The men are licentious and yet jealous; their morals inevitably influence the female character, and hence arises a fruitful source of quarrels which usually end in murder. In any matter of trade they will outwit you if they can, and boast of the successful dishonesty; but any other kind of dishonesty is almost unknown among them; in reality there is little temptation to it: in ordinary years the land affords abundance for all, and in seasons of distress, the distress, being a visitation of nature, falls upon all alike. With all their defects Mr. Koster thinks them a good race of people,brave, generous, sincere, and hospitable, and he justly remarks their great superiority to the Peons of Paraguay and the Plata, men who live in the most disgusting state in which human beings have ever been known to exist. The most civilized inhabitants of Europe are not more superior to the Sertanejos, than the Sertanejo is to the Spaniards of these provinces. Indeed the difference between the Brazilians and their Spanish neighbours is almost inexplicable, so infinitely is the advantage on the side of the Portugueze Americans. The volume before us contains a print of the Sertanejo in his out-of-door dress,-long leggings, rather than gaiters, of undressed leather, tied tightly round the waist, over cotton drawers or trowsers; a tanned goat-skin over the breast, tied by four strings behind; a leathern jacket, generally thrown over one shoulder; a hat of the same leather, shallow in the crown, and small in the brim; slip-shod slippers of the same colour, which is a rusty brown, and iron spurs upon his naked heels. His arms are a sword, sometimes a large pistol, and always the faca, a knife which serves. alike for meals and for murder, which is prohibited on pain of transportation, and which every man wears concealed in his girdle. Within doors every thing is cast off except the shirt and drawers. Their houses are small mud cottages, sometimes tiled, more generally thatched with the carnauba leaves. Hammocks serve for beds and for chairs. The better cottages have a table, but the family more frequently squat in a circle upon a mat, and eat their meals upon the floor. The Portugueze retained this custom from the Moors, and had not disused it when they first colonized Brazil: at this day the: lower class of Portugueze women sit in the Moorish manner upon the ground; they say they keep their feet warm by this means, a valid reason in a country where, during the winter months, fires would always be desirable, and yet are not in use. The women seldom leave home, but when they do they wear shoes, and throw a large piece of coarse white cloth over the head and shoulders; a similar fashion may still be seen in Lisbon. No women of free birth are ever seen employed in any kind of labour in the open air, except that occasionally they fetch wood and water when the men are not at home. This seclusion and these in-door habits are also relics of the old state of manners. The children run about naked till they approach the age of puberty; even in Recife boys of six or seven years go naked. Among a people in this state the pedlar is the great missionary of civilization; these men are now finding their way every where with English goods. Before the emigration of the Court, a dress of common printed cotton cost from two to three guineas, the merchants of Recife putting what price they pleased upon their commodities., But no sooner were the ports opened for foreign trade than our manufacturers poured in their goods with blind cupidity, and in such abundance, that every market on this side of South America was glutted, and the articles sold for less than their prime cost. Ruinous as this was to the speculators, its after-consequences may be beneficial both to Brazil and England; the goods, in consequence of their low price, were more widely diffused and more generally purchased, and the want having once been excited, the demand is not likely to fall off, when in the course of regular and steady trade things shall bear their fair prices. Vanity, which in a highly improved country leads so many to ruin, is a great civilizer among people in a semi-barbarous state. Among savages the necklace comes before the fig-leaf,--finery goes first, but decency follows; the half-grown Cupids and Graces will be clothed; the women will go abroad, and mingle in company at home, to display their dress, and the cotton mills which are poisoning the health and morals of the manufacturers in England, are improving the manners and morals of Brazil, and accelerating the civilization of South America. The pedlars seldom obtain money for their goods:-as in the interior of the United States, they take whatever is offered in barter,hides, cattle of all kind, and cheese ;-these they carry to market where they can be exchanged for goods: twelve months sometimes elapse before the property is once turned over, but the profits are two or three hundred per cent. Like all people among whom cattle are so abundant as to be of little value, the Sertanejos feed chiefly upon meat, which they eat thrice a day. The number of fast days in Portugal, and the strictness with which this part of the Catholic religion is observed, have materially injured the agriculture of that country by rendering the demand for cattle utterly insignificant: Mr. Koster has not said in what manner the duty of fasting is observed in Brazil, but it is, most probably, very generally dispensed with in the Sertam ; a stricter observance would be useful there, for it would lead to horticulture, (of which they know nothing,) and to improved methods of preparing their food; gardening is one of the most humanizing of the arts,-and cookery, the abuse of which leads not only to prodigal excess, but also to cruelties which may be called devilish, (as in the manner now practised for enlarging geese-livers in France!) tends, in the earlier stages of society, by increasing domestic comforts, to the improvement of barbarous man. Their cheese is excellent when fresh, but after a few weeks it becomes hard and tough ;-only a few persons make butter, and that by shaking the milk in a bottle. Had the Dutch instructed the Pernambucans in these arts, it would have been a compensation for the many evils which they inflicted upon them. The present king of Portugal wished Mr. Mawe to instruct his people in the management of the dairy upon the English system; a teacher better qualified for the task might have been baffled by such unwilling pupils :--but when one settler from Holland, Great Britain, or any other part of the world where this most useful branch of domestic industry is understood, shall have established a good dairy upon his own estate, the improvement must necessarily make its way, to the great benefit of Brazil. The extension of its frontier to the Plata and the Uraguay, is an object of less importance. Having recovered from an accident which detained him longer than he had intended, at Seara, Mr. Koster departed, grateful for the hospitality which he had experienced there. One of his friends entrusted him with government papers in a crimson satin bag, which gave him the power of requesting horses from the several commandants upon the road. He purchased four horses for his return, and engaged three Indians to accompany him. Seara had been saved from absolute famine by the arrival of a vessel laden with mandioc flour from the south, the cargo of which sold for exactly ten times the usual price; the news of the supply had not extended far, and on the second day's journey the Indians found it necessary to sew some hides loosely round their bags of farinha, lest they should be compelled to part with it if the contents were discovered by a starving people. At Aracati, Mr. Koster was entertained in the same munificent manner as on his former visit ;—the hospitality of this generous people was not ill bestowed,—for the English traveller acknowledges it on every occasion with proper feeling. A sailor who had been wrecked upon the coast solicited leave to join his party,-it consisted now of no less than nine persons and eleven horses. The sufferings and the danger of drought were not apprehended upon their return; several showers had fallen, and slight as they were, the effect was astonishing. 'Rain in the evening will by sunrise have given a greenish tinge to the earth; if the rain continues, there will be sprouts of grass on the second day, an inch in length, and on the third the grass will be long enough to be picked up by the half-starved cattle." The first heavy rain fell while they were bivouacking for the night;-they fastened two cords from shrub to shrub, laid hides upon them, and crowded under this covering for shelter ; - shelter; but the rain in these regions comes with a force which is not easily resisted,-the hides were soon soaked and fell down ;the fires were completely extinguished, and Mr. Koster remembering the jaguars, which are numerous in such parts of the country, reminded his people how necessary it was to keep the locks of their fire-arms dry. He had not spoken many minutes before the growl of one of these animals was heard, a herd of mares galloped by them, and presently the wild beasts were heard in all directions. They stood back to back for the remainder of the night, in some alarm, and in no inconsiderable danger; the Indians from time to time setting up a sort of howl with the intent of intimidating the jaguars. In the morning they had much difficulty in finding their horses, who had been frightened and scattered by the jaguars, and would probably have perished if the wild cattle had not diverted their pursuers. On the second day after this dismal night, they halted at noon in St. Luzia, the village where Mr. Koster had refused to shew his passport. He had lain down in his hammock, when the guide told him that a number of people seemed to be assembling, and observed that he ought to remember the quarrel: upon this, with much presence of mind, he rose, opened a trunk, as if searching for something, and taking out the red bag placed it where it might be conspicuously seen, while he continued to search. The sight of the bag produced the desired effect, and the people immediately disappeared, either fearing that their horses would be put in requisition, or rightly perceiving that the traveller was a man whose situation and connections entitled him to respect. In the afternoon of the same day, he reached the river Panema, a narrow but now a rapid stream, and, in consequence of the rains, not fordable. The party therefore were fain,to halt in the nearest habitation: here Mr. Koster had an attack of ague, and when, after five days' delay, the river had fallen so as to be fordable, he was unable to mount on horseback. Though not in immediate danger, he was aware that these disorders frequently end in fever and delirium, and was anxious to reach Açu, that he might be near some priest, on whom he might rely for transmitting any message to his friends in case of the worst.As soon therefore as the stream was fordable, six men were engaged to carry him in his hammock, and having crossed the stream, they entered upon the flooded country. Mahommed, according to Turkish tradition, is said to have declared that a journey is a fragment of hell; Mr. Koster had experienced some of the evils of crossing a dry desert, to which the False Prophet must have alluded, and he had now to feel the discomforts of the opposite extreme. The general depth of the water was somewhat less than knee deep, in parts it was up to the waist. At noon, his hammock was slung between two trees, the pole by which it was carried was A A 3 placed placed upon two forked branches, and hides hung over it to shade him from the sun, for the trees were as yet leafless. At dusk, they reached a fazenda, or estate upon dry land, and put up at an unfinished house. They were now ten leagues from Piato:-the civilities which Mr. Koster had received from the commandant there made him look forward towards seeing him as a friend. He sent his convoy forward one day, and following with one of the guides and Julio on the next, performed the ten leagues on horseback. During the night he was very unwell, and tormented with thirst: water-melons were abundant here and he eat several of them, notwithstanding the remonstrances of the guide, who declared that he would kill himself, but,' says he, 'I thought otherwise, for I liked them. In the morning I awoke quite a changed person, and the ague returned no more. The guide was then firmly convinced that water-melous were an infallible remedy for the ague. The river at Açu, which was dry when he crossed its channel on the way out, was now so deep and dangerous that it was necessary to construct a jangada for passing it. From hence to the Searameirim the country was new to him, as he now took the shortest road to Natal. No rain had yet fallen in this quarter, and they were suffering from thirst, when suddenly the dogs struck from the path and ran up the side of a flat rock, the horses stopped and snuffed the air, and Julio, knowing what these indications meant, cried Water! water! and followed the dogs. It was found in the long deep cleft of a rock where neither horses nor dogs could reach it. The rains had begun when they reached the Seara-meirim, and they passed this travessia with all haste, lest the floods should intercept them. Upon reaching Natal all difficulties seemed to have ceased, for the remaining seventy leagues were comparatively through a well-peopled and civilized country. One instance of inhospitality occurred in this part of the journey,―a night's lodging was refused him by a Mulatto planter,-it was the only instance during his whole residence in Brazil. On the following night he slung his hammock under the pent-house of a cottage, and was surprized to find that the owner conversed with him from within but did not open the door. Mr. Koster began to suspect that there was some contagious disease in the house, but it appeared the man had been bitten by a snake, and it was a received opinion that the bite of this species would become fatal if the person should see any female creature, and more particularly a woman, for thirty days after the accident. Drinking houses, of which almost every hamlet contained one, became much more frequent when they came into the great cattle road: the weather compelled Mr. Koster and his convoy to halt for the night at one of these houses, and some trifles from their baggage were stolen,-a solitary instance of dishonesty. A week only had elapsed after Mr. Koster's return, when letters from |