NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



7S 



ment in Brazil. My business called me early to the Custom -liouse^ 

 which was then divided into two parts by a street connecting the Praia 

 dos Mineros with the Fish-market. The part nearest to the water was 

 an open shed, forty yards long by twenty broad. In the front of it, 

 towards the water, was a wooden crane of the most miserable construc- 

 tion, worked by slaves ; by this the packages were landed from large 

 barges of about forty tons burden, which brought them from the vessels, 

 lying nearly five hundred yards from the wharf. There were only two 

 of these barges allowed, and the proprietorship was a monopoly ; so that 

 no goods could be landed without their assistance, nor on any other part 

 of the beach. All the storehouses, which the Government held for the 

 reception of goods imported, consisted of rooms, which altogether were 

 not more than a thousand square yards in extent, with walls about twenty 

 feet high. The floor was laid close to the soil, which occasioned the 

 boards to be rotten with damp, and thickly covered with dirt. Besides 

 these, there was, indeed, another small room up stairs, appropriated to 

 East India goods. It is evident that such warehovises as these must soon 

 be filled ; at the time of my arrival they were already crammed, and the 

 surplus was exposed under the shed above-mentioned, on the open beach, 

 and in the contiguous streets. 



In Rio all packages of goods are opened by officers appointed for the 

 purpose ; and as this could be done only in one room, it was singularly 

 ill-contrived that the destined apartment was above stairs. No crane being 

 allowed, but at the water side, every packageof dry goods, whateverits weight 

 or contents, was thus obliged to be rolled up a flight of twenty or more 

 steps, by the strength of slaves. The place into which the goods were 

 conveyed, was about as large as a common-sized English ball-room ; on 

 one side of it was a long table, at which sate the inferior officers of the 

 customs. It was the duty of one to unpack the goods, of another to 

 take the measures and weights of the articles, of a third to value them 

 and make out the account, of a fourth to check and to enter it. At 

 the upper end of the room was another table, at which the judge of the 

 Customs, the chief officer of the establishment, presided ; with his deputy 



