( 359 ) 



at the low valuation of ico milreis each, a sum equal to i,2ool. or 1,500!. sterling j' 

 the datas and utensils, though of value, need not be taken into the account. Sup- 

 pose this man to be married, and to have a family : What is the state of their 

 domestic concerns, their general way of life ? May I be allowed to describe them 

 in the language which truth dictates, without exaggeration or extenuation. Their 

 dwelling scarcely merits the name of a house ; it is the most wretched hovel that 

 imagination can describe, consisting of a few apartments built up to each other 

 without regularity ; the walls wicker-work, filled up with mud ; a hole left for a 

 frame serves as a window, or a miserable door answers that purpose. The cracks 

 in the mud are rarely filled up ; and in very few instances only have I seen a house 

 repaired. The floors are of clay, moist in itself, and rendered more disagreeable 

 by the filth of its inhabitants, with whom the pigs not unfrequently dispute the 

 right of possession. Some ranchos, it is true, are built upon piles ; and under- 

 neath are the stables, &c. ; these are certainly a little superior to the former. 

 They are built so from necessity, where the ground is uneven or swampy ; but it 

 may be easily conceived, that the disagreeable effects produced by want of clean- 

 liness, must in these instances be increased by the effluvia from the animals under- 

 neath, which I have frequently found intolerable. 



The furniture of the house is such as might be expected from the description 

 above given. The beds are very coarse cotton cases, filled with dry grass, or the 

 leaves of Indian corn. There are seldom more than two in a house ; for the ser- 

 vants generally sleep upon mats, or dried hides laid on the floor. The furniture 

 consists of one or two chairs, a few stools and benches, one table, or perhaps 

 two, a few coffee-cups and a coffee-pot of silver ; a silver drinking cup, and, in 

 some instances, a silver wash-hand bason, which, when strangers are present, is 

 handed round with great ostentation, and forms a striking contrast to the rest of 

 the utensils. 



The general diet of the family consists of the same articles which have already 

 been particularized in treating of St. Paul's. The only beverage is water ; and 

 nothing can be more frugal than the whole economy of the table. So intent is the 

 owner in employing his slaves solely in employments directly lucrative, that the 

 garden, on which almost the entire subsistence of the family depends, is kept in 

 the most miserable disorder. 



In the article of dress, they do not appear more extravagant than in that of 

 food. The children are generally naked ; the youths go without shoes, in an old 

 jacket, and cotton trowsers ; the men in an old capote or mantle wrapped 

 around them, and wooden clogs, except when they go from home ; and, on those 



