460 



NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



both by its singular colour and excellent flavour. The season of fruits 

 commences in December, and is said to be very abundant, a represent- 

 ation which cannot be reasonably doubted, because attested by the 

 luxuriant appearance of the trees, and the favourable nature of the 

 climate. 



There are in St. John about six thousand inhabitants, of which only 

 one-third are white people, the rest being negroes and mulattoes. For 

 their employment and support there are no manufactures, except a small 

 one of broad brimmed w^ooUen hats, peculiar to the mining districts and 

 excellent in their kind. In the adjoining country a large quantity of 

 cotton-cloth is made from a native produce, and serves for ordinary 

 clothing. The shops occupy, if it may be called occupation, their 

 proportion of the inhabitants, and others are employed on their farms, 

 travel with troops, or fill places of public trust. Priests and Lawyers 

 appear to be numerous here, as well as other places under the Portuguese 

 Crown, beyond what the legitimate calls of Religion and Justice can 

 require. There are no busy faces, no bustle of occupation, no blacks 

 plying for hire, no tones of persons crying articles of daily and general 

 consumption for sale, but one general appearance of vacancy, listlessness, 

 and lounging. All white people are privileged, by their colour, to live 

 free from toil. The employments of gentlemen seldom call them out of 

 doors, and females of respectable stations and character are not accus- 

 tomed to show themselves in the streets. 



West of the town some of the poorer sort of people employ 

 themselves in the broad shallows of the river, collecting the Cascalho, 

 or rounded pieces of quartz, which the stream brings down, breaking 

 them, examining the fragments, and washing them in a bowl, in order 

 to discover and extract any portion of the precious metals which they 

 may contain. Others take up the mere sand from the bed of the river, 

 and wash it for the same purpose, while others, again, dig a hole in the 

 stream, or else divert the current into one prepared on its brink. When 

 the hollow is filled with fresh sand they take it out, submit it to the 

 same petty process, and call this mining. Still further, in the same 



