We hired them at a sixteen-yard piece of cloth a month--about ten shillings' worth, the Portuguese market-price of the cloth being then sevenpence halfpenny a yard,--and paid them five pieces each, for four- and-a-half months' work.

A merchant at the same time paid other Mazaro men three pieces for seven months, and they were with him in the interior.

If the merchants do not prosper, it is not because labour is dear, but because it is scarce, and because they are so eager on every occasion to sell the workmen out of the country.

Our men had also received quantities of good clothes from the sailors of the "Pioneer" and of the "Orestes," and were now regarded by their neighbours and by themselves as men of importance.

Never before had they possessed so much wealth: they believed that they might settle in life, being now of sufficient standing to warrant their entering the married state; and a wife and a hut were among their first investments.