RESIDENCE AT SANTAREM 125 
and often accompanied us on our excursions. At 
the time of my visit to the Amazon there were a 
good many Moorish Jews settled in the principal 
towns ; only temporarily, however, for many of 
them, like Bendelak, had left wives and families in 
Morocco, and intended to return thither as soon as 
they had scraped together a few thousand dollars. 
Even a small place like Santarem had its 
dangerous classes, and they were chiefly free 
people of mixed race. The slaves, especially the 
pure blacks who had been brought when young 
from the African coast, were mostly civil and 
humble, but merry withal, and pleasant to deal 
with ; and the mulattoes, although apt to be proud 
and restive, were tractable enough when held 
properly in hand. The free people of colour, how- 
ever — except the cross between pure white and 
Indian, whose worst property is usually laziness 
and " shiftlessness " — were too often bad citizens 
and dangerous neighbours ; and there, as elsewhere 
in South America, the Sambo or Cafilz — the 
mongrel bred between the Negro and the Indian — 
was accounted the most vicious of all the cross- 
breeds. In Venezuela I have heard it asserted 
that nine-tenths of the really atrocious crimes were 
committed by Zambos. I know not if the propor- 
tion were as great in Brazil, where a good many 
Sambos called themselves " Mulattoes," and it was 
rare that a man would own to the title of " Cafiiz." 
The towns on the Amazon were affirmed to be 
much freer from crime than many others in Brazil 
— such, for instance, as Pernambuco — but it was 
difficult to get at correct statistics on this head ; for, 
on account of the defective organisation of the 
