414 



PROVINCE OF SIARA. 



ordered to penetrate into the interior, who, with many others, had been taken in 

 the bay of Trahicao, and sent to Amsterdam, where they learned the Batavian 

 language. Two of them being discovered, through the activity of Domingos 

 da Veyga, commandant of the presidio, were immediately executed as an 

 example to the others ; and the Dutch, despairing, in consequence, of succeeding 

 in their undertaking, set sail again for Pernambuco. 



Five years afterwards, the Indians of this country, hearing of the great suc- 

 cesses of the Dutch, on the arrival of Count Nassau at Pernambuco, deputed 

 two messengers to offer submission and obedience to them in case they wished 

 to make themselves masters of the presidio, the commandant of which had 

 concluded his days, and the soldiery were in a sufficiently diminutive state. 

 Four vessels were immediately despatched, with two hundred soldiers, and the 

 Dutch, without difficulty, possessed themselves of this province in the year 

 1637, which they retained without any considerable advantage for some years, 

 and, on giving it up, did not leave, as in some other places, any public works 

 of utility. The Indians, who spontaneously united with them, undoubtedly 

 expected to have met with that in the new conquerors which they could not 

 find in the first ; but it does not appear that they were quite so satisfied, as they 

 retired to the southern lands in the vicinity of the cordillera. The missionaries 

 of the Protestant religion, it would appear, did not please them so well as the 

 spells, rosaries, ceremonies, and parade, accompanied with music, all so im- 

 posing on the imagination, and with which the Jesuits allured them from the 

 savage life. 



Mountains. — The serra of Jaguaribe, with many spiral heads, is to the 

 east of the river of that name. The serra of Guammame, which commences 

 near the Jaguaribe, ranges for thirty miles to the west, at a distance of about 

 eighteen from the coast; that of Siara, with four heads, is between the 

 river of its name on the east, and the Cahobyppe on the west. The serra of 

 Mandahu is between the river of the same name on the west, and the bay of 

 Curu on the east ; that of Caracu, having the river of that name on the west, 

 and the Aracaty-mirim on the east. 



The serra Borytamma is behind the morro of Jericoacoara, situated" at the 

 bottom of the bay of this name. The whole serve for land-marks to the navi- 

 gators coasting along these shores. 



There is also the serra Uruburetama, running north and south between the 

 rivers Curu and Acaracu ; that of Botarite, in the centre of the province ; and 

 that of Merooca, seventy miles distant from the sea. 



