NOTES ON BRAZH.. l^Q 



than a crowded city. The mate was confined, and sent to the Ad- 

 miral at Rio de Janeiro; tl>ere existing W 3t, Fedro no authority to 

 try a British subject, for a theft committed gij board a vessel of his 

 own nation. 



Notwithstanding all this vigour, the country is so wide and open, and 

 the population so thin, as to favour the perpetration of the worst of crimes, 

 by the hope of escape. Assassination is common, and, with a fleet horse 

 and a knowledge of his route, a murderer soon passes the frontier ; where 

 he remains, until his friends have arranged the affair, which is generally, 

 no difficult matter; then he returns with confidence, and his reception 

 in society exhibits no remembrance of his hands being stained with 

 blood. 



A German Physician, established in the town, who spoke our 

 language remarkably weE, was occasionajUiy of the English JDinner 

 Parties. It being observed one day, in his presence, that there had 

 been few assassinations during the last month, he replied, that " eleven 

 cases only had come to his knowledge, and that the attempt had not fully 

 succeeded in any of them." The number, I hope, was magnified ; yet 

 the remark seems to prove, that several attempts of the kind usually 

 occurred within so limited a period. • Probably, indeed, the stabbing 

 which is too common in eveiy part of Brazil, is not always intended to 

 be fatal, yet the wounds are often serious. Determined malice makes a 

 home thrust, or dispatches its victim by poison. 



The state of Medicine in Rio Grande do Sul can hardly be better 

 illustrated than by some detail of the character and fortune of this man. 

 He was born in Hanover, and having for some time practised irregularly 

 in Germany, he travelled to Constantinople, and made a short residence 

 tiiere. Afterwards he went to France, became the surgeon of a Frigate, 

 and in that capacity came out to South America; but left his ship at St. 

 Catharine's, and figured there as French Consul. St. Pedro seeming to 

 open to him a prospect of extensive medical practice, he repaired thither, 

 where he now enjoyed much celebrity in his profession, and had tbe 



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