1852.] 
POUTUGUESE TRADERS. 
377 
guese, and tlieir descendants, exhibit here the same per- 
severance, the same endm^ance of every hardship, and 
the same wandering spirit, which led and still leads 
them to penetrate into the most desolate and uncivilized 
regions in pursuit of commerce and in search of gold. 
But they exhibit also a distaste for agricultm^al and me- 
chanical labour, which appears to have been ever a part 
of their national character, and which has caused them 
to sink to their present low condition in the scale of na- 
tions, in whatever part of the world they may be found. 
When their colonies were flourishing in every quarter 
of the globe, and their ships brought luxuries for the 
supply of half the civilized world, a great part of their 
population found occupation in trade, in the distribution 
of that wealth which set in a constant stream from 
America, Asia, and Africa, to their shores ; but now that 
this stream has been diverted into other channels by 
the energy of the Saxon races, the surplus population, 
averse from agriculture, and unable to find a support in 
the diminished trade of the country, swarm to Brazil, 
in the hope that wealth may be found there, in a manner 
more congenial to their tastes. 
Thus we find the province of Para overrun with 
traders, the greater part of whom deserve no better name 
than pedlars, only they carry their goods in a canoe in- 
stead of upon their backs. As their distaste for agricul- 
ture, or perhaps rather their passionate love of trade, 
allows scarcely any of them to settle, or produce anything 
for others to trade in, their only resource is in the in- 
digenous inhabitants of the country ; and as these are 
also very little given to cultivation except to procure the 
