KOTES ON BRAZIL. 



387 



• dinner, a luxury which I had not enjoyed for several days, and accord- 

 ingly began to forage in order that it might be ready when the troop 

 came up. With a great deal of knocking at the doors and window^s of 

 the house, and by the display of more impudence than good manners, 

 I induced a little negro girl to speak to me, and endeavoured to procure 

 a duck, fowl, turkey, pig, or any other small animal, but was assured 

 there was no such thing about the premises ; indeed I had examined 

 previously every out-house, and could meet with neither quadruped 

 nor biped, but this poor harmless girl, who, at last confessed that there was 

 in the house a fowl, which had been purchased from a troop the day 

 before, and that it was kept to make broth for her master, w^ho was ill. 

 I endeavoured to gain access to him, whose character had previously been 

 described to me, by representing that I knew something of medicine, 

 yet even then did not succeed. As therefore the fowl could not be pur- 

 chased, the girl bribed, nor the churl cajoled, we were obliged to dine as 

 hardly as usual, and to promise ourselves better fare to-morrow, for the 

 gun had furnished only a few small doves and sparrows. 



The common Rancho has been already described, that in which we 

 now lodge may serve as a specimen of the better kind. It has a mud 

 wall at the back, and at one end ; the front and the other end are 

 open, but railed with horizontal bars to the height of five feet, and 

 there are two good gates for entrance. The building is sixty yards long, 

 fifteen broad, and exceedingly well constructed ; the pillars, both in the 

 centre and sides, are of brick ; the rafters, spars, and rails, are of differ- 

 ent sized trunks of the Cocoa-tree, admirably well selected ; those of the 

 roof being three inches diameter, of the front about four ; and the whole 

 building is put together, according to the custom of the country, with- 

 out the use of a nail or iron in any shape, or even of a peg, or sipo for 

 binding together the principal parts ; they are supplied by the use of 

 notches and tenons ; the floor is the common earth, not even levelled. 



In the evening several people, who seemed to belong to the estab- 

 lishment, appeared about the place, and represented the owner as a man 



about seventy years of age, as a priest, superstitious, morose, indolent, and 



3 c c 



