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picturesque site rose the convent of the Company of Jesus, now the palace of the President and hall of the Chamber of Deputies. The double-storeyed frontage, tasteless and almost barbarous, as indeed appear to be all the architectural efforts of the Jesuits in the Brazil, formed two sides of the main square. On the north was the habitation of the Fathers; to the east, at right angles, stood the modest church of the Order, with its short and substantial belfry. Behind their long and rambling building the riverine valley-banks were planted with fruit-trees, especially the orange, the guava, and the delicious Jaboticába-myrtle. From this vantage-ground the eye ranged across the valley of the Tiété, bound on the east by the heights which bear the Penha church, and on the north by the Serra da Cantereira—"of the potter's wife"—the last offsets of the great and famous Mantiqueira range.

In those days the population consisted of about three thousand souls; a few were pure Portuguese, some were "Mamelucos" or half-breeds, white and Indian; others were mulattoes and negro slaves, whilst the majority were free and catechised aborigines. Already the monastic orders had built for themselves houses; the most important, however, was the Institute of Saint Ignatius de Loyola; and stringent orders from the home-capital had recommended to the authorities, civil and military, the support and protection of the Jesuits as the apostles of the Indians and the firmest stays of the altar and the throne.

The several classes were distinguished by their professions and habits. The Portuguese, either born in Europe or in the Brazil, busied themselves with commerce and barter, with building houses and laying out plantations, and with similar primitive industries; the slaves were confined to husbandry and to personal services. Although held the least respectable of all classes, the "Mamelucos" were the audacious explorers of the far western wilds. They con-