(, 389 ) 



mornings 1 obtained about two gallons of milk, which being added 

 to the other, was in due time churned ; and, notwithstanding the 

 disadvantages of poor milk, improper utensils, and bad keeping, a 

 tolerably fair proportion of good butter was obtained. The people 

 seemed highly satisfied with the success of the process ; but I had strong 

 doubts that they would not pursue it after my departure, as they 

 must naturally dislike the trouble and care which it required. Such 

 was the force of their habitual and long-cherished prejudices, that I 

 have no hesitation in saying they would take ten times more pains to 

 procure forty-shillings-worth of gold at an expence of thirty shillings, 

 than they would to obtain forty-shillings- worth of butter, though it 

 were only to cost them five. 



It may be expected that I should assign some reasons for entering 

 so frequently into detail upon one of the simplest branches of rural 

 economy. I have to observe, then, that ere I left Rio de Janeiro to 

 undertake this journey, I was informed that the cheese generally 

 consumed in that capital, and regarded there as a luxury, was the 

 produce of the district to which I was going. Its taste was some- 

 times so extremely rancid and disagreeable, as to be utterly un- 

 wholesome, and from this circumstance I judged that there must be 

 great mismanagement in the preparation of it. All the farms which 

 I had occasion to visit on my journey to Villa Rica, and from thence 

 to this place, fully confirmed my opinion ; for, miserable as was the 

 condition of every department belonging to them, that of the dairy 

 was still worse. In the few places where they pretended to prepare 

 milk for cheese, not only were the various utensils in an extremely 

 filth}' condition, but the rennet was so putrid as to be in the last 

 degree sickening. I endeavoured to make the people sensible of 

 the advantages of an improved mode of management, and wherever 

 I had an opportunity, gave them information how to proceed ; but 

 as oral or written instructions were little calculated to make a durable 

 impression, I determined, when leisure and convenience should 

 concur, to enforce them by example. The first and only opportu- 



