while we were melting in the lightest clothing, they muffled themselves up in their cloaks, and sat shivering, with their doors and, windows closed. The rainy season commences in August; and for six weeks or two months, a continual torrent pours down, with a close and suffocating atmosphere. To the rains succeed the dry and parching months of November and December, when the Creoles are again re-animated; and awakened by the ardent blaze of the sun, from the lethargic torpidity of winter, renew their occupations or amusements. CHAP. CHAP. III. Rio Janeiro.-Productions, Trade.-Slaves, IndiansPolice and Courts of Justice.-State of Defence.—Political Situation. THE chief vegetable productions of the district of Rio de Janeiro are sugar, coffee, cotton, cocoa, tobacco, and indigo; of these, sugar is alone indigenous, and was found growing wild by the first colonists. The tobacco raised in the Brasils is consumed there in segars and snuff; and the cultivation of indigo has been much neglected, since the East Indian indigo has rivalled it in the Eu ropean ropean markets. The soil is every where so rich, that it requires all the labour of the farmer to check the too luxuriant vegetation, and keep the ground free from brush-wood and shrubs; a few months' neglect covers the soil with a tangled under-wood, bound together and rendered impenetrable by creeping vines. Twelve different kinds of oranges are cultivated here, and all other tropical fruits grow almost spontaneously; the soil has also been found friendly to the spices of the East, and pepper is already cultivated with some success; in short, Whatever blooms in torrid tracks appear, The horses of Brasil are small, and incapable of much labour; in the interior they they run wild in vast droves, and are of so little value, that they are merely caught to perform a journey; and when tired, or the journey is over, are again turned loose. The mules, which graze in flocks about the town, are the chief beasts of burthen, and are particularly adapted to the precipices of the country. Oxen are brought from Rio Grande, where they are worth about eight shillings each, and where they are slaughtered merely for their hides and tallow; on their arrival at Rio Janeiro, though wretchedly impoverished by the journey, they are sold for fifty shillings to four pounds a-head. The farms are fenced by lime-bushes and orange-trees, intermixed with various flowering shrubs, equally beautiful and aromatic. At night, the trees appear illumi illuminated by myriads of fire-flies, which play among the branches, for here -On every hedge The glow-worm lights his gem, and through the dark A moving radiance twinkles. The district of the mines commences about sixty miles from Rio; their produce is conveyed thither on mules, escorted by detachments of cavalry, of which there is a regiment stationed at Minas, the Capital, which is said to be large and populous; this province extends to the borders of the Spanish settlements in Paraguay. The journey to Matto Grosso, the farthest Portuguese station, is by Rio Grande, and is said to take up six months in contending against the stream, but the return is made in about three months; from hence |