We are naturally led to imagine, that, in a country where mines of gold and diamonds are found, the riches of the inhabitants must be immense, and their condition most enviable; the Portuguese themselves, who reside in the mining districts, encourage this supposition; and whenever they go to Rio de Janeiro, do not fail to make all possible show and parade. But let us view them in the centre of their wealth; and as a fair criterion of the middling classes of society, let us select a man possessing a property of fifty or sixty negroes, with datas of gold mines, and the necessary utensils for working them. The negroes alone are worth, at the low valuation of 100 milreis, a sum equal to £1,200, or £1,500 sterling; the datas and utensils, though of value, need not be taken into the account. Suppose this man to be married, and to have a family: What is the state of their domestic concerns, their general way of life? May I be allowed to describe them in the language which truth dictates, without exaggeration or extenuation? Their dwelling scarcely merits the name of a house; it is the most wretched hovel that imagination can describe, consisting of a few apartments built up to each other without regularity; the walls wicker-work, filled up with mud; a hole left for a frame serves as a window, or a miserable door answers that purpose. The cracks in the mud are rarely filled up; and in very few instances only have I seen a house repaired. The floors are of clay, moist in itself, and rendered more disagreeable by the filth of its inhabitants, with whom the pigs not unfrequently dispute the right of possession. Some ranchos, it is true, are built upon piles; and underneath are the stables, &c.; these are certainly a little superior to the former. They are built so from necessity, where the ground is uneven or swampy; but it may be easily conceived, that the disagreeable effects produced by want of cleanliness, must in these instances be increased by the effluvia from the animals underneath, which I have frequently found intolerable.
The furniture of the house is such as might be expected from the description above given. The beds are very coarse cotton cases, filled with dry grass, or the leaves of Indian corn. There are seldom more than two in a house; for the servants generally sleep upon mats, or dried hides laid on the floor. The furniture consists of one or two chairs, a few stools and benches, one table, or perhaps two, a few coffee-cups and a coffee-pot of silver; a silver drinking cup, and, in some instances, a silver wash-hand basin, which, when strangers are present, is handed round, and forms a striking contrast to the rest of the utensils.
The general diet of the family consists of the same articles which have already been particularized in treating of S. Paulo. The only beverage is water; and nothing can be more frugal than the whole economy of the table. So intent is the owner on employing his slaves solely in employments directly lucrative, that the garden, on which almost the entire subsistence of the family depends, is kept in the most miserable disorder.
In the article of dress, they do not appear more extravagant than in that of food. The children are generally naked; the youths go without shoes, in an old jacket, and cotton trowsers; the men in an old capote or mantle wrapped around them, and wooden clogs, except when they go from home; and, on those occasions, they appear in all their splendor, forming as great a contrast to their domestic attire, as the gaudy butterfly does to the chrysalis from which it springs.
It might be expected, that however penuriously the general concerns of the family were conducted, at least some degree of attention and expense would be bestowed on the dress of the females; for the test of civilization among all nations is the regard paid to the fair sex, on whom the happiness of domestic life depends. Yet the general poverty and meanness of their attire is such, that they reluctantly appear before any one, except the individuals of their own family.
In short, in all those departments of domestic economy, which to the middle classes of other civilized nations are objects of expense, the Brazilians exercise the most rigid parsimony. At first, I was inclined to attribute this disposition to a love of money, which prompted them to avoid all extravagance; but, on closer observation, I was surprised to find that it originated in necessity. They generally take credit for the few articles they have to purchase, and sometimes find it difficult to maintain their negroes. If they purchase a mule, it is to be paid for at the end of one or two years, and, of course, at double its ordinary price.
In such a family as that above described, the sons, as might be expected, are not brought up to industry; they are merely taught to read and write; rarely do they attend to the mining department; they learn no trade, nor are they instructed in any useful employment: perhaps an ensign or a lieutenant of militia, would think it a disgrace to put his son apprentice to a mechanic. Suppose the father of this family to die when the sons have just attained the age of puberty. They are now for the first time obliged to think of providing for themselves. With little knowledge of the world, ill educated, and poor, they have learned to think all occupations servile, and their own is generally hateful to them. If they agree not to divide the negroes, it often happens that they run into debt, and continue in wretchedness; if they divide them, each takes his course, and adventures for himself, and in a short time, they are generally obliged to part with their slaves, and exist in indigence. Every useful pursuit and every comfort is neglected for the sake of seeking hidden treasures which very rarely are found, and which when found are as rarely employed to advantage, but rather serve to increase the wants of the owners.
Few, very few of the numerous class of miners from which the above instance is selected are rich, few are even comfortable; how wretched then must be the state of those who possess only eight or ten negroes, or whose property does not exceed three or four hundred pounds.
Thus situated in one of the finest climates in the world, with rich lands full of the finest timber, abounding in rivulets and water-falls in every direction, containing, besides precious minerals, iron ores, and almost every other useful product, the inhabitants of Brazil, though secured from absolute want, remain in indigence. It is true, the miner procures his gold by great labor, but this need not preclude him from improving his domestic condition. Were his hovel converted into a house, his slaves better fed and lodged, and his family better provided for, his whole affairs would receive a new impulse, and every part of his property would become doubly productive.
