202 



NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



as, in consequence, a stranger often finds it difficult to supply his 

 humblest wants, they are not only much called for, but so valued for 

 their acquirements as to be guarded from excessive toil or ill usage. 



Many of them are statedly occupied, on a certain day or days at 

 least, with an essential though not very laborious employment, that of 

 washing clothes. For this purpose every considerable family has a 

 place on the plain Southward of the town. There a tub, with holes, is 

 sunk into the ground, into which the water from the Bay distils through 

 the sand, and is thus deprived of its salt. To this simple apparatus the 

 slave resorts, with a board having two legs at one end, while the other, 

 resting on the ground, forms an inclined plane ; on this board the clothes, 

 after having been saturated with soap, of domestic manufacture, and 

 water, are struck with all the strength of the operator, or beaten with a 

 wooden instrument. The heedless rambler, by the way, is in imminent 

 danger, when it is dark, of being entrapped by these tubs, and serious 

 injuries have been received from them. 



The blacks may, possibly, and doubtless do, think a little labour 

 excessive. Yet such persons can earn, in an hour, two vintems, about 

 four-pence, which is sufficient to provide them food for a day. When 

 one of them is seen lounging about, and asked to undertake any job, 

 the comnfion reply is, — " I have already earned." It may be said, indeed, 

 that there is hardly a poor person in the town, nature having placed the 

 necessaries of life within the easy reach of all ; and wanting but little, 

 they enjoy that little in a degree which might excite the envy of the 

 ambitious and restless. 



Yet does it, almost every where, seem sufficient that a man have 

 the hue of a negro, to mark him out as an object on which tyranny may 

 exercise itself. Having occasion to pass, with two friends, at a late hour, 

 over the sloughy ground bordering on the bay of Mangueira, we had 

 recourse to an expedient, common here, but which necessity only can 

 justify. At the ferry we met with a couple of black men, whom we 

 compelled, by showing our arms, and convincing them that resistance 

 would be unavailing, to be our guides, and to carry us over the boggy 



