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brother stole more than I did. A little medicine, if you please.'

'You have not told me all?'

'I stole, too, with my companion Antonio, half an arrobe of carns seca, the last time I went with the tropeiros, (conductors of caravans,) but that was a long time ago. A little of the remedy, senhor, or I shall die!'

'And the leitões, (young pigs,) you say nothing about them, inferno!'

'The leitões, senhor; it was not I, it was my neighbor, Coelho, who gave me a piece.'

'Ah! it was you who stole the senhor's leitões,' instantly thundered the feitor, turning to another sufferer. 'And how many did you take? Tell me with out a single lie, if you do not want a hundred lashes instead of the medicine.'

'Senhor, I never stole any but once; it was my companion Januario and his brother who stole all the rest.'

Onça had spoken the truth. The thieves were many, and he had the talent to make them confess their crime. He came the next day, with a proud air, to claim his supply of cachaça.

Notwithstanding the cares of the plantation, the diversions of the chase, and the flow of strangers traversing the plantations, life is here quite monotonous, Hence, the occasion of a marriage, a birth, or any other family festival, is eagerly seized upon as a time for rejoicing. One day, finding myself on a rich plantation in the province of Minas, I was invited, by the head of the house, to be present at his anniversary, which was to be celebrated the next day. He was a grand old man, still active and inured to fatigue. After showing me the various buildings on his estate, he took me into the garden back of the mansion, where we seated ourselves upon a bench in the shadow of a thick cluster of young trees, and I soon became interested in his conversation.

'You see, senhor,' said he to me, 'all these buildings and plantations. Forty years ago there was nothing here but forests, as ancient as the world. It was I who cut the first tree and planted the first foot of coffee. I came here alone. The first few years were rude. I took my harvests to town myself like a simple tropeiro, and got slaves in exchange. Those were good times. I could get a strong robust negro for two hundred milreis, ($100,) while at present one has to pay two or three contos of reis.^[1]

The number of hands increased each year, and my crops also increased, and I now make, taking one year with another, two hundred contos of reis, ($100,000.) Moreover, my slaves are well fed and well treated; but they know they must work, and that I never joke on that subject. Hence they obey me on the first signal. Would you like an example? 'Antonio! Antonio! here!' he cried in a stentorian voice, to a negro who was hoeing a field of maize at the extremity of the garden.

At the first sound of that redoubtable voice, the poor wretch dropped his spade that he might move more quickly, and ran toward us. But at every step the plants entangled his legs, which labor and years had deprived of elasticity.

'Acá ladrão!' (here, you thief!) repeated his master in a still severer voice and with more imperative gestures; and, continuing in this tone, he exhausted on his poor slave all the imprecations of the Portuguese dictionary, so rich in epithets applied to the black man. It was enough to petrify a negro endowed with the most Christian resignation.

Thinking his last hour had come, Antonio took refuge behind me, uttering heart-rending exclamations.

'Senhor!—bencão! (benediction!)—Jesus Christo!—nhonor! (my dear sir!)—perdido! (I am lost!)—nossa Senhora!' (Holy Virgin!) etc.

His scarcely articulate ejaculations were accompanied with contortions no