

100 



ST. JOZE. 



which we sat or rather laid down upon mats; 

 we had no forks, and the knives, of which there 

 were two or three, were intended merely to 

 sever the larger pieces of meat — the fingers 

 were to do the rest. I remained at Papari dur- 

 ing one entire day, that my horses might 

 have some respite, that I might purchase another 

 from Senhor Dionisio, and on poor Julio's ac- 

 count, whose feet had begun to crack from the 

 dryness of the sands. 



Distant from Papari, from three to four 

 leagues, is the Indian village of St. Joze, built 

 in the form of a square ; this place might con- 

 tain about two hundred inhabitants, but it had 

 evidently the appearance of falling to decay ; 

 the grass in the centre of the square was high, 

 the church neglected, and the whole aspect dull. 

 ►St. Joze stands upon a dry sandy soil, and the 

 severity of the season might have contributed to 

 its dismal look. This day we experienced the 

 utter impossibility of trusting to the accounts 

 we received of distances, and my guide had no 

 very clever head for recollecting them, although 

 he, like most of these people, possessed a kind 

 of instinct with respect to the paths we were to 

 follow. We were told that Natal was distant 

 from St. Joze three or four leagues, and there- 

 fore expected to arrive at that place by dusk, 

 but about five o'clock we entered upon the dis 

 mal sand-hills, over which lies the road to the 



