PROVINCE OF RIO DE JANEIRO. 



79 



family. It is not ascertained whether he had any real cause or not for the 

 excitement of this passion ; he unquestionably conceived he had, from the 

 measures which he adopted of engaging two or three blacks to embrace an 

 opportunity of murdering the friar, severing the head from the body, and 

 divesting him of his sacerdotal robes. The discovery of the body was made under 

 circumstances that did not involve those who found it in any difficulty ; but it is 

 possible that an innocent individual finding a dead person, unacquainted with 

 the customs of the country, might be subjected to some inconvenience ; and I 

 had almost got into such a predicament myself. Not far from the Campo de 

 St. Christovao, a beach leading to the point of Cajii affords an interesting view 

 of the bay. I had just entered upon it one evening, in September, on horseback, 

 when I was startled at the appearance of a dead man extended upon the 

 sand, which the receding tide had just deposited there : he was very well dressed, 

 in the habit of a sailor, and, the hair being of an auburn colour, I concluded he 

 was the mate of an Enghsh ship. My endeavours to procure the aid of some 

 Portuguese at a short distance were unavailing ; no one would approach ; and 

 two or three persons in a cabriolet, who passed close by, regarded me and the 

 dead sailor with indifference. I also addressed myself to the next person who 

 came up on horseback; he dismounted, and I immediately found that he was 

 an Englishman: he turned the body over, when the face appeared terribly 

 mangled ; he suggested that the property upon the pers^on should be secured, 

 which amounted to upwards of one pound in Portuguese money, a silver watch, 

 a gold brooch, and other things, of which an account was taken and delivered 

 to my care, with which I purposed going directly to the minister of police, and 

 to request that the body might be taken care of, as it was impossible to get any 

 one in the neighbourhood to take it in, or even come near the place. After 

 paying two negroes to move the body from the beach, and place it under a 

 hedge, I set off to carry my intentions into effect. On the road to the city I 

 met an English gentleman, to whom I stated the matter ; he requested me by 

 no means to go to the pohce-office, as I should unquestionably be detained 

 and lodged in prison till I proved that I was not the cause of the man's death. 

 This information deterred me from proceeding farther ; but the idea that this 

 unfortunate individual might have a wife, children, and friends at home, deter- 

 mined me to prepare an account of his person, with a view of posting it at the 

 custom-house next morning, which might have led to an identification of his 

 person. I previously called upon Mr. Harrison, a highly-respectable and long- 

 resident merchant here, and he effectually convinced me of the hazardous con- 



