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southward, you will soon encounter the sturdy people of Saint Paul, Saint Catharine, and Rio Grande do Sul, who rival the terrible Gauchos of the Banda Oriental, and who may be considered the finest horsemen in the world. It was in this rude school that Garibaldi commenced his career. I saw a letter from the celebrated General, addressed to one of his old companions in arms, in which he regretted not having at his disposal a squadron of those centaurs of the wilderness to break the ranks of the Austrians.

One cannot remain long in Rio with- out being led to reflect upon the politi- cal and social future of the empire, of which this great city is to be the civilizing centre. Don Pedro I. gave Brazil a constitution strongly marked with the progressive spirit of the age, and which would insure the prosperity of the empire, if it were possible to rely upon the energy of the officials charged with administering the law. Unfortunately, in so vast an empire, without roads, and covered with impenetrable forests, strict government is almost impossible. On the other hand, among a mixture of races so different, a very high order of social habits cannot be expected. The towns upon the coast, constantly vivified by European contact, present every appearance of civilization. An attentive eye can nevertheless detect through this exterior the signs of deep depravity. Looseness of manners seem so natural to the country, that the Creoles themselves confess the fault, and attribute it to the influence of the climate. Travellers repeat this excuse, and to-day, in the eyes of the respectable world, the warm climate of the equator is the cause of all irregularities of conduct between the tropics. These two facile conclusions ought to be rejected, Far from provoking the development of the passions, the extreme heat would rather tend to moderate them.

The principal cause of the licentious character of South-American life has always seemed to me to lie in the system of slavery. What, in fact, is likely to happen with an opulent man, whose prejudices of caste keep him from every occupation, surrounded by a seraglio of two or three hundred negresses or women of color? Shamelessness attains its extreme limits on the plantations of the interior, where, the slave being accounted only as an animal, the Creole has no one to recall him to a sense of human dignity. Such examples naturally bear their fruit. The negro, proud of imitating the white man’s vices, exceeds him in them, and transmits them to his children, of whom he is the only preceptor. The abhorrence of labor, and the scorn that would be visited upon one who descended to such an occupation, is the first lesson, and we might say the only one the Brazilian is taught from the time he leaves the cradle. The consequences may easily be imagined. The slave will work only under the rod of the feitor, As for the freedmen, who wish to enjoy the privileges of the whites, they give themselves up to the most deplorable idleness.

A French traveller tells of a negro whom he had in his service, and whom, being slightly unwell, he released from all duty, directing him to take some medicine. In the evening, upon inquiring as to the effects of the remedy, the sick man gravely replied that he was unable to follow his prescription, as the Indian Firmiano, who acted as servant to the caravan, had not been to the rancho, and he therefore could get no water. A small stream ran directly before the door.

I regarded this anecdote as the best illustration of the prevalent disposition to idleness; but it was afterward my fortune to witness an instance no less singular. A negress who had just received her freedom, once chanced to be