None of the people who flocked to
Barra on the establishment of the new government seemed to care
about the cultivation of the soil and the raising of food,
although these would have been most profitable speculations. The
class of Portuguese who emigrate to Brazil seem to prefer petty
trading to the honourable pursuit of agriculture. If the English
are a nation of shopkeepers, what are we to say of the
Portuguese? I counted in Barra one store for every five dwelling-
houses. These stores, or tavernas, have often not more than fifty
pounds' worth of goods for their whole stock, and the Portuguese
owners, big lusty fellows, stand all day behind their dirty
counters for the sake of selling a few coppers' worth of liquors,
or small wares. These men all give the same excuse for not
applying themselves to agriculture, namely, that no hands can be
obtained to work on the soil. Nothing can be done with Indians;
indeed, they are fast leaving the neighbourhood altogether, and
the importation of negro slaves, in the present praiseworthy
temper of the Brazilian mind, is out of the question.
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