NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



379 



rendered the powder damp and my gun useless. At six o'clock in the 

 morning the thermometer stood at 61° ; at noon, the preceding day, it 

 was 96° ; and the great change of temperature produced an uncomfort- 

 able sensation of coldness. This place, probably the same which Mawe 

 calls Belmonte, and some others name Sumidouro, is stated to be in the 

 near neighbourhood of native and untamed Indians, and the woods, it is 

 said, abound in Ounces and other game ; perhaps it may convey some 

 distinct idea of the scenery to remark, that it bears a partial resemblance 

 to the vale of Matlock, and to Dinas Emerys in Wales ; the forest being 

 much richer, and the rocks, where naked, more conical. We supposed 

 ourselves seven hundred feet below the house at Corgo-Seco. 



Collecting, feeding, and loading the mules, together with our own 

 breakfast, occupied us until eight o'clock, which, probably, owing to 

 the short twilight of this part of the world, is the earliest hour at which 

 a troop can be expected to set off in the morning. We descended again 

 by the bank of the river, which soon leaves its stoney bed, and receives 

 a large accession of water from the South-west under the name of the 

 Piabuna Mirim. Here the valley begins to open very considerably, the 

 land is stripped of its timber, and shows a soil greatly exhausted and 

 not naturally good, being formed chiefly of decomposed granite and 

 spar; even the narrow meadows are encumbered with refuse brought 

 down by the stream. Padre Luiz, to whom the estate belongs, and 

 who occupies a pleasant house upon it, has adopted the mode of farming 

 too common in this country, which consists in gathering from the land 

 all it can possibly yield without expense, or aid from manure. He is 

 said to grow rich very rapidly, to lay all his money out in the purchase 

 of new slaves, and to treat them harshly. Here we found some excellent 

 out-offices, and among them that most important, yet till now, rare 

 establishment, a blacksmith's shop. Here, too, was a mill, such as is 

 common in the interior of Brazil, but peculiar, perhaps, to the country. 

 It is composed of an horizontal wheel, whose diameter is about four or 

 five feet ; round the circumference are placed, in the plane of the wheel, 

 a number of ladles, which resemble half a cocoa-nut shell cut longitu- 



3b b 



