JOURNEY TO GOIANA. 



33 



Whilst I was at Fontainhas, three armed men 

 came to the door with a fourth person whom 

 they had taken into custody, under a suspicion 

 of his being a horse-stealer. It was proved that 

 lie had been seen in company with a man of this 

 description, but he made it appear that he had 

 been hired by him to assist in conducting some 

 horses, without his having any knowledge of 

 their being obtained irregularly, and therefore 

 they set him at liberty. During the whole of 

 my stay in Pernambuco, I only heard of two or 

 three instances of houses being broken open, 

 and scarcely of any murders that were not occa- 

 sioned by quarrels, or had been committed in 

 revenge ; but cattle-stealing is common. I was 

 in the constant habit of hearing of thefts of this 

 description. * In the afternoon I reached Goiana, 



* A man of colour, with whom I was acquainted, possessed 

 several tame oxen, some of which with a cart he used to hire 

 to the planters by the day, and one or other of his sons 

 attended to drive them. Two of these animals were stolen, 

 and a suspicion falling upon a man of reputed respectability 

 in the country, who had rented a sugar-plantation not far 

 distant, one of the sons of the owner of the oxen determined 

 to try to ascertain the fact. He dressed himself in leather, 

 as a disguise, and rode to the dwelling of the person in ques- 

 tion, where he arrived at dusk. The master of the house 

 was not at home, but he spoke to the housekeeper, saying, 

 that he had just arrived from the Sertam with cattle on sale, 

 which would reach the neighbourhood on the following morn- 

 ing; he requested to know if she thought her master would 

 purchase his drove. She answered in the affirmative, but 



VOL. II. D 



