1832. j The Diamond District of the Serro do Frio. 419 



Francisco's histories were true, gold and diamonds were certainly much 

 more abundant productions in the country through which I was tra- 

 velling than chastity and morality. To my great mortification, I 

 found, however, that his own did not stand very high along our line of 

 route ; he was a grempeiro (a smuggler), and had been extensively 

 engaged in the contraband trade of diamonds, which accounted for his 

 accurate knowledge of the country ; a circumstance, too, and travelling, 

 as I did, with such a personage in my suite, that subjected more than 

 once the motives of my own journey to painful misconstruction. Indeed, a 

 suspicion that I was myself a contrabandista of superior grade, appeared 

 to be lurking in Francisco's mind. I frequently observed him minutely 

 examining every article of my baggage, and once I caught him striking 

 the butt-end of my gun and my pistols against a large stone, in order 

 to ascertain by the sound if they contained cavities for the secretion of 

 the precious gems, besides endeavouring to draw from me, by artful 

 inuendos, the motive of my journey. 



Travelling in Brazil, even in the most populous parts, is no sinecure. 

 And yet there is a wild excitement, a feeling of ecstacy, produced on 

 the mind when wandering through these magnificent and auriferous 

 regions regions cast by Nature in a titanic world that I have never 

 felt, even when sojourning amid the classic spots of the old world, 

 consecrated by the lapse of ages, and hallowed by the inspiring asso- 

 ciations of history and romance. 



We generally bivouacked for the night at a rancho, a sort of shed, 

 open on every side, to leeward of which there was always a large fire. 

 I preferred this, in preference to taking up my quarters at a venda, 

 or a fazenda, the owners of which so pestered me with questions, that I 

 fairly believe they took me for an " Encyclopedic Ambulante." It 

 moreover afforded me an opportunity of studying the wild, independent 

 character of the inhabitants of the country. My nocturnal companions 

 were chiefly muleteers, proceeding from the capital to the distant pro- 

 vinces of Goyazes or Matto Grosso, gipsy merchants, parties of 

 miners, men, in short, of every caste. But wild and savage as was 

 their demeanour, their manners were simple and kind. They inva- 

 riably swung my hammock in the best part of the rancho, and would 

 hang up a hide, or their large ponchos, to shelter it from the nocturnal 

 breeze. On these occasions the social qualities of my guide shone forth 

 with considerable lustre. He would collect the party around him in 

 groups, and entertain them with some wild legend of the country. They 

 generally turned on the early history of the colonists ; on the discovery 

 of some mine of extraordinary richness, all traces of which had been un- 

 fortunately lost by the untimely death of the discoverer ; and, as the 

 narrative proceeded, the dark visages of the listeners would glisten like 

 copper when exposed to the action of the furnace. It was interesting to 

 observe the effect produced on the minds of these people, by these sto- 

 ries, so common in every mining district on the globe, and which have 

 so singularly affected the moral and social condition of their inhabitants. 

 On the conclusion of the story, they would sit, wrapped in deep silence, 

 each of them, perhaps, dreaming at the moment that it might be his 

 own fate to again discover this fabulous " el dorado/' At other times 

 Francisco would take his guitar, and sing to its accompaniment some 

 plaintive inodinha of the country, or striking a livelier strain, would 

 excite the wild movements of their national dance. The grouping of 



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