It unfortunately happened that the Portuguese sent to this magnificent province were of the lowest description, and who, on finding themselves in so luxuriant a locality, gave way forthwith to incurable indolence. Bishop Brandam draws a dark picture of their mode of life, and a still darker one of that of their slaves. There was a brighter side, however, to the picture of society as it existed at this time at _Pará_. The establishment of a wealthy colonist was so extensive as often to exceed in number the population of a town. For instance, that of Joam de Mores included more than three hundred persons, thirty sons or daughters, with their children, sitting down every day at the family dinner-table. The estate contained a pottery, a sugar-plantation, and several nurseries of cacao. The negroes were treated like children, and were well looked after. Such treatment of slaves, however, in this province, was the exception. Passing to the adjoining captaincy of _Maranham_, _S. Luiz_ was accounted the fourth city of _Brazil_ in commercial importance, the number of ships leaving it annually towards the close of the century being nearly thirty, the result of the cultivation of rice and cotton. The population of the city was estimated at twelve thousand. The Carmelites, the Mercenarios, and the Franciscans had each a convent here. The opulent merchants possessed large estates and numerous slaves, some of them having as many as a thousand or fifteen hundred. _Alcantara_, on the opposite side of the bay, was a large and prosperous town, as was _Guimaraens_, ten leagues to the north. The interior of the province was ill peopled. Many rivers enter the sea in this captaincy, some of which are navigable for a considerable way, and the banks of all of which are more or less peopled. The most important of these is the _Itapacura_, the territory between which and the _Paraïba_ was in great part peopled by a population of European blood or by domesticated Indians, by means of whom large quantities of rice and cotton were raised.