PROVINCE OF PERNAMBUCO. 



38o 



startled at the appearance of a human skull and bones, near a pillar or beacon 

 situated between the two forts. Considerably impressed by so unexpected a 

 sight, and moving slowly forward with such feelings as it was calculated to excite, 

 not having any other idea but that they were the remains of some murdered 

 person, I found myself in the midst of human bones, over-spreading the sum- 

 mit of the sand-bank. I now began to surmise that it was the cemetery of the 

 blacks, which was confirmed on my arrival at the Recife. The dead bodies of 

 the negroes are wrapped up in a piece of coarse cotton cloth, and being thinly 

 covered with sand is the reason of their remains soon becoming thus indecently 

 exposed. I understand that the white people were at one time also interred 

 here. The English have a burying-ground at St. Amaro, not far from Boavista- 



The roads branching off from Pernambuco into the interior are very good 

 for a few miles, although sandy, and in some parts deep. They soon I egin to 

 contract into narrow bridle-ways, and are the tracks of troops of horses coming 

 from the certams with cotton principally, and some other produce. The horses 

 here are, from the sandy nature of the roads, never shod, and those driven from 

 the interior by the mattutos* (inhabitants of the mattos, or woods) are generally 

 very miserable and poor, and seem almost to give way under the burden of two 

 bags of cotton, attached one on each side to a rudely constructed pack-saddle. 

 Cords are commonly used by these persons for stirrups, into which they intro- 

 duce the great toe. Their dress, consisting of a coarse cotton shirt hanging 

 loosely over drawers, or trowsers, reaching to the calf of the leg, with a large 

 slouching straw or black hat, a gun occasionally borne over one shoulder, and 

 a sword in a wooden sheath, awkwardly suspended from a leathern belt, gives 

 them a singular appearance. Some of these groups are rather of a superior 

 order, being dressed in brown leathern overalls, a jacket, and a low round 

 hat of the same. Parties of men and horses are thus continually arriving at 

 and departing from Pernambuco. The men exhibit a great variety of com- 

 plexions, and not one is to be seen that can be said to be of pure European 

 descent, all having a mixture of Indian and African physiognomy. They are 

 generally active and well formed. Few are Indians, more are mesticos. 



The cotton planters, as well as proprietors of sugar works, visit the emporium 

 of Pemarabucan commerce in their gayest vestments, with their horses capa- 



* Some of these people arc also called certanejos, inhabitants of the certams, or interior. 



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