340 



PROVINCE OF BAHIA. 



predecessor was in some measure relaxed. The negroes had always on holi- 

 days and Sundays indulged, without restraint, in the customs and rude amuse- 

 ments peculiar to their native country. In Bahia they usually assembled in the 

 praca, or square, in the upper city, and frequently selected one from amongst the 

 rest who was dignified with the title of chief, and received all the homage 

 bestowed upon a chief in their own country. A friend of mine, passing on a 

 Sunday through this square, observed them going through the ceremony of ex- 

 ecuting, or putting to death, white men, which were represented by effigies 

 dressed for the purpose; this was intended for the amusement of their chief, but 

 that there was some ulterior object in this species of diversion, must have been 

 manifest. In the course of a few months afterwards, a general revolt took place 

 amongst them, in which they proclaimed the Count d' Arcos their prince, and 

 threatened destruction to the rest of the whites. They had already commenced 

 their operations before it was known to the governor, and were performing a 

 bloody circuit around the vicinity of the city, and putting to death all the 

 white persons met with at the dijfferent hortas. They were, however, very soon 

 surrounded by the Count d' Arcos, at the head of what force he could assemble, 

 and a great many forfeited their lives for this atrocious and sanguinary 

 attempt, the consequences of which, had they succeeded, would have been 

 horrible, as they would have murdered every white person in the place. Sub- 

 sequent to this, orders were issued by the government, that the negroes through- 

 out the state were to discontinue their public assemblages on holidays and 

 Sundays. 



A theatre was erected here about seventeen years ago, but the performances 

 are not equal even to those at Rio. In the high city there is a public walk, with 

 a mirador in the form of a veranda, from whence a view is commanded almost 

 of the whole bay ; near it there is a pyramid of European marble, erected in 

 memory of the short stay the Royal Family made here on its way, in 1808, to 

 the metropolis. 



The commerce of this city stands next in extent to that of Rio de Janeiro, and 

 the main portion of it passes through the medium of the English merchants, 

 comprising nearly twenty establishments. Every description of British manu- 

 factured goods has an extensive sale ; but the competition already stated to 

 exist in the capital also prevails here, affording these importations to the native 

 dealers much below their value : and the cultivators have another advantage over 

 our merchants, in consequence of their being under the necessity of purchasing 

 produce for the return cargo, bills upon Europe being with difficulty or seldom 



