Other respects they are more hardly dealt with than those of any other establishment which I visited: notwithstanding this, the owners are all anxious to get their negroes into the service, doubtless from sinister motives, of which more will be said hereafter.

The officers are liberally paid, and live in a style of considerable elegance, which a stranger would not be led to expect in so remote a place. Our tables were daily covered with a profusion of excellent viands, served up on fine Wedgewood ware, and the state of their household generally corresponded with this easential part of it. They were ever ready to assist me in my examination of the works, and freely gave me all the necessary in formation respecting them.

Having detailed the process of washing for diamonds, I proceed to a general description of the situations in which they are found. The flat pieces of ground on each side the river are equally rich throughout their extent, and hence the officers are enabled to calculate the value of an unworked place by comparison with the amount found on working in the part adjoining. These known places are left in reserve, and trial is made of more uncertain grounds. The following observation I often heard from the intendant: "That piece of ground" (speaking of an unworked flat by the side of the river)" will yield me ten thousand carats of diamonds whenever we shall be required to get them in the regular course of working, or when, on any particular occasion, an order fromgovernment arrives, demanding an extraordinary and immediate supply."

The substances. accompanying diamonds, and considered good indications of them, are bright beaulike iron ore, a slaty flint-like substance, approaching Lydian stone, of fine texture, black oxide of iron in great quantities, rounded bits of blue quartz, yellow crystal, and other materials entirely different from any thing known to be produced in the adjacent mountains, Diamonds are by no means peculiar to the beds of rivers or deep ravines; they have been found in cavities and water-courses on the summits of the most lofty mountains.

I had some conversation with the officers respecting the matrix of the diamond, not a vestige of which could I trace. They informed me that they often found diamonds cemented in puddingstone, accompanied with grains of gold, but that they always broke them out, as they could not enter them in the treasury, or weigh them with matter adhering to them. I obtained a mass of pudding stone, apparently of very recent formation, cemented by ferruginous matter enveloping many grains of gold; and likewise a few pounds weight of the cascalhao in its unwashed state.

This river, and other streams in its vicinity, have been in washing many years, and have produced great quantities of diamonds, which have ever been reputed of the finest quality. They vary in size: some are so small that four or five are required to weigh one grain, consequently sixteen or twenty to the carat :

there are seldom found more than two or three stones of from seventeen to twenty carats in the course of a year, and not once

in two years is there found throughout the whole washings a stone of thirty carats. During the five days I was here they were not very successful; the whole quantity found amounted only to forty, the largest of which was only four carats, and of a light green colour.

From the great quantity of debris, or worked cascalhao, in every part near the river, it is reasonable to calculate that the works have been in operation above forty years; of course there must arrive a period at which they will be exhausted, but there are grounds in the neighbourhood, particularly in the Cerro de St. Antonio, and in the country now inhabited by the Indians, which will probably afford these gems in equal abundance,

STATE OF SOCIETY AMONG THE MIDDLING CLASSES EMPLOYED IN MINING AND AGRICULTURE.

(From the same.)

We are naturally led to imagine, that, in a country where mines of gold and diamonds are found, the riches of the inhabitants must be immense, and their condition most enviable; the Portugueze themselves, who reside in the mining districts, encourage this supposition; and whenever they go to Rio de Janeiro, do not fail to make all possible shew and parade. But let us view them in the centre of their wealth; and as a fair criterion of the middling classes of society, let us select a man possessing a property of fifty or sixty negroes, with datas of gold mines, and the necessary utensils for working them. The negroes alone are worth,

at the low valuation of 100 milreis each, a sum equal to 1,2001. or 1,500l. sterling; the datas and utensils, though of value, need not be taken into the account. Suppose this man to be married, and to have a family: What is the state of their domestic concerns, their general way of life? May I be allowed to describe them in the language which truth dictates, without exaggeration or extenuation? Their dwelling scarcely merits the name of a house; it is the most wretched hovel that imagination can describe, consisting of a few apartments built up to each other without regularity; the walls wicker-work, filled up with mud; a hole left for a frame serves as a window, or a miserable door answers that purpose. The cracks in the mud are rarely filled up; and in very few instances only have I seen a house repaired. The floors are of clay, moist in itself, and rendered more disagreeable by the filth of its inhabitants, with whom the pigs not unfrequently dispute the right of possession. Some ranchos, it is true, are built upon piles; and underneath are the stables, &c. these are certainly a little superior to the former. They are built so from necessity, where the ground is uneven or swampy; but it may be easily conceived, that the disagreeable effects produced by want of cleanliness, must in these instances be increased by the effluvia from the animals underneath, which I have frequently found intolerable.

The furniture of the house is such as might be expected from the description above given. The beds are very coarse cotton cases, filled with dry grass, or the leaves of Indian corn. There are sel

dom

dom more than two in a house; for the servants generally sleep upon mats, or dried hides laid on the floor. The furniture consists of one or two chairs, a few stools and benches, one table, or perhaps two, a few coffee-cups and a coffee-pot of silver; a silver drinking cup, and, in some instances, a silver wash hand bason, which, when strangers are present, is handed round with great ostentation, and forms a sriking contrast to the rest of the utensils.

The general diet of the family consists of the same articles which have already been particularized in treating of St. Paul's. The only beverage is water; and nothing can be more frugal than the whole economy of the table. So intent is the owner in employing his slaves solely in employments directly lucrative, that the garden, on which almost the entire subsistence of the family depends, is kept in the most miserable disorder.

In the article of dress, they do not appear more extravagant than in that of food. The children are generally naked; the youths go without shoes, in an old jacket, and cotton trowsers; the men in an old capote or mantle wrapped around them, and wooden clogs, except when they go from home; and, on those occasions, they appear in all their splendour, forming as great a contrast to their domestic attire, as the gaudy butterfly does to the chrysalis from which it springs.

It might be expected, that however penuriously the general concerns of the family were conducted, at least some degree of attention and expense would be bestowed

on the dress of the females; for the test of civilization among all nations is the regard paid to the fair sex, on whom the happiness of domestic life depends. Yet the general poverty and meanness of their attire is such, that they reluctantly appear befose any one, except the individuals of their own family.

In short, in all those departments of domestic economy, which to the middle classes of other civilized nations are objects of expence, the Brazilians exercise the most rigid parsimony. At first, I was inclined to attribute this disposition to a love of money, which prompted them to avoid all extravagance; but, on closer observation, I was surprised to find that it originated in necessity. They gonerally run in debt for the few articles they have to purchase, and sometimes find it difficult to maintain their negroes. If they purchase a mule, it is at one or two years' credit, and, of course, at double its ordinary price.

In such a family as that above described, the sons, as might be expected, are brought up in idleness; they are merely taught to read and write; rarely do they attend to the mining department; they learn no trade, nor are they instructed in any useful employment; for a miner, perhaps an ensign or a lieutenant of militia, would think it a disgrace to put his son apprentice to a mechanic. Suppose the father of this family to die when the sons have just attained the age of puberty. They are now for the first time obliged to think of providing for themselves. Educated in poverty and pride, they have learned to think all occupations

servile,

deserve a mark of his most gracious approval, it might be conferred by a step of rank to my military secretary, Major De Sade, I gave the strongest test of my own estimate of an officer, who, though not born a subject of his Majesty, is distinguished by every principle of honour that could render bim worthy his royal notice and who, having been for fourteen years a sharer with myself in every professional duty in which I have

been employed, is, of course, a participator in any degree of merit which his Majesty or my country have been generously pleased, during that interval, to allow to my humble services.

I have the honour to be, with high respect, &c. (Signed)

J. STUART,
Count of Maida.

To General the Right Hon.
Sir David Dundas, K. B.
Commander-in-chief,

POETRY,