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The creole frequently goes to play cards with his neighbor, under the pretext of making a visit. Play is the dominant passion of the South-Americans. Gaming often absorbs their incomes, to the great detriment of the roads, canals, railroads, and, in a word, the prosperity of the country.

One of the varieties of gaming is the lottery that leprosy bequeathed to the New World by the conquistadores, and which is represented by the bilheteiro.

The bilheteiro, or ticket-dealer, is a young man; in fact, only a young man would be equal to the exigencies of such an arduous vocation. As soon as a lottery is organized, the bilheteiro mounts his horse, and travels by night and day, in summer and winter, supporting the fiery rays of the sun and the glacial chill of a pouring rain in the same day's travel, and scarcely halts for several consecutive weeks, except for a few minutes to offer his tickets and refresh himself with a little rice or feijão. It might be said that a good share of the money of the country is swallowed up in his portfolio. When he appears at the door of a house, all press around him as if he were the dispenser of good fortune. They inquire the name of the lucky winner in the last lottery, and hasten to secure new tickets. These being exhausted, he returns to the town, draws the lottery, and forthwith sets out upon a new expedition. Such a life wears him out rapidly. He dies at a premature age, racked with rheumatic pains, his legs tormented by elephantiasis, too frequently the result of his excessive fatigues and disregard of the laws of health. The believers in retribution on earth might see in this early death the just punishment of the bilheteiro's misdeeds, who keeps open a veritable moral ulcer in the country; but his career, to speak the truth, does not always end so sadly. Traversing all the estates for fifty leagues around, he takes note, in passing, of the rich mulatto women and of the widows of a certain age, who cannot pretend to the noble heirs of the fazendeiros. He selects the one who seems best adapted to him, endeavors to captivate her by attractive manners, gives up his profession as soon as he is married, and becomes a planter. Unfortunately for him, his marriage is also a lottery, the tickets of which are much contested for.

In spite of the vigilance of the master, a plantation, whatever its importance, could not subsist, were it not for a personage whose title we have already frequently mentioned—the feitor. The feitor is the confidential man of the fazendeiro, and the terror of the slave. A hybrid being, he reminds one, at the same time, of an adjutant of barracks and the guard of a prison-gang. Springing from the conquistador and the negro, he has inherited the ferocity of the one and the animality of the other. Hence he performs his duties with a quiet conscience and without remorse. At the first light of day he sounds the reveille, calls the roll of the men, and takes them to their work. He has for lieutenant another mulatto, darker than himself, who oversees the slaves in his absence, and performs the part of executioner when a negro has rendered himself amenable to disciplinary punishment. A long whip in his hand, and a large wooden rod in his belt, are the insignia of his position. While he supervises the work, the feitor mounts a horse, visits the other plantations, returns and makes his report to the fazendeiro. After breakfast he goes back to the fields to see that every thing is in order, and reposes beneath a rancho when the sun is too hot, and his duty does not call him elsewhere. If the day seems to pass away too slowly, he returns to the field, casts a wild eye around on the black herd, whose forms are relieved by labor and perspiration, beckons to a woman who attracts his attention, and again retires to the