THE BRAZILS. 121 
of vegetables, but especially sweet potatoes, yams, melons, 
brinjals, and cucumbers, are plentiful and cheap, as indeed 
are provisions of every description. There is also an excellent 
fish market, well supplied every morning with a great variety 
of fish that arc caught in the harbour. 
The fertile and extensive plains of South America abound 
with innumerable herds of horses and horned cattle ; but the 
richness of the soil, and its total want of culture, produce only 
such grasses as are too coarse, and their juices too acrid, for 
the sustenance of sheep. Oxen even do ]iot thrive upon them, 
without the occasional use of salt ; and as the exclusive privi- 
lege of importing this article, essential for the preservation both 
of man and beast, from the islands of Sal and Mayo, is farmed 
out as a monopoly of the Crown, it is necessarily sold at an 
extravagant price, and is frequently not to be purchased on 
any terms. The salt that would be required to preserve the 
carcase of an ox costs in general about thrice as much as the 
whole animal. Yet there is no want of salt on the coast of 
Brazil, if the inhabitants were permitted to manufacture it. 
Wherever it is made with facility, or deposited by spontaneous 
evaporation, it is immediately claimed as the exclusive right 
of the Crown, wdiich, however, has condescended to bestow a 
remarkable indulgence to the inhabitants of certain parts of the. 
sea-coast, by allowing them to collect, for their own use, 
what nature has spontaneously thrown in their way ; but 
they are forbidden, in the most positive terms, to carry a 
single grain of it either to St. Salvador, Rio de Janeiro, or 
any of the principal governments of the Brazils. The mono- 
poly of salt is estimated to produce to the Crown of Portugal 
about 15,000/. a year. Thus, for the sake of realizijig so 
