108 



NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



tion of the most interesting kind. When it arrived, I waited upon the 

 superintendent of the Post-Office, and requested that the expected letter 

 might be deUvered to me ; but the bag had not yet got thither, and 

 appeared to have met with some unnecessary detention. I therefore 

 posted away to the British Consul's office, and there learned that it had 

 been sent from thence a considerable time before. Going down the 

 stairs, I observed one of the Portuguese servants standing at the door, with 

 a small parcel in his hand, of whom I inquired whether that was the mail 

 from England ; he replied that it was, and that he had been long waiting 

 to hire some one to carry it after him to the Post-Office ; which was about 

 two hundred yards distant. I was in no humour at that time to bear 

 with such pompous folly, and after uttering some hasty abuse, which had 

 been better spared, snatched the parcel from his hand, and carried it off 

 at a pace seldom witnessed in a Brazilian city, the man following and 

 muttering all the way, " Os Inglezes sao diabos," — the English are devils. 

 I was readily admitted at the office, and favoured with the expected 

 letter. 



Among the lower order of people in Rio, men carrying burdens in 

 the streets claimed the attention of strangers by their numbers and by 

 some singularities in their modes. They are not properly PorterS, for 

 few of them are hired and paid for service on their own account ; they 

 are, in general, slaves sent into the streets, with empty baskets and 

 long poles, to seek employment for their owner^s benefit. Heavy goods 

 were conveyed between two, by means of these poles laid upon their 

 shoulders ; then a pair of slings was attached, by which the load, raised 

 a little above the ground, was carried to its place of destination. If the 

 burden were too heavy for a couple of men, four, six, or even more 

 united, and formed a gang, over which one of the number, and gene- 

 rally the most intelligent of the set, was chosen by them to be their 

 captain, and to direct the labour. To promote regularity in their efforts, 

 and particularly an uniformity of step, he always chaunted an African 

 song to a short and simple air ; at the close of which the whole body 

 joined in a loud chorus. This song was continued as long as the labour 



