TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. ^Q3 



the latter, as a warlike establishment, has an en- 

 tirely different object. The Villa das iVreas, which 

 has arisen within these five and thirty years in this 

 thickly wooded mountain, out of the settlement of 

 a few poor colonists, cannot, of course, yet present 

 a picture of high prosperity. The low houses, 

 built of slight laths, simply interwoven with twigs, 

 and plastered with clay, and the little church 

 which is constructed in the same manner, seem 

 very ephemeral ; so that these dwellings appear to 

 be erected merely as temporary places of refuge 

 for wanderers. We entirely miss the appearance 

 of comfort and of solidity, calculated for long dura- 

 tion, which distinguishes European dwellings, though 

 it must be owned that this is not entirely unsuitable 

 to a climate, in which the inhabitants, whose set- 

 tlement is so unfixed, are so little in need of a 

 durable abode. We found by far the greater part 

 of all the towns in the interior of Brazil like this 

 place, and the rarity of a well-built and comfort- 

 able house frequently excited regret for the con- 

 veniences and cleanliness of our native land. In 

 the neighbourhood of Areas, there is still a con- 

 siderable village of Indians, who are the remains of 

 the numerous tribes which, previously to the occupa- 

 tion of the Serra do Mar by the Paulistas, inhabited 

 the whole of the extensive forests of this chain, and 

 are now either extinct, or mixed with negroes and 

 mulattoes, live in a state of half civilisation among 

 the colonists. They are still distinguished by the 



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