The Mamalucos are more frequently to be seen in the Sertam than upon the coast. They are handsomer than the mulattos; and the women of this cast particularly surpass in beauty all others of the country; they have the brown tint of mulattos, but their features are less blunt, and their hair is not curled. I do not think that the men can be said to possess more courage than the mulattos; but whether from the knowledge which they have of being of free birth on both sides, or from residing in the interior of the country where government is more loose, they appear to have more independence of character, and to pay less deference to a white man than the mulattos. When women relate any deed of danger that has been surmounted or undertaken, they generally state that the chief actor in it was a large mamaluco, _mamalucam_; as if they thought this description of men to be superior to all others. Mamalucos may enter into the mulatto regiments, and are pressed into the regiments of the line as being men of colour, without any regard to the sources from which their blood proceeds. Of the domesticated Indians I have already elsewhere given what accounts I could collect, and what I had opportunities of observing. The wild Indians are now only to be met with at a great distance from the coast of Pernambuco; and although they are very near to Maranham, and are dreaded neighbours, I had no means of seeing any of them. I now proceed to mention that numerous and valuable race of men, the creole negroes; a tree of African growth, which has thus been transplanted, cultivated, and much improved by its removal to the New World. The Creole negroes stand alone and unconnected with every other race of men, and this circumstance alone would be sufficient, and indeed contributes much to the effect of uniting them to each other. The mulattos, and all other persons of mixed blood wish to lean towards the whites, if they can possibly lay any claim to relationship. Even the mestizo tries to pass for a mulatto, and to persuade himself and others that his veins contain some portion of white blood, although that with which they are filled proceeds from Indian and negro sources. Those only who can have no pretensions to a mixture of blood, call themselves negroes, which renders the individuals who do pass under this denomination, much attached to each other, from the impossibility of being mistaken for members of any other cast. They are of handsome persons, brave and hardy, obedient to the whites, and willing to please; but they are easily affronted, and the least allusion to their colour being made by a person of a lighter tint, enrages them to a great degree; though they will sometimes say, “a negro I am, but always upright”[208]. They are again distinct from their brethren in slavery, owing to their superior situation as free men.