ACCOUNT OF BOOKS. 



1053 



The reasonis which we have al- 

 ready assigned, as those which led 

 us to dwell particularly upon such 

 works, as have appeared within this 

 year, relating to South America, 

 apply also in our consideration of 

 the present article. With respect 

 to Brasil, we arc nearly as much in 

 fhedark, as we are about Peru or 

 Paraguay. In the prefnce, jSIr. 

 Lindley thus delivers himself upon 

 the subject. 



" Notwithstanding the many 

 Toyages and travels that have lately 

 been published, and the addiiion 

 science has received in geographcial 

 information, Brasil continues in a 

 manner hidden, as to the world in 

 general; all endeavours to gain in- 

 formation respecting it being in- 



to O 



dustriously repressed by the Por- 

 tuguese government, both in the 

 colony itself and in Europe. For a 

 century subsequent to its discovery, 

 the Jesuit missionaries were inde- 

 fatigable in their attem])ts to gain 

 some knowledge of the interior of 

 Brasil, its animal, vegetable, and 

 mineral productions ; and the dis- 

 coveries they made being annually 

 dispatched to the college of Jesuits 

 in Bahia, were detailed and printed 

 in the chronicles of the order, and 

 were the groundwork of every pub- 

 lication respeciing this part of South 

 America that followed. These fa- 

 thers had the most extensive com- 

 munication, by means of the corres- 

 pondence kept up by them in every 

 part of South America, especially 

 with their brethren in Peru and 

 Paraguay ; and, through the great 

 body of information possessed in 

 consequence by the different supe- 

 riors, a most complete and scientific 

 work would finally have been 

 formed ; but the project was nipped 

 i« tha bud by the fatal jealousy of 



government, who, about the close of 

 the seventeenth century, prohibited 

 its continuance, and would allow no 

 further publication to be made on 

 the subject. Secret communications 

 were however still remitted and re- 

 corded by the college ; but they are 

 probably lost to the Avorld, as they 

 lie buried indiscriminately amidst 

 numberless other manuscripts, in a 

 room adjoining the late monastery 

 of the order, where they have con- 

 tinued for the last forty years 

 wholly neglected, and are now 

 rapidly decaying and mouldering to 

 dust. 



" Thus forgotten, and apparently 

 despised, one would suppose that 

 access to them was no difficult task : 

 but this is by no means the case : the 

 approach of the curious even among 

 themselves is impracticable, and the 

 rigour of course is not less as to 

 foreigners. 



" It is to be lamented, that during 

 the time Holland was in possession 

 of the most central, picturesque, and 

 fruitful provinces of Brasil, which 

 was a space of no less than thirty 

 years, the Dutch never attempted to 

 elucidate the history, or give infor- 

 mation respecting the country : but 

 the constant war in which they were 

 engaged, either with the regular 

 forces of the Portuguese, or the co- 

 lonists, gave them perhaps no lei- 

 sure for the purpose ; or, which is 

 more probable, they had no oppor- 

 tunity of penetrating into the in- 

 terior. 



" f n the year 1730, Rocha Pitta, 

 a most intelligent and well-informed 

 Brasilian, member of the royal 

 academy of history in Lisbon, &c. 

 compiled a quarto history of Brasil, 

 from the chronicles of the Jesuits 

 and otlier authorities, and some va- 

 luable local knowledge of his own. 



This 



