PROVINCE OF MINAS GERAES. 



267 



situated in a gently elevated country, near the right margin of the Ribeiro, or 

 stream of Carmo, with the chapels of Our Lady of Rozario, St. Pedro, Santa 

 Anna, St. Gon^alo, St. Francisco, for the mulattoes, and Mercez, for the 

 creolian blacks ; also two Terceira orders of Carmo and St. Francisco, whose 

 chapel is elegant. There are two squares, and seven fountains of good water. 

 The streets are paved, and the houses of stone. The municipal house is one of 

 the best structures, and has water within it; the cathedral, dedicated to the Lady 

 of Assump^ao, is more elegant than solid. The episcopal palace is handsome ; 

 the seminary spacious, the chapter is composed of fourteen canons, including 

 the dignitaries of archdeacon, archpriest, chanter, and treasurer-mor, with 

 whom twelve chaplains, and four young choristers officiate. The Juiz de Fora 

 presides over the orphans and the senate, which has eleven thousand crusades 

 of annual revenue. He fills other situations, and has, besides, twenty public 

 officers under his inspection. All the inhabitants of Marianna are parishioners 

 of the cathedral, and, with those of its surrounding twelve parishes, form two regi- 

 ments of cavalry, twenty companies of infantry, (all whites,) ten of mulattoes, 

 and five of free blacks. This city is eight miles east-north-east of Villa Rica ; 

 the intervening road is paved in parts, and bordered with many houses, having 

 near it two arraials, and passes three stone bridges. 



Eight miles to the north-east of Marianna, near the arraial of Antonio Pe- 

 reira, (its founder,) in a rock at the end of a delightful valley, is a grotto formed 

 by nature, and converted into a small chapel, dedicated to the Lady of Lapa, 

 where every Sunday mass is chanted, and a festival takes place on the 15th of 

 August. The roof, which is of calcareous stone, is overspread with stalactites, 

 or crystallizations formed by the filtration of the water. 



Fifteen miles north of the same city is the arraial and parish of Inficionado, 

 which derived its name from the circumstance of the refuse of gold in melting 

 being at first excellent, and becoming afterwards inferior, so that it acquired 

 the name of Oiro Inficionado, (Infected Gold.) It is the native country of the 

 poet, who was the author of the poem of Caramuru, " the Man of Fire," a 

 conspicuous character in the history of Bahia. Its church is dedicated to the 

 Lady of Nazareth. The inhabitants raise the necessaries of life and cattle, 

 and are miners. 



Catas Altas de Matto Dentro, (profound searchings within the matto, or 

 woods,) formerly a large and flourishing arraial, with a church of the Lady of 

 Concei(jao, has fallen into decay with the decrease of gold. The deep mines, 

 wrought for the extraction of gold, were the origin of its name. It is about 



