A GRAZIER 



for the removal of the cattle to higher ground. The lazy 

 and ignorant people seem totally unable to profit by 

 these advantages. The houses have no gardens or planta- 

 tions near them. I was told it was useless to plant any- 

 thing, because the cattle devoured the young shoots. In 

 this country, grazing and planting are very rarely carried 

 on together ; for the people seem to have no notion of 

 enclosing patches of ground for cultivation. They say 

 it is too much trouble to make enclosures. The con- 

 struction of a durable fence is certainly a difficult matter, 

 for it is only two or three kinds of tree which will serve the 

 purpose in being free from the attacks of insects, and these 

 are scattered far and wide through the woods. 



In one place, where there was a pretty bit of pasture 

 surrounded by woods, I found a grazier established, who 

 supplied Santarem daily with milk. He was a strong, 

 wiry half-breed, a man endowed with a little more energy 

 than his neighbours, and really a hard-working fellow. 

 The land was his own, and the dozen or so well-conditioned 

 cows which grazed upon it. It was melancholy, however, 

 to see the miserable way in which the man lived. His 

 house, a mere barn, scarcely protecting its owner from the 

 sun and rain, was not much better built or furnished than 

 an Indian's hut. He complained that it was impossible 

 to induce any of the needy free people to work for wages. 

 The poor fellow led a dull, solitary life ; he had no family, 

 and his wife had left him for some cause or other. He 

 was up every morning by four o'clock, milked his cows 

 with the help of a neighbour, and carried the day's yield 

 to the town in stone bottles packed in leather bags on 

 horseback by sunrise. His wretched little farm produced 

 nothing else. The house stood in the middle of the bare 

 pasture, without garden or any sort of plantation ; a 

 group of stately palms stood close by, to the trunks of 

 which he secured the cows whilst milking. Butter- 

 making is unknown in this country ; the milk, I was told, is 

 too poor ; it is very rare indeed to see even the thinnest 

 coating of cream on it, and the yield for each cow is very 

 small. Our dairyman had to bring from Santarem every 

 morning the meat, bread, and vegetables for the day's 

 consumption. The other residents of Mahica were not 

 even so well off as this man. I always had to bring my 

 own provisions when I came this way, for a perennial 

 famine seemed to reign in the place. I could not help 



