NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



degrees lower, and have increased our elevation about five hundred and 

 fifty-feet, travelling in a direction North-west by North. Two or three 

 streams of note have fallen, during our route, into the principal river 

 from the North-east. 



Juiz de Fora contains a small chapel and a few poor houses. The 

 river Paraliybuna, which runs close by, and receives an accession to its 

 waters, has dwindled greatly from its magnitude lower down, and flows 

 with a rapid but unruffled current over a sandy bed, subject, it is mani- 

 fest, to considerable freshes. Near its brink lay several vessels, which 

 are commonly used in collecting Gold-dust from the sands of the stream. 

 They are cut out of a solid piece of wood, and formed externally like a 

 Butcher's tray ; their inward figure is that of a tliree-sided Prism, one of 

 the edges forming the line of the bottom ; at one end of this line is a 

 hole, generally stopped with a peg, at the other a small recess to receive 

 the metal. The peg being fixed in its place, the labourer fills the trough 

 with sand from the stream, puts a quantity of water to it, and stirs the 

 whole about until he supposes that all the metal has subsided into the small 

 hollow intended to receive and secure it. The peg is then withdrawn, 

 and the water and sand are permitted to drain off through the unstopped 

 hole. It is no wonder that, by this process, very little gold is obtained 

 in proportion to the quantity of sand which is washed ; for it is evident 

 that the metal is not in its natural bed, but brought down from thence 

 by the stream ; and the people do not take sufficient pains to seek it in 

 the river's rocky bottom. On the other hand, they cease from washing 

 in dry weather and when the water is low, waiting for another flood to 

 bring down a fresh quantity of auriferous sand, which they skim and 

 exhaust as before. 



We proceeded hence, nearly North-west, over a country of abrupt 

 bills and fine valleys ; through some of the latter, streams flow Westward 

 to join the Parahybtina, whose course is now too distant, or its bed too 

 insignificant, to be traced, by the eye, among the hills. On our left hand 

 likewise is a broad valley, where the prospect opens and enables us to 

 look round on the horizon from North to the South-west, where the 



