74 



PROVINCE OF RIO DE JANEIRO. 



dark are most offensively filled with negroes, carrying tubs of soil to empty at 

 the beach, a water-closet, or privy, not being known in this city. If these 

 negroes do not bring a certain sum of money to their owners at nigl^t, the 

 penalty is generally a severe castigation. Many of the negro slaves are 

 remarkably well formed, particularly some of those who labour at the custom- 

 house, and exhibit much muscular strength about their whole frames, combined 

 with such symmetry of form, that the lineaments and swelling muscles of their 

 naked bodies reminded me of some fine antique models. They wear cotton 

 trowsers, the rest of the body being exposed. The principal part of the impor- 

 tations are removed from the custom-house by them, and their dreadful shout- 

 ings and yellings, as a stimulus under their burdens, resound through the streets 

 and suburbs all day. Few waggons are used, and those of a rude construction; 

 the axle-trees, revolving with the wheels, produce a loud and discordant noise. 

 The humane attempts of some English merchants to introduce waggons, 

 for conveying goods from the custom-house, were effectually opposed by the 

 clerks of that establishment, who have the privilege through intrigue of 

 exclusively letting out their slaves for this employment. The universal diet 

 of the negroes is the farinha, or flour, of the mandioca root, which they mix 

 up with warm water, and occasionally are indulged with a little toucinJio, or 

 fat bacon, to it; but in the mining districts they use the flour of Indian corn, 

 which a negro, who had worked at the gold mines, informed me, was preferred 

 amongst them to the first. The Brazilians themselves use a great deal of farin- 

 ha, many families almost subsisting upon it ; and when dressed up, as is the 

 custom in some parts of the Brazil, particularly at Pernambuco, with green 

 peppers, &c. into a state they CdWpirao, it is very palatable. Feijaos and carne- 

 secco, which are black beans and dried beef stewed together, is a dish much 

 used amongst the Brazilians, and an European with a sharp appetite will not 

 find it a bad relish. 



The slave-ships arriving at the Brazil present a terrible picture of human 

 wretchedness, the decks being crowded with beings as closely stowed as it is 

 possible, whose melancholy black faces, and gaunt naked bodies, are of them- 

 selves sufficient to transfix with horror an individual unused to such scenes, in- 

 dependently of the painful reflections connected with a consideration of the 

 debasing circumstances and condition of this portion of mankind. A great many 

 of them, as they are seen proceeding from the ships to the warehouses where 

 they are to be exposed for sale, actually appear like walking skeletons, parti- 

 cularly the children ; and the skin, which scarcely seems adequate to keep the 



