Travels in the interior of Brazil / with notices on its climate, agriculture, commerce, population, mines, manners, and customs: and a particular account of the gold and diamond districts.

APPENDIX.

IN page 368 of this work, I have stated, that it was my intention to enquire into, and to make some observations on the present regulations relative to diamonds. These beautiful gems have been found in such abundance in Brazil, as to supply not only Europe, but Asia; as those of India are become extremely scarce, diamonds from Brazil have been often sent thither, and have usurped their name. The question we are at present about to examine is, how far it would be consistent with the interest of the Portuguese Government to permit the searching for diamonds, in the same way as for gold, under peculiar laws. The monopoly is ineffectual, because the diamonds are found in so many parts widely distant from each other, that it is impossible to prevent the searching for them. The attempt to preserve grounds known to contain these riches, by forming a distacamento, has not produced any good effect; and it is by no means improbable, that the best of these (supposed) preserved lands are already worked, therefore the soldiers are guarding the casket after the jewels have been taken away. How many places might be mentioned (out of the district of Cerro do Frio), where troops of negroes daily work! It has been stated, that government probably receive little more than a moiety of the gems found at their own expense; if so, it is certainly time to abandon a trade so exposed, or to change the system altogether. Is it the interest of Brazil to keep her enterprizing subjects in continual torture and fear respecting these precious gifts, which the bounteous hand of Providence has placed there? But indeed as his majesty’s subjects increase and become more enlightened, this severe monopoly will destroy itself and soon begin to give way to a wise and political government, which will prefer a rich and powerful population in the very heart of the colony to a few individuals. How happens it, that diamonds, in the hands of private persons, meet a more ready sale than those of government? Because they are better stones, and are offered in quantities more convenient for the purchasers: next, because they can be sold cheaper since they cost less. If diamonds were subject to pay a fifth, government would have such power as to enable them to command the market; and if they should become cheaper in Europe, the demand for them would become more general, therefore their price would not be likely to fall in Brazil; and, even if it did, is it not the blindest policy for the court to put such a yoke round the neck of her valuable subjects, who venture their lives in trackless deserts searching for mines, and exposing themselves to every danger? Would it have been possible for Portugal to colonize Brazil if there had been no gold mines to attract adventurers? To deny men the treasures with which nature has enriched the country, is to oppose one great check to its population; for the example of one adventurer becoming rich, is the means of inducing hundreds to follow him. Under the present system, there is so great a struggle between the temptation of becoming suddenly rich, and the fear of being ruined by detection, that when a man finds a diamond by accident, he knows not whether to appropriate it, or to surrender it to the government; even in the latter case, he has little prospect of reward, and runs the risk of being accused as a smuggler. Instances have not been uncommon of men having found diamonds, who have thrown them away[84] rather than involve themselves and their families in ruin, either by keeping them, or delivering them to government.

It has before been shewn, that Government are the greatest gainers by the diamonds which are sold clandestinely; and if individuals were allowed to trade in them, the state and the public would undoubtedly be benefited by it. For it is certain, that a Brazilian farmer or miner would prefer necessaries, such as iron utensils, clothing, &c. which add to his comforts and conveniences of life, to articles of ideal value, which in reality have come into his hands probably without difficulty or expense. Thus the peasantry would draw valuable produce from other countries in exchange for what cost them comparatively nothing, and, by enriching themselves, would augment the revenues of the state.

Is it not possible to make the diamonds liable to pay a fifth, either in kind or in value? In this case it is probable that there would be less smuggling: and that practice might be still more restrained, by something like the following regulation: every person finding diamonds should be obliged to register them; also, to take out a certificate authorising him to dispose of them in whatever manner he thinks proper. It would certainly add to their importance, to make them subject to a trivial duty[85], on being lawfully transferred from the buyer to the seller, by which means they would come into immediate circulation and represent real property: thus, after yielding a very small profit to each person through whose hands they passed, they would finally be exported; and, as long as diamonds continued an article of distinction, ornament, and elegance, Brazil would lay under tribute every court in the civilized world.

The Dutch were artful enough to poison the ears of the ministers of Portugal against the proposal of making diamonds a free trade, and assisted in the persecutions against those unfortunate sufferers who were detected in possessing them. But surely that narrow-minded and self-interested policy is now done away with; nor would it be credited in modern history, that the government of Brazil, for a trivial, pecuniary profit, should be the dupes of their own bank and a few interested strangers.

View of the State of Society among the Middling Classes, employed in Mining and Agriculture.

We are naturally led to imagine, that, in a country where mines of gold and diamonds are found, the riches of the inhabitants must be immense, and their condition most enviable; the Portuguese themselves, who reside in the mining districts, encourage this supposition; and whenever they go to Rio de Janeiro, do not fail to make all possible show and parade. But let us view them in the centre of their wealth; and as a fair criterion of the middling classes of society, let us select a man possessing a property of fifty or sixty negroes, with datas of gold mines, and the necessary utensils for working them. The negroes alone are worth, at the low valuation of 100 milreis, a sum equal to £1,200, or £1,500 sterling; the datas and utensils, though of value, need not be taken into the account. Suppose this man to be married, and to have a family: What is the state of their domestic concerns, their general way of life? May I be allowed to describe them in the language which truth dictates, without exaggeration or extenuation? Their dwelling scarcely merits the name of a house; it is the most wretched hovel that imagination can describe, consisting of a few apartments built up to each other without regularity; the walls wicker-work, filled up with mud; a hole left for a frame serves as a window, or a miserable door answers that purpose. The cracks in the mud are rarely filled up; and in very few instances only have I seen a house repaired. The floors are of clay, moist in itself, and rendered more disagreeable by the filth of its inhabitants, with whom the pigs not unfrequently dispute the right of possession. Some ranchos, it is true, are built upon piles; and underneath are the stables, &c.; these are certainly a little superior to the former. They are built so from necessity, where the ground is uneven or swampy; but it may be easily conceived, that the disagreeable effects produced by want of cleanliness, must in these instances be increased by the effluvia from the animals underneath, which I have frequently found intolerable.

The furniture of the house is such as might be expected from the description above given. The beds are very coarse cotton cases, filled with dry grass, or the leaves of Indian corn. There are seldom more than two in a house; for the servants generally sleep upon mats, or dried hides laid on the floor. The furniture consists of one or two chairs, a few stools and benches, one table, or perhaps two, a few coffee-cups and a coffee-pot of silver; a silver drinking cup, and, in some instances, a silver wash-hand basin, which, when strangers are present, is handed round, and forms a striking contrast to the rest of the utensils.

The general diet of the family consists of the same articles which have already been particularized in treating of S. Paulo. The only beverage is water; and nothing can be more frugal than the whole economy of the table. So intent is the owner on employing his slaves solely in employments directly lucrative, that the garden, on which almost the entire subsistence of the family depends, is kept in the most miserable disorder.

In the article of dress, they do not appear more extravagant than in that of food. The children are generally naked; the youths go without shoes, in an old jacket, and cotton trowsers; the men in an old capote or mantle wrapped around them, and wooden clogs, except when they go from home; and, on those occasions, they appear in all their splendor, forming as great a contrast to their domestic attire, as the gaudy butterfly does to the chrysalis from which it springs.

It might be expected, that however penuriously the general concerns of the family were conducted, at least some degree of attention and expense would be bestowed on the dress of the females; for the test of civilization among all nations is the regard paid to the fair sex, on whom the happiness of domestic life depends. Yet the general poverty and meanness of their attire is such, that they reluctantly appear before any one, except the individuals of their own family.

In short, in all those departments of domestic economy, which to the middle classes of other civilized nations are objects of expense, the Brazilians exercise the most rigid parsimony. At first, I was inclined to attribute this disposition to a love of money, which prompted them to avoid all extravagance; but, on closer observation, I was surprised to find that it originated in necessity. They generally take credit for the few articles they have to purchase, and sometimes find it difficult to maintain their negroes. If they purchase a mule, it is to be paid for at the end of one or two years, and, of course, at double its ordinary price.

In such a family as that above described, the sons, as might be expected, are not brought up to industry; they are merely taught to read and write; rarely do they attend to the mining department; they learn no trade, nor are they instructed in any useful employment: perhaps an ensign or a lieutenant of militia, would think it a disgrace to put his son apprentice to a mechanic. Suppose the father of this family to die when the sons have just attained the age of puberty. They are now for the first time obliged to think of providing for themselves. With little knowledge of the world, ill educated, and poor, they have learned to think all occupations servile, and their own is generally hateful to them. If they agree not to divide the negroes, it often happens that they run into debt, and continue in wretchedness; if they divide them, each takes his course, and adventures for himself, and in a short time, they are generally obliged to part with their slaves, and exist in indigence. Every useful pursuit and every comfort is neglected for the sake of seeking hidden treasures which very rarely are found, and which when found are as rarely employed to advantage, but rather serve to increase the wants of the owners.

Few, very few of the numerous class of miners from which the above instance is selected are rich, few are even comfortable; how wretched then must be the state of those who possess only eight or ten negroes, or whose property does not exceed three or four hundred pounds.

Thus situated in one of the finest climates in the world, with rich lands full of the finest timber, abounding in rivulets and water-falls in every direction, containing, besides precious minerals, iron ores, and almost every other useful product, the inhabitants of Brazil, though secured from absolute want, remain in indigence. It is true, the miner procures his gold by great labor, but this need not preclude him from improving his domestic condition. Were his hovel converted into a house, his slaves better fed and lodged, and his family better provided for, his whole affairs would receive a new impulse, and every part of his property would become doubly productive.

Negroes employed as Messengers.

One description of men whom I have omitted to mention before, are negroes employed as messengers by the various chiefs in the Capitania of Minas Geraes. The men selected for this employment are the most trusty and able-bodied that can be found. Their letters are locked up in a leathern bag, which they buckle round them, and never take off until they deliver its contents. They carry a gun and ammunition with them to defend themselves, as well as to provide themselves with food. Wherever they halt, they are sure of a kind and friendly reception, for nothing can exceed the cordiality with which the negroes welcome each other. These men are trusted on very important missions, and are despatched to every part of the Capitania. On urgent occasions, some of them have performed journeys with astonishing celerity. I was most credibly informed, that one of them had been known to travel seven hundred miles on a mountainous road in sixteen days, though that distance usually occupies twenty or twenty-one days. The men are generally tall, and of spare habit; they are accustomed to light food and long abstinence.

Diseases peculiar to the Country.

Of diseases I did not hear of any that were contagious, except Psora, which sometimes prevails among the lower orders, who rarely use any remedy against it, nor will they hear of sulphur, as they believe it to be fatal. Colds, attended with fever, are the most general complaints; but consumptions are rarely heard of. Among the miners, I saw no symptoms of elephantiasis, though that disease is so common in many other parts of Brazil, particularly on the sea-coast. The sciatica which afflicts travellers after long journeys on mules, is attributed by the people of the country to the bodily heat of those animals, which is much greater than that of horses, and communicates to the loins of the rider, occasioning almost constant excruciating pain, which frequently becomes chronic, and sometimes incurable. Being, on my return from the diamond district, much tormented with this complaint, I was naturally led to make inquiries on the subject, and was informed, that a person in the house where I then resided, had returned from a long journey in the same predicament, and was about to undergo the mode of cure commonly practised in the country. I was desirous of inquiring the nature of it, and begged to be introduced to him. On conversing with him, I found that his symptoms were similar to mine; he complained of great pain in the os sacrum, and down the left thigh to the knee, which afflicted him most when in bed, where he could not bear to lie in any posture for half an hour together, but was obliged to rise and wait until the warmth was abated, when he lay down again. Thus he could get no sleep night or day. On asking if he had tried any external application as a stimulus, he replied, that neither that nor any other remedy was of the smallest avail, except the one peculiar to the country. The operation was as follows:—The patient lay down on a bench with his back upwards, and a youth, twelve or fourteen years of age, knelt upon his loins, and continued to trample them (as it were) with his knees for about the space of half an hour, until the muscles were entirely bruised. In a few hours afterwards, the part became highly discolored. If one operation had not the desired effect, another, and even a third, would be had recourse to. It must be confessed, that this remedy, in removing one evil, occasions another; but the advantage is, that the latter is of short duration, whereas the former endures sometimes for life, and gives continual affliction. In some cases the remedy has been applied with success, but in others it has entirely failed.

On the Use of Mercury in the Mining Department.

The Government of Brazil would find it highly to their interest to promote the use of mercury in the gold district. The process of amalgamation is so simple, that there would be no difficulty in introducing it generally among miners; and it would save much time and labor in the last operation of washing, or what is called purifying.

Perhaps it may not be improper, in this place, to describe the method pursued in working the silver mines on the coast of Chili, which may be estimated to produce about a million of dollars annually. Some of these mines are full fifty yards deep; and we are told of one nearly as many fathoms. It is probable that they are sunk upon veins of ore; and they are so ill secured, that they frequently fill, and bury those within them. The metal is generally a sulphuret of silver with antimony, lead, and blende: it is brought up on the shoulders of wretched Indians, who descend and ascend by insecure posts with notches cut in them. They are total strangers to the operations of boring and blasting, and use only miserable hammers and wedges. The vein stuff with the metal is, in some places, reduced by means of a large stone, ill-constructed, rolling on its edge; in others, it is pounded by hand, and, when sufficiently fine, it is washed by several operations in a slovenly manner, until the metallic part alone remains, which is not unlike lead ore dust. This is formed into small heaps, perhaps about 100lb, to each of which are added about 20 or 25lb of muriate of soda[86]. This is triturated and worked both by hands and feet for three or four days. When the salt is judged to be sufficiently incorporated with the metal, mercury is used in the proportion of from five to ten per cent. and is triturated until it loses its globular form; to prove which, a small bit is rubbed upon a horn, or upon the thumb-nail, and if any globules appear, however minute, the trituration is continued until they totally disappear[87]. To this mixture the workmen frequently add filth, rags torn into small bits, &c. place crosses upon the heaps, and use many ridiculous ceremonies dictated by folly and a belief in necromancy. At length the mercury unites with the silver, and forms with it a paste-like mass separating itself from the remainder, which is thrown away. This mass is put into goat-skins, and, by twisting and squeezing, a great part of the mercury passes through, leaving a portion of nearly pure silver, which is afterwards melted. The remainder is sublimed by heat, and is condensed with more or less loss, according to the mode applied, and the skill of the operator. Some little gold is procured from some of the mines on this coast, by a similar process.

In this part of Chili, the state of society is wretched; gambling is a general vice, and assassinations are scarcely regarded as criminal. The greatest depredations are committed with impunity, nor do the crosses placed on the heaps protect them; so that, when a mine proves good, the hopes of the proprietor are often frustrated through the poverty and envy of his neighbours.

The copper mines of Guasco, Copiapo, and Coquimbo, are wretchedly worked, nor would it perhaps be safe to introduce other methods. The copper is smelted in a hearth with bellows and wood; and if, when it runs into cakes, it has the appearance of copper, they do not smelt it again, but if it is so covered and intermixed with slag as not to be known, it is broken up and undergoes a second smelting, when not unfrequently slag is placed so as to be in the centre. These, and other deceptions, have brought the trade into great discredit. The copper is sold from eight to eleven dollars per 104lb. It is considered a poor trade, though the Spaniards generally think the Chilian copper, and even the timber which serves for fuel, to be full of gold!!

Of the mines of Chili I have lately received a very particular account, from which it appears that they are not under any regulations, and are extremely ill worked. They are considered a very bad species of property; and almost every metallic vein hitherto discovered, whether worked or not, has numerous claimants, who are continually litigating with each other, so as totally to prevent their being worked to advantage. Chili contains abundance of copper, some lead, a little gold, a portion of silver, and a great quantity of iron, and would, in the possession of an industrious and civilized people, be, without doubt, very productive. The mines in Peru, on the contrary, are subject to regular laws, and the property is secured to its owner, particularly in Pasco, where they are now working to great advantage, under the control of liberal and enlightened men. It must be observed, that their proprietors are much richer than those of Chili, where numerous individuals claim what is scarcely worth being possessed by one. This state of things discourages adventurers; for who would erect an engine and free a mine, to be claimed by another? Society there is still in a wretched state; the miners are in the lowest state of indigence; and though paid for their work, it would be dangerous to prevent them from carrying some of the produce away as their own, thefts of this sort being very general in this province.

Several Cornish miners have lately been sent out, at very high wages, and under very flattering circumstances, but some disappointments have occurred in the undertaking to which they were destined. In the course of the year 1820, some Derbyshire miners, men of good character, were engaged to proceed to Chili for the purpose of instructing the natives in the various branches of their art. Since their arrival I have received very gratifying accounts from them, announcing that they have commenced their labors by clearing the mines of water, and that they have immense masses of silver to work upon, some lumps of which, weighing above 10lb. each, they have sent over as specimens.

THE END.

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