by the impunity and uncontrolled licence in which
they are exercised. I never walked through the streets of
Rio, that some house did not present to me the semblance of
a bridewell, where the moans and the cries of the sufferers,
and the sounds of whips and scourges within, announced to me
that corporal punishment was being inflicted. Whenever I
remarked this to a friend, I was always answered that the
refractory nature of the slave rendered it necessary, and no
house could properly be conducted unless it was practised.
But this is certainly not the case; and the chastisement is
constantly applied in the very wantonness of barbarity, and
would not, and dared not, be inflicted on the humblest
wretch in society, if he was not a slave, and so put out of
the pale of pity.

"Immediately joining our house was one occupied by a
mechanic, from which the most dismal cries and moans
constantly proceeded. I entered the shop one day, and found
it was occupied by a saddler, who had two negro boys working
at his business. He was a tawny, cadaverous-looking man,
with a dark aspect; and he had cut from his leather a
scourge like a Russian knout, which he held in his hand, and
was in the act of exercising on one of the naked children in
an inner room: and this was the cause of the moans and cries
we heard every day, and almost all day long.

"In the rear of our house was another, occupied by some
women of bad character, who kept, as usual, several negro
slaves. I was awoke early one morning by dismal cries, and
looking out of the window, I saw in the back yard of the
house, a black girl of about fourteen years old; before her
stood her mistress, a white woman, with a large stick in her
hand. She was undressed except her petticoat and chemise,
which had fallen down and left her shoulders and bosom bare.
Her hair was streaming behind, and every fierce and
malevolent passion was depicted in her face. She too, like
my hostess at Governo [another striking illustration of the
_dehumanizing_ effects of Slavery,] was the very
representation of a fury. She was striking the poor girl,
whom she had driven up into a corner, where she was on her
knees appealing for mercy. She shewed her none, but
continued to strike her on the head and thrust the stick