In the XIX Century, in a world without Internet, radio or television books about distant and exotic lands were very popular. Because of the travel opportunities that they have, ship captains wrote a lot of this kind of books. This is one of them. Wrote in 1867, it relates the views and experiences of Captain John Codman from Boston during his stay in Brazil while working in coast trade in this country. It is a very interesting book about XIX Century Brazil giving an accurate picture of the country from a foreigner point of view. Many parts of the book regard the slavery question that at that time was still legal in Brazil. It also contains some short notice about the Paraguayan war that was raging at that time with Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay allied against Paraguay.