brief ceremonies concluded the devotional exercise. The padre sat down to gamble at cards, and some of the females danced not ungracefully with the castinets. The waste lands I had seen on this and other excursions were satisfactorily accounted for, by the circumstances arising out of an attempt made by a friend of mine to purchase about twenty acres, situated upon the margin of the bay, four miles by water and eight by land from the city. Its cultivation had extended no further than the employment one solitary slave could give it; a few patches of mandioca were visible, and two rows of fruit trees, from the eminence on which a clay tenement stood, formed a pathway towards the bay. Nine hundred milreas (upwards of two hundred pounds) was the sum demanded for the everlasting possession of it, subject to the payment of a fine of five pounds per annum to a lady, whose assent to the transfer was required, and could be immediately obtained. My friend determined to be the purchaser, and called upon the donna, to ascertain under what circumstances the five pounds were to be paid. She had no objections to his becoming the purchaser; but said, she thought the sum demanded was too much, and that she would send in a person to value the _bemfeitoras_; that is, what produce might be upon the ground, if the party wished to sell it. He found, therefore, in place of its being a free purchase, this lady had the full controul over the property, in case of the occupier wishing to dispose of it. He would have purchased her five pounds fine; that she would on no account part with, and further stated, that, for every two slaves more that he employed, he must pay five pounds more fine. The present holder was only to work it with two. The object of this would seem to be, that, in the event of its being disposed of, she would not have so many _bemfeitoras_ to take. This gentleman would have expended a considerable sum, and have brought the land into a state of fine cultivation, if he could have retained it in his own possession, and that of his successors in perpetuity; but, if circumstances compelled him to part with it, this donna, by the Brazilian laws, would have had the preference; and two people, appointed for the purpose, would have been sent to value the produce standing upon the ground, without regard to improvement of times, or the amelioration of the soil; and, in consequence of this fine, she would have unfairly regained possession of the property for a mere bagatelle. This being the state of the case, my friend immediately declined any further treaty upon the subject. This donna and two sisters, all spinsters, possess a most extensive range of land, the whole under similar circumstances, and nearly in the same condition that it was left by the Indians. The parties occupying it live upon the produce of fruit sold at market, and a little mandioca. Under the present system of landed tenure, it will remain covered with wild grass till doomsday.