TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



163 



tisms are, however, not uncommon. Though the 

 marshy flats on the sea-side diffuse, during the time 

 of the ebb, an intolerable stench, fortunately for 

 the inhabitants of the vicinity, they do not remain 

 uncovered by the water long enough to produce 

 endemic fevers by their putrid exhalations. The 

 food of the lower classes is not of a nature to en- ^ 

 gender diseases. Mandiocca and maize flour, and 

 black beans, which are usually boiled with bacon 

 and salt beef dried in the sun, are the chief ar- 

 ticles of their diet ; which, though coarse, and not 

 easy of digestion, is however wholesome, when 

 combined with exercise and the drinking of Por- 

 tuguese wine, and brandy distilled from the sugar- 

 cane. Fish is not so much eaten as on the north- 

 ern coasts. In hot countries, where provisions are 

 liable to spoil more rapidly, the use of fish as food 

 seems always to increase or decrease in the same 

 proportion as the indolence, the poverty, and the 

 sickly constitution of the people , thus we at least 

 always found, during the whole of our travels, the 

 greatest misery where the inhabitants. were confined 

 to fish for their food. The middle classes of the 1 

 citizens of Rio, who have not entirely adopted the 

 manners of Portugal, take, in proportion, little 

 animal food, contenting themselves with the ad- 

 mirable fruits, and the cheese imported from Mi- 

 nas, which, with banians, is met with on every 

 table. The Brazilian eats even wheaten bread but 

 sparingly, ^ preferring his farinha to it. The flour 



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