FOREIGNERS IN BARRA. 



271 



die in Brazil, are subject to the jurisdiction of the Juiz de Orfaos y 

 Difuntos ; and that it was therefore out of his power to comply with 

 my request. I am told (though this may be scandal) that if property 

 once gets into this court, the heir, if he ever succeeds in getting a set- 

 tlement, finds but a Flemish account of his inheritance. 



Our intelligent and efficient consul at Para, Henry L. Norris, has 

 represented this matter to the government in strong terms, showing the 

 effect that such a law has upon the credit and standing of large mer- 

 cantile houses in Brazil. I am not aware of any other nation than the 

 French being exempted from its operation. It is clear that the credit 

 of a house whose property may be seized by such a court as this on the 

 death of its resident principal will not be so good, cceteris paribus, as 

 that of a house exempted from the operation of such a law. The Bra- 

 zilian authorities are very rigid in its execution ; and I was told that a 

 file of soldiers was sent (I think in Maranham) to surround the house 

 of a dying foreigner, to see that no abstraction of property was made, 

 and that the whole might be taken possession of, according to law, on 

 the decease of the moribund. 



There were two English residents at Barra — Yates, a collector of shells 

 and plants ; and Hauxwell, a collector of bird-skins, which he prepares 

 most beautifully. He used the finest kind of shot, and always carried 

 in his pocket a white powder, to stop the bleeding of the birds when 

 shot. In the preparation of the skins he employed dry arsenic in 

 powder, which is much superior, in this humid climate, to arsenical soap. 

 He admired some of my birds very much, and went with Williams up 

 to Pebas, in Peru, where I procured most of them. 



There were also two English botanists, whose names I have forgotten, 

 then up the Rio Negro. One had been very sick with tertiana, but was 

 recovering at latest accounts. 



The chief engineer of the steamer was a hard-headed, hot-tempered 

 old Scotchman, who abused the steamer in particular, and the service 

 generally, in no measured terms. He desired to know if ever I saw 

 such beef as was furnished to them ; and if we would give such beef to 

 the dogs in my country. I told him that I thought he was fortunate 

 to get beef at all, for that I had not seen any for a fortnight, and that 

 if he had made such a voyage as I had recently, he would find turtle 

 and salt fish no such bad things. The steamer, though preserving a fair 

 outside, is, I believe, very inefficient — the machinery wanting in power, 

 and being much out of order ; indeed, so much so that on her down- 

 ward passage she fairly broke down, and had to be towed into Para. 

 She, however, made the trip up in eighteen days, which, considering that 



