quantities of that
valuable article of a very good quality.

[Note 29: I have in my possession a curious drawing, found in a
Botecudo cottage, and done by one of the Creole Brazilians, of mixed
breed, who shows himself hidden in a cave, his white companions dead,
and they, as well as the soldiers of the black regiment who accompanied
them, have the flesh stripped from the bones, excepting the head, hands,
and feet. The Botecudos are represented as carrying off this flesh in
baskets. These savages appear quite naked, having their mouth pieces,
and being armed with bows and arrows.]

The year 1811 was the last of the life and ministry of the Conde de
Linhares, whose views were all directed to the good of the country.
Fully aware not only of its richness and fertility, he also perceived
how poor and how backward it was, considering its natural advantages.
In endeavouring to remedy the evils, he perhaps aimed at doing more than
was possible in the short time, and under the circumstances, in which
his active disposition could operate. He had formed roads and planned
canals; he had invited colonies, which indeed afterwards sunk; but they
left behind them some of their ingenious practice, and some seeds of
improvement which have not utterly perished. The possibility of
navigating both the St Matthew's river and the Gequetinhonha had been
ascertained; experiments in every kind of cultivation had been made;
even the tea had been introduced from China. A botanical garden had been
formed, in which the spices of the East were cultivated with success;
and perhaps as the greatest possible good, a public library had been
formed, and its regulations framed on the most liberal principles.

Towards the end of 1811 a royal decree was issued, assigning 120,000
crusadoes per annum to be taken from the customs of Bahia, Pernambuco,
and Maranham, for forty years, to the Portuguese, who had suffered
during the French war; a measure regarded even then with jealousy by the
northern captaincies. But they all continued tranquil for the present,
and seemed to attend only to domestic improvement. New buildings, both
for use and ornament, arose in the cities. Maranham and Pernambuco
improved their harbours. Bahia, besides the handsome theatre opened
there in 1812, paved her streets; and at Rio, a subscription of 30,000
crusadoes was raised towards beautifying the palace square, completing
the public gardens, and draining the campo de Sta. Anna.