To transport passengers, slaves, or merchandise from one settlement to another, or in fishing; they make use of bark-logs, by the Brazilians called jingadahs: they are made of four pieces of timber (the two outermost longest) pinned and fastened together, and sharpened at the ends: towards each extremity a stool is fixed to sit on for paddling, or holding by, when the agitation is more than ordinary; with these odd sort of engines, continually washed over by the water, do these people, with a little triangular sail spreeted about the middle of it, venture out of sight of land, and along the coasts for many leagues, in any sort of weather; and if they overset with a squall (which is not uncommon) they swim and presently turn it up right again.
The natives are of the darkest copper colour, with thin hair, of a square strong make, and muscular; but not so well looking as the woolly generation: they acquiesce patiently to the Portuguese government, who use them much more humanly and Christian-like than the Dutch did, and by that means have extended quietness and peace, as well as their possessions, three or four hundred miles into the country. A country abounding with fine pastures and numerous herds of cattle, and yields a vast increase from everything that is sown: hence they bring down to us parrots, small monkeys, armadillos and sanguins, and I have been assured, they have, (far inland,) a serpent of a vast magnitude, called siboya, able, they say, to swallow a whole sheep; I have seen myself here the skin of another specie full six yards long, and therefore think the story not improbable.
The harbour of Pernambuco is, perhaps, singular, it is made of a ledge of rocks, half a cables length from the main, and but little above the surface of the water, running at that equal distance and height several leagues, towards Cape Augustine, a harbour running between them capable of receiving ships of the greatest burden: the northernmost end of this wall of rock, is higher than any part of the contiguous line, on which a little fort is built, commanding the passage either of boat or ship, as they come over the bar into the harbour: on the starboard side, (i.e. the main) after you have entered a little way, stands another fort (a pentagon) that would prove of small account, I imagine, against a few disciplined men; and yet in these consists all their strength and security, either for the harbour or town: they have begun indeed a wall, since their removing from Olinda, designed to surround the latter; but the slow progress they make in raising it, leaves room to suspect ’twill be a long time in finishing.
The road without, is used by the Portuguese, when they are nigh sailing for Europe, and wait for the convoy, or are bound to Bahia to them, and by strangers only when necessity compels; the best of it is in ten fathom water, near three miles W. N. W. from the town; nigher in, is foul with the many anchors lost there by the Portuguese ships; and farther out (in 14 fathom) corally and rocky. July is the worst and winter season of this coast, the trade winds being then very strong and dead, bringing in a prodigious and unsafe swell into the road, intermixed every day with squalls, rain, and a hazey horizon, but at other times serener skies and sunshine.
In these southern latitudes is a constellation, which from some resemblance it bears to a Jerusalem cross, has the name of crosiers, the brightest of this hemisphere, and are observed by, as the North Star is in northern latitudes; but what I mention this for, is, to introduce the admirable phenomenon in these seas of the Magellanic clouds, whose risings and sittings are so regular, that I have been assured, the same nocturnal observations are made by them as by the stars; they are two clouds, small and whitish, no larger in appearance than a man’s hat, and are seen here in July in the latitude of 8° S. about in the morning; if their appearance should be said to be the reflection of light, from some stellar bodies above them, yet the difficulty is not easily answered, how these, beyond others, become so durable and regular in their motions.
From these casual observations on the country, the towns, coast, and seas of Brazil, it would be an omission to leave the subject, without some essay on an interloping slave trade here, which none of our countrymen are adventurous enough to pursue, though it very probably, under a prudent manager, would be attended with safety and very great profit; and I admire the more it is not struck at, because ships from the southern coast of Africa, don’t lengthen the voyage to the West Indies a great deal, by taking a part of Brazil in their way.
The disadvantages the Portuguese are under for purchasing slaves, are these, that they have very few proper commodities for Guinea, and the gold, which was their chiefest, by an edict in , stands now prohibited from being carried thither, so that the ships employed therein are few, and insufficient for the great mortality and call of their mines; besides, should they venture at breaking so destructive a law, as the abovementioned (as no doubt they do, or they could make little or no purchase) yet gold does not raise its value like merchandise in travelling (especially to Africa) and when the composition with the Dutch is also paid, they may be said to buy their Negroes at almost double the price the English, Dutch, or French do, which necessarily raises their value extravagantly at Brazil; (those who can purchase one, buying a certainer annuity than South-Sea stock.)
Thus far of the call for slaves
