268 



ITAPICURU, 



of cotton and rice, which are the two chief and 

 almost only articles of commerce from the city 

 of St. Luiz. The island is in itself very little 

 cultivated. There is no considerable plantation 

 upon it. A few of the rich merchants residing 

 in the city have country-houses distant from it 

 about one league, but the remainder of the 

 lands are left untouched, owing, as is said, to the 

 unfitness of the soil for the purposes of agricul- 

 ture. * There is a horse-path through the island 

 to a house which stands immediately opposite 



* Joam IV. sent over one Bartholomew Barreiros de 

 Ataide with three miners, one a Venetian and the other two 

 French, to search for gold and silver. After two years" 

 search up the Amazons they returned to Maranham, and 

 offered to supply the people with iron at a cruzado, about 

 2s. 4d., per quintal, 128 lbs. weight, if the state would engage 

 to take all that they should produce at that price. The 

 people were afraid to enter into any such contract. The 

 island was so rich in this ore that foreign cosmographers 

 called it the ilha do Jerro in their maps, and all who came 

 there with any knowledge of the subject said that it was ore 

 of the best quality. A thing of great importance to Portu- 

 gal, which bought all its iron, and yet this discovery was 

 neglected, — From a Memoir of Manoel Guedes" Aranha, 

 Piocurador from Maranham, 1685, in the 6th Vol. Finlieiro 

 Collection of MSS. in the possession of Mr. Southey. 



A royal manufactory of iron has been established in the 

 captaincy of St. Paulo, called " The Royal Fabric of S.Joam 

 do Ypanema." I obtained a knowledge of the fact from two 

 letters in Nos. 45 and 56 of the Investigador Portuguez, a 

 periodical publication published in London. I am sorry to 

 say, that the two letters to which I allude have arisen from 

 some differences existing among the directors of the Fabric, 



