ppH 



220 



CREOLE NEGROES. 



are taught other mechanical employments by 

 w liich they may become useful. They work for 

 their owners, and render to them great profits, 

 for every description of labour is high, and that 

 which requires any degree of skill bears even a 

 higher comparative value than the departments 

 of whicfr a knowledge is more easily attained. 

 The best church and image painter of Pernam- 

 buco is a black man, who has good manners, and 

 quite the air of a man of some importance, though 

 he does not by any means assume too much. 

 The negroes are excluded from the priesthood * ; 

 and from the offices which the mulattos may 

 obtain through their evasion of the law, but 

 which the decided and unequivocal colour of 



* The priests of the island of St. Thome 1 , upon the coast 

 of Africa, are negroes. I have seen some of these men at 

 Recife, who have come over for a short time. I have heard 

 that they are prohibited from saying mass any where ex- 

 cepting upon the island for which they are ordained ; but I 

 can scarcely think that this can be correct. In the Voyage 

 du Chevalier des Marchais en Guinte, isles voisines, et a 

 Cayenne, I find that men of mixed blood were ordained in 

 the islands of St. Thome and Principe, and the editor of the 

 work says, " Presque tout le clerge de la cathedrale (of St. 

 Thomd) Aoit de cette couleur" Vol. iii. p. 4. " L'Egliscde 

 S. Antoine qui est la Paroisse (of Prince's Island) est dtservie 

 par des pretres noirs ou presque noirs, c'est a dire mulatres.^ 

 p. 30. 



I have, as is stated in the text, heard from good authority, 

 that the law forbids the ordination of mulattos ; what the 

 practice is I am quite certain, and I hope the law may be 

 favourable also. 



