NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



painted. This is one of the very few purposes, for which window glass 

 is used in Brazil. 



The precise numbers of the different descriptions of Mechanics could 

 not be ascertained without difficulty ; and the pains necessary for the 

 purpose would, perhaps, have been ill repaid by the most successful 

 result. Of Carpenters, Masons, and people employed in building, there 

 were said to be about seven hundred ; the Barbers were also very numer- 

 ous ; the Working Cutlers few ; and the Smiths still fewer. This last 

 class of artizans was chiefly employed in work connected with shipping ; 

 as the horses never wore shoes, except when employed in some extraor- 

 dinary parade, shoeing smiths were little in request. Every respectable 

 house was furnished with slaves, who had been taught some one or more 

 of the common arts of hfe, and not only worked in their different lines, 

 for the family, to which they belonged, but were hired out by their 

 owners to persons not so well furnished as themselves. It was not in 

 their power to earn much ; in 1808, a workman was thought well paid 

 by half a pataca, less than a shilling, per day. But the influx of stran- 

 gers, and the multiplication of wants, soon raised the value of labour, 

 and that in an extravagant degree. This gave rise to a new class in 

 society, composed of persons, who purchased slaves for the express 

 purpose of having them instructed in some useful art or calling, and 

 then selling them at an advanced price, or hiring out their talents 

 and labour. 



All the Arts were practised in the most formal and tedious way. 

 Every workman deemed himself initiated into some mystery, which none 

 but his own fraternity could comprehend. Carpenters have expressed 

 astonishment, when they have seen an Englishman take up a saw, and 

 use it with no less dexterity, and with greater speed, than themselves. 

 There was as little difficulty in rivalling the skill of many workmen, as 

 their execution. So ignorant and stupid were they, that it was frequently 

 necessary to form for them a rough model of the article which they were 

 required to make, and to go from shop to shop before one could be found 

 willing to undertake it. I have even been told, that what I wanted could 



