NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



297 



white labourers, instead of negro slaves as usual, and given any reason- 

 able encouragement to some of the many British and North American 

 subjects, who were wandering about in a destitute condition ; but he 

 could not succeed with men who loved a vagabond life, and preferred the 

 gains of fraud to those of labour. In turning up the soil no other instru- 

 ment is used than the hoe ; and I have often been surprised how speedily 

 and how well the work is done with it. Many unavailing attempts have 

 been made to introduce the English plough ; I have held it myself, and 

 learned from my own brief experience, how utterly impossible it is to 

 teach a black man to manage it ; and the Brazilians are almost as dull, 

 and fully as much prejudiced. Should Providence again open to me an 

 opportunity of superintending rural affairs in this country, I would 

 certainly commence with boys. Instruments of agricultural importance 

 amongst us, as the scythe and sickle, are almost unknown here. The latter 

 has, indeed, been recently and rarely used in cutting grass on the culti- 

 vated lands, instead of the knife, or a blade, or even a piece of old iron 

 brought to an edge and attached to a long stick. In cutting sugar cane, 

 a sort of large knife is employed ; in gathering rice, a small one ; in both 

 cases, each stem is cut separately. The roots of mandioca are turned up 

 by the hand. 



The farms below the mountains seldom exceed two or three thousand 

 acres, and there I believe, all the land has been disposed of by grants. 

 On the summits estates are found ten, twenty, and even thirty miles 

 long, by three broad. It is scarcely necessary to add, that their value is 

 not to be estimated by their extent. There is also generally attendant 

 upon them a deficiency of capital, population, roads, and markets. — ■ 

 The cultivated part of them bears a small proportion to the whole, 

 and its crops not unfrequently rot upon the ground. 



In the country the modes of living differ materially from the city, 



The common articles of subsistence are Carne Secca or charqued beef, 



imported from Rio Grandd, the prepared flour of Mandioca, and Feijam 



or pulse ; fowls, eggs, and soups, are the luxuries. Water is almost the 



sole beverage; a little Brazilian rum sometimes makes its appearance; but 



p p • 



