.* MP AUO. 



17 



and is shunned by every one, even receiving his 

 food without the bearer approaching the hovel. 

 I can conceive no situation more wretched than 

 this, — to be in a weak and helpless state, and 

 to be forsaken, — to be doomed to solitude, and 

 to have, perhaps for years, no thoughts but those 

 of death ; nothing to relieve the mind, and to 

 divert the attention. I know not, however, 

 whether the opinion of contagion respecting this 

 disorder is totally founded on prejudice, or 

 whether there is some truth in it ; for I have 

 heard from persons who are not liable to hasty 

 decisions, many stories which seem to indicate 

 that there is some reason for the precautions 

 which are taken. They are, doubtless, carried 

 too far ; they are insisted upon to a savage 

 excess, which fails not to bring to the recollec- 

 tion the custom of some tribes of Indians, who 

 forsake their aged, their infirm, and their dying 

 kinsmen. 



I frequently visited the plantation of Amparo, 

 which is conducted in the manner which I had 

 attempted at Jaguaribe ; but here it was per- 

 formed with more system. The owner of this 

 place employed constantly great numbers of free 

 workmen of all casts'; but the Indians formed 

 •the principal part of them, and as their master, 

 I suppose, finds it impossible to keep them 

 under due control, (for the wish to do so he 

 must of course have,) the disturbances which are 



VOL. II. c 



