PROVINCE OF BAHIA. 



339 



families appear to maintain a more social intercourse with strangers. Its popula- 

 tion maybe estimated at nearly one hundred and ten thousand, upwards of two- 

 thirds of which are negroes, who, being of one nation and speaking the same 

 idiom, with greater facility planned their insurrections, which till lately have 

 frequently occurred, making it requisite for the governors to maintain a very 

 rigid discipline over them. In the government of the Count de Ponta an order 

 was issued that no negro should appear in the streets after Avi-Maria without a 

 ticket from his owner, stating the object of his business ; in default of which 

 the penalty was one hundred and fifty lashes. This order had the salutary 

 effect of preventing a great portion of them from wandering into the streets 

 without some proper object. 



The arrival of the late Queen and the present King here, in the year 1808, 

 on their way to Rio de Janeiro, produced great joy, and the inhabitants volun- 

 tarily offered to erect a palace at their own expense for the royal family, if they 

 would establish their court in this city. 



The negroes conceived that the arrival of the Prince Regent relieved them 

 from the restraints which they had been subjected to ; and the bold and auda- 

 cious character peculiar to this nation of Africans immediately led them to the 

 determination of disclaiming the right of the governor to inflict the one hundred 

 and fifty lashes, now that the Lord of the territory was come, and they ingeni- 

 ously communicated their resolution to the governor in the two following 

 poetical lines. 



Don de Terra chegou. 

 Cento e cincoenta acabou.* 



On the departure of the Royal Family, and as soon as the fleet had passed 

 the bar, the Count de Ponta, adopting the style of the negroes, directed the two 

 lines below to be posted up in every part of the city and suburbs, announcing 

 to them that the one hundred and fifty lashes were resumed. 



Don de Terra abalou. 

 Cento e cincoenta ficou.f 



The Count de Ponta was succeeded in the governorship by the Count d' Arcos, 

 a nobleman already spoken of. The rigid and necessary system pursued by his 



* The Don of the land is arrived, 

 The one hundred and fifty are ended. 



t The Don of the land is on the main, 

 The one hundred and fifty remain. 



X X 2 



