274 



JOURNEY FROM CARAVELLAS 



the church. The dwelhng-houses are low clay huts ; the only one of 

 any consequence belongs to the Captain Mor; that of the ouvidor, in 

 which I had a lodging assigned to me, was no better than the other 

 buildings. The huts for the most part covered with straw, and the irre- 

 gular, unpaved streets, overgrown with grass, make the place look like 

 one of our meaner villages; its only ornament is the number of cocoa- 

 palms in this sandy plain, which every where surround the habitations, 

 and unite their lofty summits into a waving grove. These trees are 

 remarkably productive here ; the people think they render them so, 

 by cutting a hole in the stems of the trees, a little above the surface 

 of the ground. 



Quite close to the town, the considerable Rio Grande de Belmonte 

 falls into the sea: its mouth is said to be in 15° 40' south latitude. It 

 rises in the high mountain ridges of Minas Geraes, but first receives 

 the name of Rio Grande in Minas Novas, after the junction of the 

 Aracuahy and Jiquitinhon^a, the gold and diamond washings of 

 which have been already described by Mawe. At high water this 

 large river is rapid, but its entrance is always bad and dangerous, 

 having here and there sand-banks, which we could see now that it was 

 low water, but which, even at high water, are dangerous to navigation, 

 and have already been the destruction of many lancJias. Belmonte 

 has three or four lanchas, by which a little trade is carried on with 

 Bahia in mandiocca-flour, cotton, rice, and timber. The annual ex- 

 portation is about a thousand alquieras of mandiocca-flour ; the same 

 of rice, two thousand of millet, and some brandy, though there are 

 only two distilleries here. The banks of the river are fertile, as they are 

 partly inundated. At this time there was a Scotchman here, who car- 

 ried on a pretty extensive trade with cotton ; he had just lost almost 

 a whole ship load by the faithless misconduct of a captain. This poor 

 little town has now derived some advantage from the communication 

 which has been opened upon and along the river to Minas Novas, in 



