TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



127 



fatal consequences to the health and morals of the 

 inhabitants. Not only does the universality of the 

 contagion most seriously tend to diminish the po- 

 pulation, but the unblushing openness with which 

 it is spoken of destroys all moral feeling, and vio- 

 lates, in particular, the rights of the female sex, 

 who are not allowed any influence over the senti- 

 ments of the men, and in the formation of happy 

 marriages. This melancholy state of things, which 

 is the darkest side in the picture of the Brazilian 

 character, is rendered still worse by the numbers 

 of imported negro slaves and of concubines (mul- 

 heres da cama), to which state the mixed descend- 

 ants of both races in particular degrade themselves. 

 As the manual labour of gold- washing is performed 

 entirely by slaves, the perverseness of the whites 

 disdains, as dishonourable, every similar employment, 

 even those of agriculture and tending cattle ; in 

 consequence there are so many idlers that they are 

 usually distinguished as a separate class, under the 

 name of Vadios, The traveller, therefore, sees here 

 with the splendour of the greatest opulence, all the 

 images of human misery, poverty, and degradation. 

 The inhabitants, whose wants even their rich and 

 teeming soil cannot satisfy are always instituting in- 

 vidious comparisons between their country and 

 the northern districts of Minas, which they de- 

 scribe to strangers as the true Eldorado, where, 

 with the enjoyment of greater riches, European 



