120 



TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



site side that day, and encamped in the open air 

 in a valley surrounded by low woods. A fine 

 damp fog, which fell during the whole night, and 

 constantly threatened to extinguish our fire, be- 

 numbed us wdth cold. Our situation was rendered 

 still more disagreeable in the morning, by missing 

 our negro slave. The fatiguing march through a 

 country almost everywhere overflowed had excited 

 disaffection in the young negro, who did not know 

 how to appreciate our kind treatment of him, and 

 embraced the first favourable opportunity to ab- 

 scond, which new negroes frequently do. As we 

 could discover no traces of him, we pursued our 

 journey to the fazenda of S. Barbara, which we 

 had intended to reach on the preceding day, there 

 to take the necessary measures for discovering the 

 fugitive. We were received with true German 

 hospitality, and the owner of the estate, Joze An- 

 tonio Almeida, sargente mor e administrador da 

 real fazenda, who did not return home till the 

 evening from a visit to remote plantations, made 

 us easy respecting the fate of our fugitive. In the 

 province of Minas Geraes, as well as in several 

 other capitanias, where the number of negro slaves 

 in the interior renders double care necessary, there 

 is a particular corps called capitaes do matto, who 

 are chiefly mulattoes or other people of colour, 

 whose business it is to pursue every fugitive slave 

 and bring him back to his owner, or the proper 



