PROVINCE OF PARA. 



463 



northern angle of the embouchure of the Gnama, fronting the island of Oncas, 

 and in a plain eighty miles from the ocean. It is an episcopal city, in a state 

 of mediocrity, with a population now only of about twenty thousand, many 

 having been recently swept off by the small-pox. If the access to it was better 

 it would become more rapidly commercial. It is ornamented with many 

 chapels, a convent of Capuchins, another of slippered Carmelites, a uiisericordia, 

 and a hospital. The cathedral and the palace of the governors are handsome 

 edifices. The streets are straight, the principal ones paved, and (he houses 

 mainly of stone. The convent of Mercenarios, who are extinct, is at present 

 the quarters of a regiment. The ci-devant Jesuitical college is converted into a 

 seminary, and the episcopal palace and the church serve for the misericordia. 

 It has a tribunal da Fazenda-real, similar to the other capitals of provinces, a 

 port admiral, an ouvidor, a Juiz do Fora, and royal professors of Latin, rheto- 

 ric, and philosophy. Since the arrival of the Royal Family in the Brazil, 

 botanical gardens have been established in the vicinity of the few maritime 

 towns of note ; and this city can boast of one, having a variety of the most useful 

 and best trees of the province, likewise some European trees. There is an 

 arsenal with its chapel, and many engenhos for rice. 



At the request of John V. Pope Clement XI. despatched a Bull for 

 the creation of this bishopric in 1719, and none of the Brazilian cathedrals 

 originated with so much splendour, and attendants of archdeacons, canons, 

 deacons, &c. &c. It is divided into two parishes, St. Maria da Graca, and St. 

 Anna, amongst whose inhabitants there are comparitively few negroes. 



The port in which the tide rises eleven feet is considered to be diminishing in 

 depth, rhunder is very frequent, but not diurnal, as has been stated; the 

 showers which accompany it mitigate, in some degree, the ardent heat which 

 universally prevails. The land breezes, as well as those from the sea, generally 

 every evening moderate the burning rays of the sun, which may be said to be 

 almost vertical, and refresh the atmosphere; thereby rendering this place very 

 healthy, and tolerably free from the endemical diseases which many regions are 

 subject to in a similar latitude. There are few insects that introduce themselves 

 into the human frame, or that are so troublesome as in some of the other provinces. 

 The days and nights are equal nearly the whole year. The environs of this city 

 were formerly very unwholesome, but an evident unprovement took place after 

 the colonists began to clear away the woods, and cattle to increase. 



The exportations from hence are cocoa, coflee, rice, cotton, sarsaparilla, 

 the Maranham and Molluca clove, raw and tanned hides, pechurim or pucker L 



