Chap. I. 
A GRAZIER. 
37 
ignorant people seem totally unable to profit by these 
advantages. The houses have no gardens or planta- 
tions near them. I was told it was useless to plant 
anything, because the cattle devoured the young shoots. 
In this country, grazing and planting are very rarely 
carried on together ; for the people seem to have no 
notion of enclosing patches of ground for cultivation. 
They say it is too much trouble to make enclosures. 
The construction of a durable fence is certainly a diffi- 
cult matter, for it is only two or three kinds of tree 
which will serve the purpose in being free from the 
attacks of insects, and these are scattered far and wide 
through the woods. 
In one place, where there was a pretty bit of pasture 
surrounded by woods, I found a grazier established, 
who supplied Santarem daily with milk. He was a 
strong, wiry half-breed, a man endowed with a little 
more energy than his neighbours, and really a hard- 
working fellow. The land was his own, and the dozen 
or so well-conditioned cows which grazed upon it. It 
was melancholy, however, to see the miserable way 
in which the man lived. His house, a mere barn, 
scarcely protecting its owner from the sun and rain, 
was not much better built or furnished than an Indian's 
hut. He complained that it was impossible to induce 
any of the needy free people to work for wages. The 
poor fellow led a dull, solitary life ; he had no family, 
and his wife had left him for some cause or other. 
He was up every morning by four o'clock, milked his 
cows with the help of a neighbour, and carried the day's 
yield to the town in stone bottles packed in leather 
