S84 



NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



to mill seats were numerous and excellent, and though the country is 

 almost destitute of civilized inhabitants, we are told that there is no 

 land unappropriated on this side the Parahyba, meaning, I presume, along 

 the line which the road takes, for the interior is entirely unsubdued. 

 The immediate neighbourhood of this place is rather flat, roads branch 

 off in several directions, one, which T followed for a considerable dis- 

 tance, led me round the end of a low mountain, and conducted to a 

 most delightful dell. Above the general ridges, to the Sovith, appear 

 distant grey peaks. One to the East, and another to the South-west, 

 are particularly remarkable ; probably the sources of streams. 



At this place the people were preparing their land for a crop of 

 milho, which is to be sown at the beginning of October. For this 

 purpose they cut down the wood, only leaving the large trees standing, 

 and burn it on the ground ; the ashes serving for manure. Holes are 

 then dibbled, without any ploughing or other mode of turning up the 

 soil, about eighteen inches asunder, and three corns put into each, which 

 are covered up and left to the influence of the rain and sun : the crop 

 is generally expected to yield, for the seed sown, four hundred fold. 

 In February, the heads of the plants, being then fully ripe, are cut off* 

 and carried home in baskets, where they are laid up in their exterior 

 coat. When corn is wanted they are stripped, and the seeds detached 

 from the cone by rubbing them with the hand. The farm is always so 

 arranged in sections that the same land shall come under culture once 

 in seven years, i. e. it lies fallow six. What a waste of nature's bounty ! 

 What a field for industry ! and yet it seems that the mode of farming 

 has improved, not by the establishment of new settlers, as it was natural 

 to suppose, but by working the land in a better manner than formerly. 



Burning the brushwood had exposed the trunks of two trees, which 

 seemed to have laid on the ground during more than two septenary 

 periods, for their heads and arms had been quite consumed, the trunks 

 themselves very much charred, and each end had smouldered away for 

 the length of several feet. The measure of the smaller was fifty-one 

 feet; the girth, at the larger end, eight feet, at the smallest six; the 



