As regards the natural products of the Brazils, a great many of the
most necessary articles are wanting in the list. It is true that
there are sugar and coffee, but no corn, no potatoes, and none of
our delicious varieties of fruit. The flour of manioc, which is
mixed up with the other materials of which the dishes are composed,
supplies the place of bread, but is far from being so nutritious and
strengthening, while the different kinds of sweet-tasting roots are
certainly not to be compared to our potatoes. The only fruit, which
are really excellent, are the oranges, bananas and mangoes. Their
celebrated pine-apples are neither very fragrant nor remarkably
sweet; I certainly have eaten much finer flavoured ones that had
been grown in a European hot-house. The other kinds of fruit are
not worth mentioning. Lastly, with the two very necessary articles
of consumption, milk and meat, the former is very watery, and the
latter very dry.

On instituting a comparison between the Brazils and Europe, both
with respect to the impression produced by the whole, as also to the
separate advantages and disadvantages of each, we shall, perhaps, at
first find the scale incline towards the former country, but only to
turn ultimately with greater certainty in favour of the latter.

The Brazils is, perhaps, the most interesting country in the world
for travellers; but for a place of permanent residence I should most
decidedly prefer Europe.


I saw too little of the manners and customs of the country to be
qualified to pronounce judgment upon them, and I shall therefore, on