bour through several successive long stages, sustained by only a small quantity of maize from their own loads, and this it required some management to make them eat. In consequence of a very great and extraordinary failure of rain in the preceding winter, if it might be so named, this dreary region was inhospitable in an unusual degree at the time of our author's adventure. The 'cattle estates,' some large and some small, formed in the more productive spots, were found in great distress; many of the cattle were poor and perishing, and the occupiers in dread of famine. Their residences, instead of meeting our notions of a farm establishment, were wretched cottages, some of them raised for only a temporary abode, and several were found deserted and in ruin. These insulated families, however, were in general friendly to the travellers, and ready to furnish what little accommodations were in their power. But many a day was passed without bringing the party to one of these lodgements against the evening, and the night encampment was made in the open air, without any shelter except a few trees or bushes, or, in a few instances, the side of a rock, from the wind which would sometimes scatter away the fires made of sticks and brushwood. In several of the places, a nighly visit was made by mosquitoes, which were invincible by any thing but the thick and pungent smoke of a fire made of the ordure of cattle, which was to be received at the same time by the lungs and eyes of the travellers, in lieu of the myriads of insects. Of serpents or wild beasts there was but little apprehension; though instances had been known of the jaguar, the American tiger, presenting himself at a small nightly encampment of travellers. In the thick woodlands there would be need of great precaution.

The description is given, in a variety of little particulars, of the character, condition, habits, and appearance, of the herdsmen of the desert. In better years some of them bring down droves of cattle for sale at Recife, and one or two other points of the coast. But their families, at least the females, pass their whole lives in this total seclusion from the social and civilized world. And their knowledge of even the very existence of such a world, does not extend, with any force of curiosity, beyond the chief towns of the captaincies. The inquiries for news related chiefly to matters at Recife. Englishmen, as heretics, had indeed been heard of; and the name was associated, in the imagination of the men as well as of the women, with a vague idea of something brutish or monstrous. At one of the stations the travelling attendants having given information to a number of men, who were milking the goats, that an Englishman was in the party, they eagerly came to see the bicho,' that is, animal;' and their countenances showed much disappointment' when the strange beast' that was pointed out to them, was so much like what they had seen before.

It would appear that they are in a tolerable degree an inoffensive class. As to religion, it may reasonably be wondered and inquired, how they can have any knowledge of the subject at all. Would it ever be surmised there should be in full activity among them, a method of religious ministration analogous to what is as yet a novelty and innovation in England-Itinerant Preaching?with the material difference, however, that the itinerants among us do not make money by their journeys, and are not accompanied with a portable altar: we are forced to add to these negatives, Episcopal appointment.

'Certain priests obtain a licence from the bishop of Pernambuco, and travel through these regions with a small altar constructed for the purpose, of a size to be placed on one side of a pack-saddle; and they have with them all their apparatus for saying mass. Thus with a horse conveying the necessary paraphernalia, and a boy to drive it, who likewise assists in saying mass, and another horse on which the priest himself rides, and car. ries his own small portmanteau, these men make in the course of the year between 150 and 2001.—a large income in Brazil, but hardly earned, if the inconveniences and privations which they must undergo to obtain it are taken into consideration. They stop and erect the altar wherever a sufficient number of persons, who are willing to pay for the mass, is collected. This will sometimes be said for three or four shillings: but at other times, if a rich man takes a fancy to a priest, or has a fit of extreme devotion upon him, he will give eight or ten mil reis, two or three pounds; and it does happen, that one hundred mil reis are received for saying a mass, but this is very rare;-at times, an ox, or a horse, or two or three are given. These men have their use in the world; if this custom did not exist, all form of worship would be completely out of the reach of the inhabitants of many districts, or at any rate they would not be able to attend more than once or twice in the course of the year, for it must be remembered that there is no church within twenty or thirty leagues of some parts.'

No thanks, it seems, to the judicature in this wilderness, if its forlorn inhabitants do not lose all discernment of right and wrong.

The administration of justice in the Sertam is generally spoken of as most wretchedly bad, every crime obtains impunity by the payment of a sum of money. An innocent person is sometimes punished through the interest of a great man, whom he may have offended; and the murderer escapes who has the good fortune to be under the protection of a powerful patron. This proceeds still more from the feudal state of the country than from the corruption of the magistrates, who might often be inclined to do their duty, and yet be aware that their exertions would be of no avail, and would possibly prove fatal to themselves.'

Our author, however, distinguishes several governors, as men of justice and spirit, particularly Amaro Joaquim, who had recently been governor of Paraiba, whom Mr. K. saw at Recife, and who died of a fever on his passage to another captaincy to which he had been removed. There is a pleasant story of one

of the acts of his government.

A man of the name of Nogueira, the son of a black or mulatto woman, and of one of the first men in the captaincy, had made himself much dreaded by his outrageous proceedings; he had carried from their parents' houses the daughters of some persons of respectability in the captaincy, murdering the friends and relatives who opposed his entrance. The man was at last taken; Amaro Joaquim would have had him executed, but he found this was not to be done, from the interest which the family made for him, and therefore ordered him to be flogged. Noguera said, that being half a fidalgo (a nobleman) this mode of punishment could not be practised on him. The governor then ordered that he should be flogged on only one side of his body, that his fidalgo side might not suffer, desiring Nogueria to say which was his fidalgo side. He was accordingly punished in this manner, and after remaining some time in prison, was sent to Angola for life.'

There is a considerable length of rather interesting description. of the character and habits of the descendants of the aborigines, the Indians, with a great number of whom Mr. K. has conversed. They appear wonderfully inferior in many points to some of the tribes of the northern part of the continent; but they are beyond comparison less inconvenient and formidable as neighbours.They are not brave, but neither are they ferocious or revengeful, They have little respect for the principles and regulations of property; but they violate them rather in the humble way of pilfering than in the bolder style of robbery. They can be treacherous, but it seems rather from capricious fickle lightness of disposition, than from deep design or malignant feeling. They are little capable of affection, or any lively interest for any one's welfare, even that of their immediate relatives; but they seldom wish to do any body any harm. They are unambitious and indolent, but capable of a wonderful perseverance of physical exertion when they have occasion to travel, or are employed in hunting and fishing. They have the same instinct, or faculty of observation, which enables the northern Indians to take a direct course through the wilderness to the remotest places, and to descry the traces of men or beasts, where other men would be utterly baffled. They have also the same invincible love of freedom: it is absolutely impossible, Mr. K. says, to reduce them to a systematic slavery: they do not fight for independence, but they are continually endeavouring to escape from situations in which it is denied them.They have many disgusting habits; and have a voracious appetite, with little nicety of choice. Some of them are believed to practise their ancient pagan rites in secret; but in general they have accepted the sort of Christianity that the lords of the country have conferred on them. Those lords treat them with little equity, and much contempt.

The narrative of the return, with Indian guides, to Pernambuco, is more brief, and contains a number of notices and incidents which are entertaining, without being particularly striking. The rainy season overtook the traveller, and he suffered an attack of

the ague, and considerable inconveniences from temporary torrents and inundations; but these, he says, were far less intimida ting grievances than the former dread of perishing for want of It was pleasing to observe, in the sudden effect of the rain, the wonderfully sensitive state of a soil in all appearance utterly burnt up.

water.

'The rapidity of vegetation in Brazil is truly astonishing. Rain in the evening upon good soil will, by sun-rise, have given a greenish tinge to the earth, which is increased, if the rain continues on the second day, to sprouts of grass of an inch in length, and these on the third day are sufficiently long to be picked up by the half-starved cattle.'

The ordinary course of seasons brings pretty constant rain from May or June to the end of August; but there are not many days of absolutely incessant rain. From August or September there is not usually any rain till the beginning of the year, when it is expected, for a continuance of only two or three weeks.

A more comprehensive description is given, in this part of the work, of the Sertanejos, as the inhabitants of the Sertam or desert are denominated. Some of these are the proprietors of the cattle-estates on which they reside; but the greater number are Vaqueiros or cow-herds, who manage the estates for rich owners who reside in the towns upon the coast, and are at the same time sugar-planters, denominated Senhorse de Engenho. Between the large share of the animal stock and produce assigned by regulation to these resident-managers, and the unavoidable indefiniteness of the whole account of the numbers, the situation is a very advantageous one; but it requires considerable courage, and great bodily strength and activity;' the necessity for which is partly shown in a very amusing description of the half-yearly collecting of the cattle, some of them not unfrequently from a distance of twenty leagues from the residence. There is a curious account of the modes of mastering with impunity the violence and wildness of the cows and oxen, the way of breaking in horses, the distinctions of quality in horses, and the sort of economy preserved by each separate party or lot' of these animals. The divisions of property in the Sertam, will require ages to bring them to any approach to precision. The size of the fazenda is estimated by a mere computation of leagues, or, in some instances, by the yearly number of hundreds of calves. Few + persons take the trouble of making themselves acquainted with 'the exact extent of their own property; and perhaps could not ascertain it if they made the attempt.'

The Sertanejos are of various colours, from what would be white but for the heat of the climate, down through the mulatto mixtures and gradations. Being 'courageous, generous, sincere, and hospitable,' they would, our author says, be a very good sort of people, were it not for their wretched condition with respect to government, their scanty portion of which is of such a quality,

as to make it doubtful which would be the greater evil-the mischief it would do by a more effectual interference, or the crimes which, in its non-interference, are committed by a people abandoned to their own passions and their own means in maintaining and avenging their rights against one another. Their ignorance is extreme, few of them possessing even the commonest rudiments of knowledge.' Their religion is confined to a few ceremonies, relics, and charms; some of which last are the resource of persons bitten by serpents; and as all serpents are believed by these people to be venomous, while in fact many of them are not, there will be plenty of reputed proofs of the efficacy of the charm. There was an amusing instance of fantastic credulity, at a house where the travellers were answered by a man from within the door, but who did not open it, nor in any way venture to look out.

'This I thought strange, and began to suppose he might be afflicted with some contagious disorder, and had been forsaken by his friends, or rather, that his family had been advised to remove to some neighbouring cottage. But the guide explained, that the man had been bitten by a snake, and that the bite of this species only became fatal if the man whe had received it saw any female animal, and particularly a woman, for thirty days after the misfortune.' p. 160.

A voyage from Pernambuco to Maranham, a position on the coast still further to the north-west than Seara, was made within sight of land nearly all the way. The account of the people there, includes some anecdotes of slaves, one of which we transcribe.

I heard of a mulatto slave who ran away from his master, and in the course of years had become a wealthy man, by the purchase of lands which were overrun with cattle. He had, on one occasion, collected in pens great numbers of oxen which he was arranging with his herdsmen to dispatch to different parts for sale, when a stranger, who came quite alone, made his appearance, and rode up and spoke to him, saying, that he wished to have some private conversation with him. After a little while they retired together, and when they were alone the owner of the estate said, "I thank you for not mentioning the connexion between us, while my "people were present." It was his master, who had failen into distressed circumstances, and had now made this visit in hopes of obtaining some trifle from him. He said that he should be grateful for any thing his slave chose to give him. To reclaim him, he well knew, was out of the question; he was in the man's power, who might order him to be assassinated immediately. The slave gave his master several hundred oxen, and directed some of his men to accompany him with them to a market, giving out among his herdsmen that he had thus paid a debt of old standing for which he had only now been called upon. A man who could act in this manner, well deserved the freedom which he had resolved to obtain.'

From St. Luiz, the port of the island of Maranham, where the blessings of despotism, slavery, and bigotry are enjoyed in a high degree, Mr. K. had a fancy to take a little trip to see his English friends, and landed at Falmouth, in May, 1811. In the last week of that same year he was again in the full gayeties of Pernambuco;