MAMALUCOS. 



215 



and they direct the affairs of the houses over 

 which they are placed with the same zeal that 

 they would display if they had the right of com- 

 mand over them. It is greatly to the credit of 

 the people of that country that so much fidelity 

 should be shown on one side, and that this 

 should so frequently, as it is, be rewarded by the 

 other party, in the advancement of those who 

 have behaved thus faithfully, to a respectable 

 and acknowledged situation in society. It 

 should be recollected, too, that the merit of 

 moral feelings must be judged of by the standard 

 of the country, and not by our own institutions. 

 I have only spoken above of what occurs among 

 the planters ; for in large towns man is pretty 

 much the same every where. 



The Mamalucos are more frequently to be 

 seen in the Sertam than upon the coast. They 

 are handsomer than the mulattos ; and the 

 women of this cast particularly surpass in beauty 

 all others of the country ; they have the brown 

 tint of mulattos, but their features are less 

 blunt, and their hair is not curled. I do not 

 think that the men can be said to possess more 

 courage than the mulattos ; but whether from 

 the knowledge which they have of being of free 

 birth on both sides, or from residing in the in- 

 terior of the country where government is more 

 loose, they appear to have more independence 

 of character, and to pay less deference to a 



p 1« 



