he slave-ship, and
of the slave-market, is fresh in their memory.

I walked to-day to the market-place, where there is but little;--beef
scarce and dear, no mutton, a little poultry, and a few pigs,
disgusting, because they feed in the streets where every thing is
thrown, and where they and the dogs are the only scavengers. The
blockade is so strict, that even the vegetables from the gentlemen's
private gardens, two miles from the out-posts, are detained. No milk is
to be had, bread of American flour is at least twice as dear as in
England, and the cakes of mandioc baked with cocoa nut juice, too dear
for the common people to afford a sufficiency even of them. Fire-wood
is extravagantly high, charcoal scarce. The negroes keep the markets: a
few on their own account, more on that of their masters. The dress of
the free negroes is like that of the creole Portuguese; a linen jacket
and trowsers, or on days of ceremony one of cloth, and a straw hat,
furnish forth either a black or a white gentleman. The women, in-doors,
wear a kind of frock which leaves the bosom much exposed. When they walk
out they wear either a cloak or mantle; this cloak is often of the
gayest colours; shoes also, which are the mark of freedom, are to be
seen of every hue, but black. Gold chains for the neck and arms, and
gold ear-rings, with a flower in the hair, complete a Pernambucan
woman's dress. The new negroes, men and women, have nothing but a cloth
round their loins. When they are bought, it is usual to give the women a
shift and petticoat, and the men at least trowsers, but this is very
often omitted.

Yesterday the motley head-dresses of the Portuguese inhabitants were
seen to great advantage, in a sally through the streets, made by a kind
of supplementary militia to enforce the closing of all shop-doors, and
the shutting up of all slaves, on an alarm that the enemy was attacking
the town to the southward. The officer leading the party was indeed
dressed _en militaire_, with a drawn sword in one hand, and a pistol in
the other. Then followed a company that Falstaff would hardly have
enlisted, armed in a suitable manner, with such caps and hats as became
the variety of trades to which the wearers belonged, the rear being
brought up by a most singular figure, with a small drum-shaped black cap
on the very top of a stiff pale head, a long oil-skin cloak, and in his
left hand a huge Toledo ready drawn, which he carried upright. The
militia are