TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



209 



city and the residence of the bishop and the chapter 

 of Minas Geraes 5 but since the neighbouring 

 mines, particularly on the Morro de S. Anna, have 

 become less productive, it seems to have greatly 

 declined in prosperity, and to be neglected out of 

 jealousy, by the neighbouring civil authorities, in 

 Villa Rica, which is the reason that the new cathe- 

 dral church is not finished. There are .here a 

 Carmelite and a Franciscan convent and a Theo- 

 logical seminary, at which most of the clergymen 

 in Minas are educated. The bishop had resided 

 in a spacious house at the bottom of the valley, 

 but had died a short time before our arrival. We 

 heard much of his library, which was said to con- 

 tain many works on Natural History, and likewise 

 his museum, in which there are some rich speci- 

 mens of gold In a kitchen-garden, he had a 

 nursery of European fruit trees, which thrive very 

 well here. The diocese of the bishop of Minas, 

 whose fixed revenue is stated at 16,000 crusadoes, 

 but is perhaps twice as much, does not extend 

 over the whole capitania of Minas, because several 

 of the most northern districts belong to the arch- 

 bishopric of Bahia.* We here became acquainted 

 with Dr. L. J. de Godoy Torres, who has resided 

 for many years at Mariana, as physician to the 

 district. He described the climate of Mariana as 

 warmer, and therefore less healthy than Villa Rica, 



VOL. II. 



See Note, p. 267. 

 P 



