returned
to the condition from which, at so much risk and with so much labour,
they had been redeemed. Whatever where the motives of the Jesuits, they
are judged of in Brazil, not by them, but by their good works.
The
inhabitants of the town of Pernambuco resemble very much those of Rio,
but there is a great difference in the appearance of the country
people, which here, as elsewhere, are easily distinguished from the
citizens. Those seen in the streets of Rio de Janeiro are a tall
handsome race of men, mostly from the mining districts, or the more
southerly province of San Paulo; their dress consists of a linen jacket
and trowsers, generally of a blue colour, brown leather boots, which
are firmly tied round the leg a little above the knee, and a very high
crowned broad-brimmed white straw hat. Those, on the contrary, who
frequent the city of Pernambuco, are a more swarthy and more diminutive
race, but still far superior in appearance to the puny citizens. There
are two classes of them, the Matiito and the Sertanejo : the Matutos
inhabit the low flat country, which extends from the coast up to the
high land of the interior, called the Sertao, or desert, which gives
name to, and is inhabited by, the Sertanejos. The dress of both for the
most part, but of the latter in particular, consists of a low
round-crowned broad-brimmed hat, jacket, and trowsers, made of a
yellowish brown-coloured leather, that manufactured from the skin of
the different kinds of deer being preferred ; in place of a waistcoat
they very frequently wear a triangular piece of the same kind of
leather, fastened round the neck and middle by cords of the same
material. The boots in use in the province of Rio are unknown here, and
either shoes or slippers, also of brown leather, are worn instead. The
Matuto generally dispenses with the leather trowsers and shoes, using
in place of them a pair of wide cotton drawers, which reach only a
little below the knee, the legs remaining bare. Cotton and hides are
the principal articles brought from the interior, and horses are the
only beasts of burden, mules being as rarely used for that purpose
here, as horses are in the southern provinces. Each horse carries two
large bales of cotton as well as the driver, who
