These 

 latter portions of his lease, although nowadays more 

 faithfully carried out than they were, at one time 

 gave the proprietor no sort of uneasiness. He 

 carried them out only in so far as he was compelled, 

 and at times, in the remoter regions where, sur- 

 veillance never came, his position and general mode 

 of life were not dissimilar from those of the old- 

 time prazo-holder of the early seventeenth century, 

 whose iniquities so strongly exercised the Jesuit 

 monk who reported on them to the viceroy of that 

 stormy period. 



Clearly the system arose from want of means ; 

 from the inability of the State itself to act as the 

 developing agent ; and from its eagerness to welcome 



