from being backward in
promoting the cause of independence in Brazil. Few even of the free
negroes have become very rich. A free negro, when his shop or garden has
repaid his care, by clothing him and his wife each in a handsome black
dress, with necklace and armlets for the lady, and knee and shoe buckles
of gold, to set off his own silk stockings, seldom toils much more, but
is quite contented with daily food. Many, of all colours, when they can
afford to purchase a negro, sit down exempt from further care. They make
the negro work for them, or beg for them, and so as they may eat their
bread in quiet, care little how it is obtained.

The European Portuguese, are extremely anxious to avoid intermarriage
with born Brazilians, and prefer giving their daughters and fortunes to
the meanest clerk of European birth, rather than to the richest and most
meritorious Brazilian. They have become aware of the prodigious
inconvenience, if not evil, they have brought on themselves by the
importation of Africans, and now no doubt, look forward with dread to
the event of a revolution, which will free their slaves from their
authority, and, by declaring them all men alike, will authorise them to
resent the injuries they have so long and patiently borne.

_Thursday, 11th._--As every thing seems quietly settled between the
royalist and patriot chiefs, we are preparing to take leave of
Pernambuco, and it is not without regret, for we have been kindly
treated by the Portuguese, and hospitably received by our own
countrymen. We went on shore to provide necessaries and comforts for our
farther voyage. Among the latter I bought some excellent sweetmeats[60],
which are made in the interior, and brought to market in neat little
wooden kegs, each containing six or eight pounds. It is astonishing to
see the weight brought from two and three hundred miles' distance, by
the small and slight but very swift horses of the country. The baggage
horses are not shod any more than those for riding: the latter are
almost universally trained to a kind of running pace, easy in itself,
but not very agreeable at first, to those accustomed to English horses.
To-day I saw and tasted the jerked beef, _charqui_, of Spanish South
America. It appears, when hanging in bales at the shop-doors, like
bundles of thick ragged leather. It is prepared by cutting the flesh in
wide strips, clean off the bones, slightly salting, pressing, and drying
in the air. In this state