e of artificial flowers, formed of the feathers of the
many-coloured birds of their country. I admired the white water-lily
most, though the pomegranate flower, the carnation, and the rose are
imitated with the greatest exactness. The price of all these things is
exorbitant; but the convents having lost much of their property since
the revolution, the nuns are fain to make up by the produce of this
petty industry, for the privations imposed on them by the reduction of
their rents.

_Wednesday, October 24th._--Mr. Pennell, his daughter, and a few other
friends, joined us in an expedition to Itaparica[70], a large island
that forms the western side of the Bay of All Saints. A shoal runs off
from it a long way to sea, and there are reefs of coral rocks on
different parts of its coast. The distance from the city to the nearest
landing place on the island is five miles and a half, which our boats'
crews rowed in less than two hours. We put in between two ledges of
rock, to a little jetty, belonging to the fazenda or factory of Aseoli,
or Filisberti, both of whom were partners in Jerome Buonaparte's
commercial establishment here. There is no town on Itaparica; but there
is a villa, or village, with a fort on the Punto de Itaparica, which
commands the passage between it and the main land, and also the mouth of
the river, on which stands Nazareth da Farinha, so called from the
abundance of that article which it produces. There are also a great many
fazendas, which, with their establishment of slaves and cattle, may be
considered as so many hamlets. Each sugar farm, or ingenho, as the
fazendas are oftener called here, has its little community of slaves
around it; and in their huts something like the blessings of freedom are
enjoyed, in the family ties and charities they are not forbidden to
enjoy. I went into several of the huts, and found them cleaner and more
comfortable than I expected; each contains four or five rooms, and each
room appeared to hold a family. These out-of-door slaves, belonging to
the great ingenhos, in general are better off than the slaves of masters
whose condition is nearer to their own, because, "The more the master is
removed from us, in place and rank, the greater the liberty we enjoy;
the less our actions are inspected and controuled; and the fainter that
cruel comparison becomes betwixt our own subjection, and the freedom, or
even dominion of another." But, at best, the comforts of slaves must be
pr