NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



425 



it was a Dia santo allowed me, with difficulty, to obtain from one of 

 them a fowl for dinner, by paying at least twice the value for it. He 

 who sold it appeared to be poor, and was tempted by the price ; and for 

 his transgression was mildly, but very seriously, reproved by an elderly 

 man of most respectable appearance. The act was justified by placing 

 the matter in a different light. The poor fellow urged that the fowl 

 might die, as doubtless several others would, before it reached the city, 

 and he thought that Providence had wonderfully interfered by furnishing 

 him with a customer so early, and at a price so good. These people 

 invited me to dine with them in the Venda, but my guide objected to it 

 because I should find at their table only rice and feijam, a hint by which 

 I understood that the dead fowl, on such a day, might not be tolerated 

 there, although my heresy out of doors had excited no symptom of either 

 bigotry or ill behaviour. 



These people furnished me with several particulars respecting the 

 state and condition of Minas Geraes. In those parts, they said, which 

 are the most populous, the estates are generally a league broad, and as 

 much in depth, or contain sixteen English square miles. On so wide a 

 space there commonly reside no more than about twelve persons, whom 

 alone it supplies with subsistence. Twenty bushels of milho is as much 

 as such families want, and unless the estate lie by the road side, or 

 be near any of the larger towns, they have no means of selling the 

 iBurplus, if they produce any. They allowed that estates of half a square 

 league, or one-fourth of the former size, are more productive in propor- 

 tion to their extent, because capital is wanting among the Planters to 

 manage more ground, and said that on such estates cattle are kept in larger 

 numbers ; but, they added, " with so little land what can we do with our 

 children when they grow up ? we shall have no land to spare for them." 



Close by our Rancho are the rujns of a large establishment, the 

 owner of which, having the misfortune to offend a revengeful neighbour, 

 was charged by him with carrying on illicit practices respecting Gold- 

 dust, and, in consequence, found his house, in the dead of night, sud- 

 denly surrounded by a party of horse-soldiers. He was apprehended 



3 H 



