The estates belonging to the monastic orders might boast of a similar stability. Their slaves, likewise, were never parted with; and the treatment of these was so paternal that corporal punishment was neither needed nor thought of. Amongst the smaller proprietors, most of which class were of mixed blood, the condition of slavery was alleviated by the fact that master and slave were employed in the same work, and partook of the same food. That food consisted in the last century, as it does to-day, of jerked beef, salt fish, and mandioc flour. It was further alleviated by the nature of the religious services in which the half-coloured masters and their slaves took part, both worshipping at the shrine of the same Virgin Mary, who was depicted as a negress. In _Pernambuco_ there were two regiments of pure blacks, entitled, respectively, the Old and New Henriques, in honour of Henrique Diaz, whose services will be remembered in the Pernambucan War; there were likewise mulatto regiments. It is remarkable that the gipsies should have found their way into this province, where they preserve themselves intact from other parts of the population. The wild Indians of this province were, at the close of the century, well-nigh extinct. The population of _Bahia_ was estimated, at the close of last century, at one hundred thousand souls, two-thirds of whom were mulattoes or negroes. It abounded in convents, nunneries, and other religious establishments; but it likewise possessed public tribunals, and professors of the liberal languages and sciences, as well as a theatre and a mint. It is singular that this city should have been without a single inn; but this circumstance becomes the less remarkable when it is considered that its communication lay wholly with Portugal and with Portuguese, who must have come to it provided with letters of introduction. There were empty lodgings to be hired, as well as eating-houses and coffee-shops. The chief port of this magnificent bay presented a constant scene of animation, eight hundred launches and boats of different sizes arriving daily. Most of these, it is said, were laden with fruits and flowers. But the port was the centre of trades of various descriptions. There was in the neighbourhood a whale-fishery; there was a sugar-plantation in the interior, which, in the _Reconcave_, contained the richest and most populous portion of _Brazil_. This term included the whole sweep of this bay, varying in breadth from twelve to forty miles. One of its largest towns contained, at the beginning of this century, one thousand and eighty-eight families. Its neighbourhood produced copper, and likewise a plant that supplied the place of hemp or flax.