NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



349 



of extensive marshes, stands the town of Macacu, the seat of the autho- 

 rities of the district. It contains a thousand inhabitants, with a large 

 proportion of Priests and Lawyers, and report speaks in consequence, 

 more naturally than creditably, of its singular propensity to legal squab- 

 bles. Its size and situation united to remind me of Littleport, in the 

 Isle of Ely. About seven miles higher, and at the computed distance 

 of fifty, from the capital, travelling by the rivers, we reached Pira- 

 senunga, and there took up our temporary abode. The plains which we 

 passed abound with Cranes, Galinhas d'Agoa, and Jacus of great beauty, 

 the river with Capibarys, and other game, and its banks, where dry, with 

 the Herva da St . Maria, one of the most useful of medicines. 



Here again we enter upon the Piedmont of the Province, and find 

 all the usual beauties of such situations. Towards the North is a row 

 of detached hills, about two hundred feet high, which rise backward 

 to six or seven hundred ; immediately behind them is another elevation, 

 which hardly comes short of two thousand ; and this is backed by the 

 ridge of the serro, whose pinnacles are of various heights, some of them 

 full six thousand feet. In the first rising ground are many large roundish 

 stones, imbedded in clay, which must have been conveyed to their 

 station by some powerful agent ; a Lecturer on Mineralogy said they were 

 Heematites. 



On the ground between the rivers Piraseminga and Iguapezu, and 

 immediately above their junction, is an estate, which circumstances 

 induced me to examine with care. Of about eighteen hundred acres, 

 one-third was meadow land, generally a rich loam, though in some parts 

 sandy ; the rest consisted of rounded hills, composed of granite covered 

 with red, and seemingly fertile clay, mingled with mica. The spot was 

 well watered, there were extensive woods for fuel, a ready article of sale 

 in the city, a suitable quantity of pasture, a mandioca plantation, suffi- 

 cient to supply with that article fourteen slaves, ten thousand young and 

 flourishing coffee trees, and a large, well situated house, overlooking 

 half the estate. The neighbourhood was pleasant, the roads good, and 

 the title undeniable, the place having belonged to the Jesuits, and 



