XCI.

BOOK the grape yields a delicious wine, but the people in the gold and diamond districts drink water and neglect their vineyards. The cattle are turned out on the open tracts, and left to subsist on whatever they can find; in the summer months, when the grass throughout the wide extent is withered and burnt, they flock to the margins of brooks; but this resource soon fails them, and vast numbers perish from hunger. The forests in this province are still unexplored, and the uses to which the trees might be applied are consequently unknown. Many of them are well adapted for dying and tanning; but the inhabitants are averse to employments of this nature, and these arts have hitherto made little progress. The Adraganth or dragon's gum in this district is of the best quality. The sugar cane grows in a wild state; the roads are covered with arcades, formed by its branches, which reach in many places to the height of thirty feet.

Comarcas

and Towns.

Minas Geraes is divided into the following comarcas, St. Joao del Rey, Sabara, Villa Rica, and Cerro del Frio. St. Joao del Rey is better cultivated than any of the rest, and it is for that reason called the granary of the province. The actual state of Villa Rica forms a striking contrast to its pompous name. It is built on two hills on the banks of the Rio do Carmo, which runs between the lofty Itacolmi and the Morro de Villa Rica. The city has of late years been improved; it is supplied with good water by means of fourteen wells, and adorned with many fountains. The principal street along the declivity of the Morro is about half a league in length; the others are irregularly built and ill paved. The climate of Villa Rica has been much praised; it is not, from its elevated situation, exposed to excessive heat. The thermometer seldom reaches above 82° in the shade, and falls rarely below 48°; its usual range is from 64° to 80° in summer, and from 48° to 70° in winter. The population of Villa Rica amounts to 20,000 souls, and the inhabitants are chiefly employed in commerce; its artisans are celebrated throughout Brazil; but to prevent government from being defrauded, and

for the better security of the royal fifths, the trade of a goldsmith has been strictly prohibited.

BOOK

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against

The road from this place to San Paulo passes by way Roads. of San Joao del Rey, that to Bahia by Minas Novas; a third has been made to Paracutu, and two others to Goyaz and Matto-Grosso by Tejuco and Malhada; but none of them is so much frequented as the one to Rio Janeiro, which is seventy miles distant.* Mariana is a neatly built town on the banks of the Rio do Carmo, about three leagues from Villa Rica; it is chiefly peopled by miners, and contains six or seven thousand inhabitants. A royal mint has been erected in the small town of Villa do Principe on the confines of Cerro do Frio. No traveller is permitted to enter the town until he has submitted to a very tedious examination at the customhouse. Not many years past, a muleteer was overtaken Severity of on the road to Rio Janeiro by two dragoons, who made the laws him surrender his fowling-piece, in which he had con- smugglers. Icealed three hundred carats of diamonds. This man had communicated his secret to a person who betrayed him for the sake of a paltry reward; for this crime the poor muleteer was condemned to pass the rest of his life. in a loathsome prison among felons and murderers. Tejuco, the residence of the intendant-general of the diamond mines, is situated in an unfruitful district; its provisions are brought from a distance, and sold for a high price. The inhabitants are poor, and many of them depend solely for a Inhabitsubsistence on the charity of their neighbours. The gold and Tejuco. diamonds found in the district are conveyed every month to the treasury. The agents and clerks of government live in affluence, while the people can hardly provide themselves with the necessaries of life. The Capitania of Goyaz is Province of bounded by Minas Geraes on the east, Matto-Grosso on Goyaz, the west, and Para on the north. This fine district, on account of its inland situation, is seldom visited; its rivers are well stocked with fish, and its woods abound with

ants of

BOOK

XCI.

Government of Bahia.

Produc tions.

Chief town of the pro

game. But it is thinly peopled, and its inhabitants are scattered over a great extent of territory. Some of the mines are rich in gold; but the diamonds, although larger, are not of so pure a water as those in Cerro do Frio. Cotton is cultivated near the frontiers, and exported to Rio Janeiro, with other articles of less importance. The rivers that flow through this province, Matto-Grosso, S. Paulo and Para, though broken by cataracts, are navigable in many places. Villa-Boa, the capital of the district, is built in a low situation on the banks of the Vermelho; all the gold obtained from the mines in Goyaz is permuted at the smelting house in this city.

The government of Bahia stretches along the coast, it is bounded on the north by the river St. Francisco, and separated from Ilheos by the Rio das Cantas. It has received its name from Bahia de todos os Santos, or All Saints Bay. The soil, consisting for the most part of a rich vegetable mould, is watered by many streams, and well adapted for the cultivation of the sugar-cane. A greater quantity of sugar is shipped from Bahia than from all the other provinces in Brazil. This district is also famous for its tobacco, which is exported not only into Portugal, but into Spain and the South American States: there was at one time a great demand for it throughout the whole of Barbary, and it was found difficult to carry on a trade in gold and ivory on the coast of Guinea without this plant. The other productions of the province are coffee, rice, that has increased in value since the use of mills has been known in these districts, and the beautiful dye wood or Brazilian tree, which is equal to any that grows in Pernambuco. The indigo manufactured in Bahia is much inferior to that imported from the east; the plant from which it is extracted, is of a deleterious nature, and the negroes employed in preparing its leaves are generally unhealthy.

San Salvador de Bahia or Cidade de Bahia is situated vince. on the eastern side of All Saints Bay; it is nearly four miles in length from north to south. The lower part of

XCI.

the town is considered unhealthy, and inhabited chiefly BOOK by mechanics and tradesmen. The higher part or residence of the wealthy is about six hundred feet above the level of the sea.* The population of the town is not accurately known, it has been estimated by some writers at 70,000, and by others at 110,000 souls. Mr. Henderson supposes that the negroes amount to about two-thirds of the inhabitants. The city is well built, its fortifications and arsenal have been improved, warehouses and wharfs are erected along the shore.

The chief occupation of the people consists in shipbuilding, and for this purpose a great quantity of timber is brought from the interior. The town is better supplied with provisions than Rio Janeiro; oranges, water-melons, pine-apples, and different sorts of fruit are plentiful throughout the district. The excessive heat of the climate is moderated by the sea breeze, and in some measure by the absence of the sun; for the nights are nearly equal in length during the year. The imprudent conduct of a governor enabled the Dutch to make themselves masters of this town, which was recovered by a chivalrous crusade under the direction of the Bishop Texeira. The Batavian troops, who had subdued the whole country from Maranham to the river St. Francis, were here repulsed. The Dutch derived much wealth from their Brazilian conquests, the exports in the course of one year amounted to 218,000 chests of sugar, and 93,630 lbs. of Brazilian dye-wood. But the plan of administration and defence proposed by the famous Maurice of Nassau was rendered ineffectual by the Dutch merchants. The province of Sergippe del Rey is separated from Bahia by the Sergippe. Rio Real, and from Pernambuco by the river St. Francis,

* Viajero Universal, XXI. p. 354.

† Henderson's History of the Brazils.

P. Bartholomé, Jornada dos Vassallos de la Coroa de Portugal.

Barlæus de Rep. Brasil.

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XCI.

Government of Pernambuco.

Capital.

Parayba.

Its extent along the coast is ninety miles, and its greatest breadth is about a hundred and forty. The chief town, Sergippe or St. Christovar. is built on a rising ground near the river Paromapama at the distance of eighteen miles from the sea. This place was destroyed by the Dutch in 1637; it contained at one time 9000 inhabitants, but its population has of late years diminished.

The government of Pernambuco is famed for its dye-wood, vanilla, cocoa, rice and sugar. But its chief commerce consists in cotton, which was for a long time considered the best in the world. Although the cultivation of this plant has been neglected, it appears from the latest returns that 80,000 bags were shipped from this province; that 60,000 were sent to Britain, and the remainder to Lisbon. The lower part of the city is built on two islands, and is called Recif or Pernambuco; the other part, situated on an eminence at three miles distance, has received the name of Olinda.* The population of the two towns amounts to 65,000 souls. Recif is styled the capital of the province by the Portuguese writers.

Parayba is the metropolis of a small district of the same name, which was taken by the Dutch, who called it Fredericia, in honour of the Prince of Orange. That people gave a sugar-loaf for its arms, in allusion to the great quantity of sugar obtained from the district, and in conformity to a plan then adopted for granting armorial bearings, significant of the principal leading articles in the different capitancies under their dominion. The bay in the vicinity of the town is a good road for ships, but it is difficult of entrance. Travellers assure us that there are silver mines in the neighbourhood of Tayciba, and that rock crystal has been found in the environs of San Jose de Ribamar.

*The origin of this name has been thus explained. The first donatory of the province exclaimed, when he chose the site of the town, "O que linda situacam para fundar huma villa."-"O what a fine situation for building a town."