PROVINCE OF MARANHAM. 



445 



cathedral. The houses have verandas and do not differ from the general style 

 of Portuguese buildings. The streets are paved, and disagreeably crowded 

 with slaves, producing the same ungracious feelings in this respect as are 

 peculiar to all towns of the Brazil. It is divided into two parishes, one of them 

 being attached to the cathedral dedicated to Nossa Senhora of Victoria, and the 

 other to Nossa Senhora da Conceicao. It has a court of Relacam, which Pernam- 

 buco does not yet possess, created in the year 1812, and having a jurisdiction 

 over an extensive district, comprehending not only the comarcas of Maranham, 

 Piauhy, Para, and Rio Negro, but also of Siara, as well as all the other 

 comarcas and judicatures, which, in the provinces referred to, may be created 

 de novo. The members of this Relacam are composed of the governor, the 

 chancellor, and at most of nine dezembargadors, which latter is a title given to 

 those eligible to or holding posts of judicature, ouvidorships, &c. Here is 

 also a tribunal of the Real Fazenda, a Port Admiral, and Royal Professors of 

 the Primitive Letters, Latin, Rhetorick, and Philosophy, similar in their import 

 and effect to those of other places. It is scarcely necessary to observe, after 

 the description of the province, that cotton and rice are the principal exporta- 

 tions from this city. Its cotton has required the repute of being next in quality 

 to that of Pernambuco, and obtains in the British market a price within l^d 

 per lb. of that cotton, and Id. per lb. above that of Bahia. The export of 

 cotton from Maranham, the year after the arrival of the Royal Family in the 

 Brazil, was upwards of seventy thousand bags ; it fell the two following years 

 to fifty thousand, and the next year to forty thousand, but rose again to sixty 

 thousand in the year 1813, from which period to 1817 its average may be 

 estimated at sixty thousand bags. The following is a correct statement of the 

 exports in 1818 and 1819. 



