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BRAZILIAN VERACITY, 
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or dashed to pieces on the sands; and the Rio Negro 
has such a disagreeable notoriety for the suddenness 
and fury of its trovoados, that many persons will never 
put up a sail when there is a sign of one approaching, 
but seek some safe port, to wait till it has passed. 
On November 12 th I reached the sitioof Senhor Cha- 
gas, where I stopped for the night : he gave me some 
letters to take up to Sao Gabriel, and just as I was going, 
requested me, as a favour, to tell everybody that I had 
not found him at his sitio, but that he was gone to the 
'Gnato” to get salsa. As I was on familiar terms with 
him, I told him that really I was very sorry I could not 
oblige him, but that, as I was not accustomed to lying, 
I should be found out immediately if I attempted it : he 
however insisted that I might surely try, and I should 
soon learn to lie as well as the best of them. So I told 
him at once, that in my country a liar was considered as 
bad as a thief; at which he seemed rather astonished. 
I gave him a short account of the pillory, as a proof 
of how much our ancestors detested lying and perjury, 
which much edified him, and he called his son (a nice 
boy of twelve or fourteen, just returned from school), to 
hear and profit by the example ; showing, I think, that 
the people here are perfectly aware of the moral enor- 
mity of the practice, but that constant habit and univer- 
sal custom, and above all, that false politeness which 
renders them unable verbally to deny anything, has ren- 
dered it almost a necessary evil. Any native of the 
country would have instantly agreed to Senhor Chagas’s 
request, and would then have told every one of it up 
the river, always begging them not to say he told them. 
