LANDS. 



103 



The track of country between Goiana and 

 Espirito Santo, and indeed even to Cunhau, 

 keeping at no great distance from the coast, is 

 appropriated for the most part to sugar-planta- 

 tions; but many of the Senhores de Engenho, 

 sugar-planters, also employ part of their time in 

 raising cotton. The general feature is of an 

 uncultivated country, though a great quantity 

 of land is yearly employed. The system of 

 agriculture is so slovenly, or rather, as there is no 

 necessity for husbandry of land, from the im- 

 mensity of the country, and the smallness of its 

 population, lands are employed one year, and the 

 next the brushwood is allowed to grow up, giv- 

 ing thus to every piece of ground that is not ab- 

 solutely in use that year, the look of one totally 

 untouched, until a person is acquainted, in some 

 measure, from practice, with the appearance of 

 the several kinds of land. He will then per- 

 ceive the difference between brushwood that will 

 not grow because the land is of a barren kind, 

 and that which is left to rise, that the land may 

 rest for another crop. From this manner of 

 cultivating their ianus, a plantation requires 

 three or four times more ground than would 

 otherwise be necessary. I passed through se- 

 veral deep woods, and ascended some steep hills, 

 but I saw nothing which deserved the name of 

 mountain; I crossed some flat sandy plains, 

 upon which the acaju, mangaba, and. several 



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