I brought with me the horse which had carried me as far as Rio Grande on my journey to Searà, and took several rides in the neighbourhood of the city, with an English gentleman who was residing there. The roads are extremely bad, even in the immediate vicinity of St. Luiz, and our usual practice was to ride several times round the open piece of ground upon which the barracks stand. Maranham is again in this respect far behind the place I had lately left; the number of country houses is small; the paths are few, and no care is taken of them. Notwithstanding this, several persons have carriages, which are of a form similar to those used in Lisbon, and not unlike the cabriolets drawn by a pair of horses, which are to be seen in France and Flanders. The horses that may be purchased at St. Luiz are small, and few of them are well formed. Grass is scarce, and the inducements to take exercise on horseback are so few, that the number of these animals upon the island is not considerable; this too may be one cause why fine horses are not to be met with there; for if a ready sale was found for the beasts of this description, some would, doubtless, be carried from Piauhi to Maranham, which might be done with almost as little difficulty as is experienced in conveying many of them from the interior of Pernambuco to Recife. An English gentleman with whom I was acquainted, arrived at Maranham, a short time after the opening of the trade to British shipping; he was riding in the vicinity of the city one afternoon, when he was accosted by an old woman, who said that she had heard of the arrival of an Englishman, and wished to know if it was true, as she was going to St. Luiz, and much desired to see this _bicho_ or animal. After some further conversation upon the subject, he told her that the _bicho_ she was speaking to, was the Englishman himself. Of the truth of this, some difficulty was found in persuading her; but when she was confident that it was so, she cried out, “_Ai tam bonito_,” O, how handsome. She expected to have been shown some horridly ugly beast, which it was dangerous to approach, and was consequently agreeably surprised to find that she was mistaken, and to see flesh and blood in human form, handsomely put together.