From the mildness of the laws, however, the mixed casts have gained ground considerably; the regulations which exist against them are evaded, or rather they have become obsolete. Perhaps the heroic conduct of Camaram and Henrique Dias, the Indian and negro chieftains, in the famous and most interesting contest between the Pernambucans and the Dutch, and the honours subsequently granted by the crown of Portugal to both of them, may have led to the exaltation of the general character of the much-injured varieties of the human species of which they were members. Familiarity between the chieftains of the several corps must be the consequence of their embarkation in the same cause, when the war is one of skirmishes, of ambuscades, of continual alarm, of assistance constantly afforded to each other; a patriotic war, against a foreign invader, in which difference of religion exists, and each party mortally hates the other. On these occasions all men are equal, or he only is superior whose strength and whose activity surpasses that of others. The amalgamation of casts which is caused by this consciousness of equality could not have had a fairer field for its full accomplishment, than the war to which I have alluded; and the friendships which were formed under these circumstances would not easily be broken off. Although the parties who had been so united might have been, in their situations in life very far removed from each other, still the participation of equal danger must render dear the companions in peril, and make the feelings which had been roused on these occasions of long duration; they would continue to act, long after the cessation of the series of occurrences which had called them forth. The free population of Brazil at the present time consists of Europeans; Brazilians, that is, white persons born in Brazil; mulattos, that is, the mixed cast between the whites and blacks, and all the varieties into which it can branch; mamalucos, that is, the mixed cast between the whites and Indians, and all its varieties; Indians in a domesticated state, who are called generally Caboclos; and those who still remain in a savage state, and are called generally Tapuyas; negroes born in Brazil, and manumitted Africans; lastly, Mestizos, that is, the mixed cast between the Indians and negroes. Of slaves, I shall speak by and by more at large; these are Africans, creole negroes, mulattos, and mestizos. The maxim of the civil law, _partus sequitur ventrem_, is in force here as well as in the colonies of other nations.[199]