DESCRIPTION OF BISSAO. 335 
are muffled up in robes made of flowered cottons ; and most 
of them are clothed in rags ; their pay consists of a few leaves 
of tobacco, which are given to them every day, and with 
which they purchase rice and the fruits of the country ; 
they eat neither meat nor bread, and water is their only drink. 
Notwithstanding these privations, this garrison loses fewer 
men than our settlements. The only difference between the 
officers and soldiers is, that the former, having more wants, in 
consequence of the mode in which they have been brought 
up, are more wretched, because they haA^e scarcely any means 
of satisfying them ; two persons only eat bread and drink 
wine, the Governor and Commandant of the place. There 
are neither physicians nor medicines at Bissao, experience 
alone guiding the inhabitants in the cure of their disorders ; it 
is difficult to conceive, how men born in Europe can to such 
a degree relinquish the habits of their youth, and how any 
government can so cruelly neglect a portion of its subjects. 
A convent of Franciscans containing four monks of 
that order, formerly existed here : some are dead, and the 
others have returned to Europe, Orange and lemon trees 
rise from among the briars that cover their garden, the walls 
of which the hand of time has overthrown. Two priests are 
still attached to the service of the chapel ; one bears the cha" 
racter of a bad man and a slanderer, the other never quits 
the altar except to go to the barracks and get dnmk with the 
soldiers. There cannot be a milder government for the Ne- 
