80 JOURNEY FROM CAPE FRIO 



the river, at the Villa da Barra de S. Joao, a small place, with 

 several streets, and tolerably good buildings, according to the fashion 

 of the country. It has a church, built by the Jesuits, which stands 

 nearly insulated, on a rock on the sea-shore. Barra de S. Joao is 

 one of the places where travellers and goods coming from Minas 

 Gera'es are examined, on account of the prohibited exportation of 

 precious stones. As the river is in some measure navigable, we found 

 five or six brigs at anchor. An Englishman who is settled here, by 

 trade a smith, told us that English vessels had already found their 

 way to this solitary spot, and that he should therefore solicit the ap- 

 pointment of vice-consul. We gave him a number of fowling-pieces 

 to repair, and the consul in expectancy performed his business to 

 our entire satisfaction. The want of good workmen to repair fire- 

 arms is most sensibly felt by the travelling naturalist in Brazil ; for 

 it is very seldom that you meet with people who can perform even the 

 coarsest gunsmith^s work. About S. Joao great quantities of rice 

 and mandiocca are cultivated ; and up the river in particular, there 

 are said to be very fertile tracts ; even the sand yields abundantly 

 when it is well watered. 



From the sandy tongue of land between the river and the sea on 

 which the town is built, we followed the coast nortlward. In a 

 plain in which grew various kinds of shrubs, we frequently found a 

 scarlet amaryllis, yellow flowering banisterias, and beautiful kinds of 

 myrtle. On the left we had a lofty insulated mountain, the Monte 

 de S. Joao, in the plain before which, towards the sea, extend lofty 

 forests, and before those again marshes, covered with bushes. 



After riding through some mandiocca plantations, which, as was 

 evident from the burnt wood lying about in them, had but lately 

 been brought into cultivation, we proceeded through a deep sandy 

 road to the sea-shore, and found ourselves at a beautiful rocky hill 

 covered with cocoa-palms, and projecting into the sea ; near it a rivu- 



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