essed negro maiden
working at the finest ladies' dresses, or the most delicate
embroidery. I often thought I must be dreaming when I beheld these
poor creatures, whom I had pictured to myself as roaming free
through their native forests, exercising such occupations in shops
and rooms! Yet they do not appear to feel it as much as might be
supposed--they were always merry, and joking over their work.

Among the so-called educated class of the place, there are many who,
in spite of all the proofs of mechanical skill, as well as general
intelligence which the blacks often display, persist in asserting
that they are so far inferior to the whites in mental power, that
they can only be looked upon as a link between the monkey tribe and
the human race. I allow that they are somewhat behind the whites in
intellectual culture; but I believe that this is not because they
are deficient in understanding, but because their education is
totally neglected. No schools are erected for them, no instruction
given them--in a word, not the least thing is done to develop the
capabilities of their minds. As was the case in old despotic
countries, their minds are purposely kept enchained; for, were they
once to awake from their present condition, the consequences to the
whites might be fearful. They are four times as numerous as the
latter, and if they ever become conscious of this superiority, the
whites might probably be placed in the position that the unhappy
blacks have hitherto occupied.

But I am losing myself in conjectures and reasonings which may,
perhaps, become the pen of a learned man, but certainly not mine,
since I assuredly do not possess the necessary amount of education
to decide upon such questions; my object is merely to give a plain
description of what I have seen.

Although the number of slaves in the Brazils is very great, there is
nowhere such a thing as a slave-market. The importation of them is
publicly prohibited, yet thousands are smuggled in every year, and
disposed of in some underhand manner, which every one knows, and
every one employs. It is true, that English ships are constantly
cruising off the coasts of Brazil and Africa, but even if a slaver
happen to fall into their hands, the poor blacks, I was told, were
no more free than if they had come to the Brazils. They are all
transported to the English colonies, where, at the expiration of ten
years, they are supposed to be set at liberty. But during