NOTES ON BRAZIL. 167 



In the Interior detached habitations frequently occur, but few 

 villages. The employments of the people are chiefly pastoral ; they 

 carry to Monte Video, for exportation. Wheat, Hides, and Tallow. 

 Their business is managed in the most languid way ; hardly do they 

 seem awake, unless when on horseback, in which situation they manifest 

 great energy and address. 



To speak of the Parishes into which the country is divided, and the 

 corresponding size of the Farms, will appear to some like an approach to 

 the borders of romance. The large estates of British Nobility, measured 

 by acres, dwindle into insignificant patches when compared with farms, 

 measured not by miles, but by leagues. The former, however, cannot 

 be accounted insignificant, when their high state of improvement is con- 

 sidered ; nor the latter truly great, because they are unproductive. The 

 whole land here is an untilled pasture ; the range of horned cattle and 

 horses, of unknown numbers, and many of them useless to the proprie- 

 tors. Once a year they are visually driven together into pens, on 

 different parts of the farms, where they are counted, their marks ascer- 

 tained, the young ones branded, and such other operations performed as 

 nature or the wishes of the owners may dictate. This is made a season 

 of festivity. 



During the war the conflicting armies had twice passed over the 

 estate of a gentleman well known to many of our countrymen, and 

 prevented this annual work and festival. His cattle had been slaughtered 

 and his horses seized without reserve ; and many of them, timid and 

 wild, had fled from their accustomed pastures. When tranquillity 

 returned, and the days of muster came, the proprietor anticipated a 

 considerable diminution of their numbers ; but this was so far from 

 being the case that his people had to set his mark on more than eighty- 

 three thousand which had not before been branded. The numbers just 

 mentioned will stagger the faith of English graziers ; but they would not 

 have found a record here had they not been received from authority 

 which strangers only can question. In some measure to dispel any 

 doubts of the accuracy of the statement, which may still remain, let me 



