Beef And Mutton Were Cheap, But No
Great Quantity To Be Had.
We had fine pleasant weather most of the time
we were here, but hot like an oven, as the sun was quite vertical.
The
winds we did not much observe, as they were little and variable, but
commonly between the N. and E.
I had Neuhoff's account of Brazil on board, and from all the enquiry and
observation I could make, I found his description of the country, with
its animals and productions, to be just. I particularly enquired
respecting the monster called the liboya, or roebuck-serpent, thinking
it fabulous; but the Portuguese governor assured me that they are
sometimes found thirty feet long, and as big round as a barrel, being
able to swallow a roebuck at one morsel, whence it has its name; and he
told me that one of these enormous serpents had been killed near the
town, a short time before our arrival. The principal products of Brazil
are red wood, bearing the name of the country; sugar, gold, tobacco,
snuff, whale oil, and various kinds of drugs; and the Portuguese build
their best ships in this country. Brazil has now become very populous,
and the people take great delight in arms, especially about the gold
mines, to which people of all kinds resort in great numbers, especially
negroes and mulattoes. Only four years ago [in 1704] these people
endeavoured to make themselves independent, but have now submitted. Some
men of repute told me that the gold mines increase fast in
productiveness, and that the gold is got much easier in them than in any
other country.
The indigenous Brazilian women are very fruitful, and have easy labours,
on which occasion they retire into the woods, and bring forth alone, and
return home after washing themselves and their child; the husbands lying
a-bed for the first twenty-four hours, being treated as if they had
endured the pains of child-birth. The Tapoyers, who inhabit the inland
country to the west, are the most barbarous of the natives, being taller
and stronger than any of the other tribes, and indeed than most
Europeans. They wear, by way of ornament, little sticks thrust through
their cheeks and underlips, and are said to be cannibals, using poisoned
arrows and darts. They live chiefly by hunting and fishing, shifting
their habitations according to the seasons. Their kings, or chiefs, are
distinguished by a particular manner of shaving their crowns, and by
wearing their nails very long. Their priests are sorcerers, making the
people believe that the devils appear to them in the form of certain
insects, and they perform their diabolical worship in the night, when
the women make dismal howlings, in which consists their principal
devotion. They allow polygamy, yet punish adultery with death. When the
young women are marriageable, but not courted, their mothers carry them
to the chiefs, who deflower them, and this is deemed a great honour.
Some of these people were considerably civilized by the Dutch, while
they possessed a part of Brazil, and did them good service under the
conduct of their native chiefs.
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