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230 



CHARACTER OF THE SERTANEJOS. 



they pleased upon their commodities ; other 

 things were in proportion. Owing to the enor- 

 mous prices, European articles of dress could of 

 course only be possessed by the rich people. 

 However, since the opening of the ports to 

 foreign trade, English goods are finding their 

 way all over the country, and the hawkers are now 

 a numerous body of men. The women seldom 

 appear, and when they are seen do not take any 

 part in the conversation, unless it be some one 

 good wife who rules the roast ; if they are pre- 

 sent at all when the men are talking, they stand 

 or squat down upon the ground, in the door- 

 way leading to the interior of the house, and 

 merely listen. The morals of the men are by no 

 means strict, and when this is the case, it must 

 give an unfavourable bias, in some degree, to 

 those of the women ; but the Sertanejo is very 

 jealous, and more murders are committed, and 

 more quarrels entered into on this score, by 

 ten-fold, than on any other. These people are 

 revengeful ; an offence is seldom pardoned, and 

 in default of law, of which there is scarcely any, 

 each man takes it into his own hands. This is 

 without any sort of doubt a dreadful state of 

 society, and I do not by any means pretend to 

 speak in its justification ; but if the causes 

 of most of the murders committed and beat- 

 ings given are enquired into, I have usually 

 found that the receiver had only obtained what 



