Of the aboriginal inhabitants of this vast country, curious accounts were written by the first Portuguese explorers. They were reported to be partly nomadic, and to live chiefly on fish and fruit, and on the game which they killed in their forests with bows and arrows. They wore little or no clothes, and generally painted their bodies, and some tribes used to smear themselves with gum, and stick beautiful feathers all over them, which made them look at a distance more like great birds than human beings. They grew no corn, but made cakes of cassava root, and used to drink either the pressed juice of fruit or an intoxicating liquor made from honey. They understood how to spin and weave, and build huts; they were great smokers of tobacco, and had some knowledge of the usefulness of the medicinal herbs and drugs which abound in Brazil. Their country, though fertile, seemed destitute of everything of value to Europeans, and it was at first thought that the discovery of Cabral would in no way contribute to the wealth or prosperity of the Portuguese people.
So firmly was this believed, and so absorbed were the king, nobles, and people of Portugal in their Asiatic explorations and conquests, that for many years no attempt was made to form settlements in South America, and no effort to explore the interior of the continent. Two royal ships only for a long time were despatched to Brazil every year to take out and land there condemned convicts and women of bad character, and to bring back parrots and different varieties of wood, notably the brazil wood which gave the new country its popular name. A few families of settlers, partly from Madeira and partly from northern Portugal, also went out on their own account, and established themselves in various chosen spots, where they introduced agriculture and tried in vain to make the natives work for them as slaves. No attempt was made by the Portuguese monarch to superintend these infant settlements, or to decree any form of government for the stray colonists and convicts, who did what seemed good in their own eyes, and in many instances treated the natives with the utmost severity. While soldiers, governors, and officials were despatched in numbers to Asia, there was no thought taken of America; and as one instance of the manner in which Brazil was treated, it may be mentioned that the importation of ginger from that country was prohibited in order not to infringe the Indian monopoly.