HORSE-STEALING. 



34-7 



than that of Recife, and yet not be too far dis- 

 tant from medical advice. Here I passed my 

 time very pleasantly in daily intercourse with a 

 most worthy Irish family, of whom I shall always 

 preserve recollections of gratitude for the kind- 

 ness which I received at that time and on other 

 occasions. On the night of my arrival at Mon- 

 teiro, one of my pack-horses was stolen, but the 

 animal was recognised some weeks afterwards 

 by a boy who was in my service ; the man into 

 whose hands he had fallen happened to pass 

 through the village, and thus I recovered the 

 horse. It is astonishing to what a great extent 

 horse-stealing has been carried, in a country 

 which abounds so much with these animals. It 

 is almost the only species of robbery, for the 

 practising of which regular gangs of men have 

 been discovered to have been for§ned ; but these 

 fellows will sometimes also change to lay hold 

 of a stray ox or cow. * 



* These practices were, or rather are, at present, carried 

 on in one part of the country with which I am well acquainted. 

 The persons who commit the crimes are white men and of 

 high birth. Among them was a priest. The magistrate of 

 the district in question was applied to by a man who had lost 

 <i cow, mentioning that he more than suspected where she 

 was, and at the same time naming the place. A tropa, a 

 troop or party, of ordenan^a soldiers was collected, and these 

 men were dispatched to search the house, which had been 

 pointed out, under the command of a corporal of well-known 

 courage. They arrived there, and knocked ; the door was 

 opened by the owner, who was the priest connected with the 



