In Rio and the other large towns, they always make their appearance when strangers call, but such is not the case in most parts of the interior; there they still remain shy, but with an abundance of curiosity. I have lived for a week at a time in houses where I was well aware there were ladies, without ever seeing more of them than their dark eyes peering through the chinks about the doors of the inner apartments. In the distant province of Goyaz, Matto-Grosso, and Piauhy, nearly all classes of them are as much addicted to the use of the pipe as the men. It is but very seldom that native Indians are to be seen in Rio; I was several months in the country before I saw one. The brown boatmen, in the harbour, who have been taken for Indians, are, as Spix and Martius have already observed, mulattoes of various shades of colour. Much has been written on slavery as it exists in Brazil. It is a subject of great importance, and demands a much greater amount of observation than has generally occurred to those who have written on it at greatest length. Those have mostly been voyagers, _en passant_, who have derived their knowledge from others, and not from personal observation. The most ridiculous stories are told by the European residents to strangers on their arrival, as I well know from personal experience. One of the more recent works on Brazil, which on its appearance was the most accredited in Europe, is, perhaps, the least to be depended on. I have good authority for stating that the author noted down every statement that was made to him, however extraordinary, without the slightest examination as to its truth. More than one individual has informed me, that at dinner parties, they have heard persons present, who were more famed for their wit than their veracity, cramming him with information about Brazil, which, in truth, was worse than no information at all; but everything seemed to be acceptable, and was immediately entered in his note-book.