188 TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



able roads. From Rio Grande do Sul and S. Paulo 

 many thousand oxen, horses, and mules are annually 

 driven hither, and many of them are forwarded to 

 the neighbouring capitanias. Minas sends its 

 cotton, coffee, and tobacco chiefly to Rio de 

 Janeiro; the road to which, though from some parts 

 further than to Bahia, is more pleasant and less 

 difficult. In the year 1820, the importation of 

 these articles was — cotton 70,407 arrobas, coffee 

 20,000, andtobacco 54,281 arrobas. Besides these 

 raw productions, and precious stones, Minas exports 

 cheese, marmalade, brown sugar-loaves (rapadura), 

 an enormous quantity of very coarse cottons which 

 are used for clothing the slaves and poor shepherds 

 in the southern provinces. The inhabitants of the 

 remoter provinces of Goyaz and Matogrosso, who 

 come to the capital to provide themselves with 

 European manufactures, and convey them home 

 by the roads through Villa Rica and Caetete, bring 

 hardly any thing but gold in bars or dust, precious 

 stones, and among them even diamonds, which are 

 contraband. It is nothing uncommon to see in- 

 habitants of the deserts (Sertoes) of Cujaba and Ma- 

 togrosso, who have made a journey of three hun- 

 dred miles or more by land, to lead back caravans 

 of mules laden with articles for the consumption 

 of the interior. The Brazilian is not to be deterred 

 by the dangers and fatigues of a journey which often 

 separates him eight or ten months from his family, 

 from undertaking from time to time the manage- 



