r the most part indolent and ignorant. The negroes and
mulattoes have strong motives to exertion of every kind, and succeed in
what they undertake accordingly. They are the best artificers and
artists. The orchestra of the opera-house is composed of at least
one-third of mulattoes. All decorative painting, carving, and inlaying
is done by them; in short, they excel in all ingenious mechanical arts.

In the afternoon I attended Mr. P. to see the negroes receive their
daily allowance of food. It consisted of farinha, kidney-beans, and
dried beef, a fixed measure of each to every person. One man asked for
two portions, on account of the absence of his neighbour, whose wife had
desired it might be sent to her to make ready for him by the time he
returned. Some enquiries which Mr. P. made about this person, induced me
to ask his history. It seems he is a mulatto boatman, the most trusty
servant on the estate, and rich, because he is industrious enough to
have earned a good deal of private property, besides doing his duty to
his master. In his youth, and he is not now old, he had become attached
to a creole negress, born, like him, on the estate; but he did not marry
her till he had earned money enough to purchase her, in order that their
children, if they had any, might be born free. Since that time, he has
become rich enough to purchase himself, even at the high price which
such a slave might fetch; but his master will not sell him his freedom,
his services being too valuable to lose, notwithstanding his promise to
remain on the estate and work. Unfortunately these people have no
children; therefore on their death their property, now considerable,
will revert to the master. Had they children, as the woman is free, they
might inherit the mother's property; and there is nothing to prevent the
father's making over all he earns to her. I wish I had the talent of
novel writing, for the sake of this slave's story; but my writing, like
my drawing, goes no farther than sketching from nature, and I make
better artists welcome to use the subject.

The evening was very stormy: deep clouds had covered the Organ
Mountains; and vivid lightning, sharp rain, and boisterous wind, had
threatened the fazenda with a night of terror. But it passed away,
leaving all the grand and gloomy beauty of a departed thunder-storm in a
mountainous country; when the moon broke through the clouds, and the
night seemed, from the contrast with the last few ho