NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



295 



such a dispersion is by no means uncommon, for landlords are here 

 averse to wealthy tenants. 



The object and mode of farming depend lipon the distance from the 

 city, and the facility with which produce may be conveyed to market. 

 In its immediate neighbourhood land is appropriated to vegetables, fruit, 

 and grass. The different kinds of the two former, here raised in abund- 

 ance, have been already mentioned ; the last may require a little farther 

 detail. Two sorts of grass are carefully cultivated ; the most common, 

 called Capim d'Angola, resembles our wheat straw, when green, and 

 grows thickly ; the other, the Capim de Colonia, grows in tufts, and 

 requires greater attention than the other, though not so profitable. 

 Good land yields, of the first kind, what is here called a bundle, about a 

 hundred weight, from three square yards, and it may be cut, when in 

 flourishing state, every six, weeks. It is usual to keep the crop in 

 patches, which regularly succeed each other in favourable seasons ; but in 

 dry weather, and more especially when a tender crop is exposed to a 

 fervid sun, the growth is checked, and the order disturbed. When old, 

 both these grasses lose their succulence, and in that state are unfit for the 

 food of cattle. 



These diffeuent articles of produce are conveyed to market in canoag 

 and boats, and on the heads of negroes. Many of these people go out 

 early in the morning, and cut the grass, paying for a bundle of that 

 ^rown on the cultivated lands four vintems, or eighty reis, about 

 sixpence ; sometimes obtaining a burden from waste lands without any 

 charge. Each carries from one to two hundred weight, according to his 

 strength and activity, having bound it about a long pole to keep it from 

 bending. In the city he divides his load, if it be of the largest descrip- 

 tion, into two bundles, and generally sells each of them for three 

 hundred and twenty reis. This profit is hardly earned, for it is very 

 severe labour to carry such a load on the head, three or four miles, in 

 such a climate as this. Some respect is paid to its severity by Royalty 

 itself; for the men are not now obliged, as they once were, to lay down 

 their burdens, when meeting any of the Sovereign's family, and to seek 



