Page:Knickerbocker 1864-11 64 5.pdf/36

my position; such a sum is a fortune to a poor man with a family on his hands.'

'I expected as much of you. I had been informed how it was, but never felt uneasy about you. I have long known that you were a true patriot, devoted to the triumph of the liberals, Here are a hundred milreis; now hasten and bring your comrades. Those ministerial fellows are not so scrupulous but that they would lure your men away while you are here.'

Mascarenhas took this second bundle of bills, carefully counted them, placed them along with the others, went out, and—proceeded home.

The next day the fazendeiro was raging, and would hear of nothing less than flogging Mascarenhas like a simple slave. He therefore despatched two stout feitors with orders to bring him, dead or alive, and made every thing ready for his punishment. The mulatto came without any hesitation, and with all the serenity of a quiet conscience and a well-filled stomach.

'You miserable rascal,' cried the master upon perceiving him, 'you have cheated every body, and kept your word with nobody! A good whipping shall teach you to play your tricks on me and my friends!'

'Your excellency is wrong in being angry with me,' answered the culprit, with imperturbable sang froid, 'I have done my duty. Your friend gave me a hundred milreis in the hope that I would vote in his favor. The opposition candidate, who was my own, also gave me a hundred milreis on condition that I should give the votes to him. If I had voted for one, I should have betrayed the other, and you know Masedrenhas is a man of honor. There only remained one thing for me to do, and that was to remain neutral, Would your excellency have done differently if you had been in my place?'

The fazendeiro in question, was a man very fond of wit, and could not help laughing at this strange logic. The matter ended here; but the senhor made up his mind that in future he would take his men to the polls himself. As for the illustrious convives who, on the day of the banquet, wanted to go and vote in the middle of the night, it is needless to say that their electoral enthusiasm vanished with the last fumes of cachaça, and that not one of them went to the village, Mascarenhas, who knew whom he had to deal with, thought it best to keep the hog and other provisions of the fazendeiro for his own use.

If we now cast a final glance upon the country taken as a whole; if we observe the results of the occupation of Brazil by the Portuguese race, what inferences are we to draw? It is painful for me to be severe upon a brave people, who have shown themselves for more than a century to be in the vanguard of the Latin races; but it is indeed hardly possible to eulogize the southern peninsula of the New World when compared with North-America. What a difference, for example, between the railroads that streak the United States, and the picadas of the South-American forests! What a contrast between New-York and Rio Janeiro! On the one hand, human activity is carried to its utmost limits; on the other, is seen the most superb indifference, the people contenting themselves with producing a few hogsheads of sugar, and a few arrobes of coffee. Let not the influences of climate be invoked as an excuse. Louisiana is as enervating as Para, and the mouths of the Mississippi are as unhealthy as those of the Amazon. The causes lie deeper; they are to be found in the stolid genius of the Portuguese—that mixture of Arabic fatalism and Iberic asperity suited to the ages of chivalry, but incompatible with industry and science, As soon as the first fever of occupation was over, the conquistadores no longer thought of any thing but to enjoy their promised land in peace. Their descendants