FEENANDO NORONHA. 151 



favouralily situated for trade than Maceio, tlie present capital. Small steamers 

 ply regularly on the creeks and the neighbouring Lake Manguaba between the 

 towns of Maceio and Pilar. At the latter place they ship the cotton brought to 

 the coast from the surrounding plantations. 



Fernando JVoronha, which belongs administratively to the State of Pernambuco, 

 is a natural dependency of the north-eastern provinces of Brazil. It has no towns 

 or any colony of free settlers, being entirely set apart by the federal government as 

 a convict station. The island is so infested by rats and mice that the convicts, 

 who are employed at certain times in hunting them down, sometimes kill as many 

 as 20,000 in a single day. In the year 1893 a project was brought forward to 

 establish a quarantine and a signal station on the island. The deposits of phos- 

 phates have not yet been worked, although some guano has been collected on 

 some of the nei^hbourino: rocks and islets. 



