DEC. 1768 POPULATION 35 



this one John Burrith, an officer in their customs, a man 

 who has been here thirteen years, and has become so com- 

 pletely Portuguese that he is known by no other name 

 than Don John ; he was of service to our people, though 

 what he did was so clogged with a suspicious fear of offend- 

 ing the Portuguese as rendered it disgustful. It is necessary 

 for any one who should come here to know his character, 

 which is mercenary, though contented with a little, as the 

 present given to him demonstrated; it consisted of one 

 dozen of beer, ten gallons of brandy, ten pieces of ship's 

 beef, and as many of pork. This was what he himself 

 asked for, and sent on board the keg for the spirit, and 

 with this he was more than satisfied. 



They have a very extraordinary method of keeping 

 people from travelling; to hinder them, I suppose, from 

 going into any district where gold or diamonds may be 

 found, as there are more of such districts than they can 

 possibly guard. There are certain bounds beyond which 

 no man must go ; these vary every month at the discretion 

 of the viceroy, sometimes they are few, sometimes many 

 leagues from the city. Every man must in consequence of 

 this come to town to know where the bounds are, for if he 

 is taken by the guards, who constantly patrol on their 

 limits, he is infallibly put in prison, even if he is within 

 them, unless he can tell where they are. 



The inhabitants are very numerous ; they consist of 

 Portuguese, negroes, and Indians, aborigines of the country. 

 The township of Eio, whose extent I could not learn, but 

 was only told that it was but a small part of the capitanea, 

 or province, is said to contain about 37,000 whites, and 

 about 17 negroes to each white, which makes their number 

 629,000, and the number of inhabitants in all 666,000. 

 As for the Indians, they do not live in this neighbourhood, 

 though many of them are always here doing the king's 

 work, which they are obliged to do by turns, for small pay, 

 and for which purpose they came from their habitations at 

 a distance. I saw many of them, as our guard-boat was 

 constantly rowed by them ; they are of a light copper colour, 



