evidently grew nearer. This time I rushed to the window. The day had begun to break, but I could only see a cart coming from the forest, drawn by three pair of oxen. Two blacks, armed with long goads, drove the team. One guided the first pair of oxen by the horns, and led the way; the other, leaning over the front of the cart, pricked the lazy animals. It was the guttural cries of the negroes, the bellowing of the stubborn cattle, and the squeaking of the heavy wheels that made all this noise—and all about drawing a few stalks of sugar-cane.
BRAZILLAN ROADS.
Roads are unknown in South-America. If it is necessary to open a passage through a forest, to transport the harvest, a gang of slaves are sent in the evening, who set a few trees on fire, cut a few impeding branches, and throw a little earth into the worst hollows. This work achieved, they return under the impression that they have made a road. During the night a storm comes on, which, in a few hours, floods the ground with immense torrents. These diluvian rains come down in streams, forming ravines in the road, if it is on inclined ground, washing away all the loose earth, and leaving impassable gullies. If the read crosses a basin, the water converges there from all parts of the forest, and by its accumulation changes it into a lake. Hence arise all the difficulties which make journeying into the interior of the new world so painful, and even impossible, without a large force of men and mules.[1]
A CURE FOR LAZY MULES
If the negroes are ignorant of the advantages of macadamized roads, they make up for it by their ingenuity in urging their nonchalant animals over difficult ground. If they have exhausted their stock of caresses, shouts, and blows, they leave the team and gather a few dry branches, which they place un- der the bellies of the quadrupeds and set on fire. It is an unfailing remedy, and one which I have also seen employed by Catalan muleteers.
NEGROES IN THE FIELDS—THE FEITOR.
As it was too late to repose any more, I determined to go out on the plantation and see the slaves at work. After half an hour's walk through fields once cultivated but now abandoned, I reached a little plateau covered with sugar-cane. About an hundred blacks were cutting the cane, and placing it in bundles on the carts that were to carry it to the mill. One feitor superintended the loading, and another the cutting. The latter, who generally attended to disciplinary matters, had a threatening aspect. He was a large, muscular mulatto, of brutal physiognomy, with sun-burnt skin. An old straw hat, linen pantaloons, and a striped shirt composed his raiment. At his waist was suspended an enormous palmatorium, (a species of large ferule for correcting minor faults.) Standing behind the man, his right hand clasping a long whip, and his eyes fixed on the group, he grumbled incessantly, making his line advance or fall back, like a drill-sergeant manœuvring a squad of infantry.
COOKING.
At a little distance, at the edge of the forest, three or four negresses, with their infants in sacks on their backs, were preparing food for the laborers. Two immense pots of angú (corn-soup) and another of feijão (haricots) rested on three rocks that supplied the place of andirons, and were cooking over a slow fire. The little negroes, too young to work in the field, supplied fuel and raked the fire. Each negress looked after the pot assigned to her, from time to time stirring the contents with an enormous ladle, to have it cooked uniformly, and, during spare moments, taking her babe from her back and giving it the breast. Calabashes, lying in heaps near the
- ↑ I have sometimes seen twenty pair of oxen panting with the effort of drawing a log that four European laborurs could have easily moved with levers.
