870 nieuhoff's brazil. 



from the fea-fliore, and receives no other water but from the river Aguarama. There 

 is no bay or harbour near It, but only a^flat fandy bottom for about half a league dlf- 

 tance from the fhore, where you may anchor at three fathom deep. The land-wind 

 which conftantly blows on this coaft, commonly ceafes towards evening, fo that the 

 veffels take the opportunity of the night to load fait. This falt-pit produces every 

 month a certain quantity of fait, provided they be careful to fhut their fluices as foon 

 as the fame is filled with water, for elfe they are in danger of lofmg what they had got 

 before, by the next high-tide. To the eaft of this falt-pit are the famous rocks called 

 Baxos, which at low-water may be feen from thence ; they extend about three leagues 

 deep in the fea, but do not begin till about a league from the fhore, betwixt which and 

 the rocks there is a paffage, where you have ten foot depth at low-water. It ebbs here 

 with the loweft tide about eight foot, and a weft-fouth-well wind raifes the water to the 

 higheft. 



About five or fix leagues to the weft of the houfe called the Defert, is the great falt- 

 pit Karwaratama, which receiving its water from the fea, and being detained by fluices, 

 produces very good fait in three weeks* time. Five leagues further to the weft is the 

 river Maritouva, the fecond in rank in thofe weftern parts, but has not above twelve 

 foot water at high-tide. On its eaft point, not above half a league within the mouth, is 

 a very convenient falt-pit : thefe falt-pits are computed to be manageable with the 

 afliftance only of ten or twelve negroes, ten chriftians, and about thirty Brazilians, and 

 to afford two thoufand tuns of fait per annum, which may be tranfported from thence 

 into the other parts of the Dutch Brazil in fmall barks, during the fummer feafon. 

 About half way betwixt Rio Grande and Siara, as llkewife in Siara, near the river 

 Wapanien, are llkewife feveral Salinas or falt-pits. 



The chief traffic of Brazil confifts in fugar, Brazil-wood, and fuch like ; as alfo in 

 tobacco, hides, preferves, ginger, and cotton, which grows wild here; fome indigo 

 was llkewife planted there before my departure ; but among thefe, the fugar and Brazil- 

 wood are ftaple commodities. For fince the tobacco began to be tranfported into 

 Holland from the American iflands, the planting of it was negleded in Brazil, where 

 labourers' wages being exceffive high, they could draw much more profit from the fugar, 

 of which, according to computation, betwixt twenty and twenty-five thoufand chefts 

 were yearly made only in the fugar-mills of the Dutch Brazil, if the harveft proves 

 very good. 



The inhabitants of Brazil may at prefent be divided into free-born fubje61;s and Haves * 

 and thefe again confift of divers nations, both natives and foreigners. The free inha- 

 bitants of Brazil were the Dutch, Portuguefe, and Brazilians, the laft, the natives of 

 the country. But the Portuguefe did not only furpafs all the reft, at leaft ten to one 

 in number, during my abode in Brazil, but alfo were in poffeffion of all the fugar-mills 

 and lands, except what was poffefTed by a very few Dutch, who had applied ihem- 

 .felves to fugar-planting, but were for the moft part ruined by the inteftine war, being 

 forced to leave all behind them in the country : befides thofe of the free inhabitants, 

 who made it their bufinefs to manure the grounds, there were many merchants, factors, 

 and handicrafts-men : the merchants fold their commodities generally with vaft profit, 

 and would have queftionlefs been rich men, had they not vended their goods upon 

 credit to the Portuguefe, who were refolved never to pay them, as the event has fuffi- 

 ciently ftiewn. The handicrafts-men were able to get three, four, five, nay, fix 

 gilders a day, fo that many returned very rich to Holland. Thofe that kept public- 

 houfes and chandler-fhpps were hkewife great gainers here, and carried off abundance 

 pf ready money. The officers in the company's fervice whether civil or military, were 



llkewife 



