534 



NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



North, are carried downward, broken and rubbed, until at length they 

 appear in the form of small white pebbles. Hill succeeding to hill gave 

 the country in general the character of boldness, and opened continually 

 new scenes to the eye of the traveller. From one of these elevations we 

 gained a fine view of the vale through which the Rio dos Mortes runs. 

 It lies East and West, is about thirty miles long, ten broad, and closed 

 at the farther end by the Serro of St. Joze. It is destitute of wood, and 

 both its sides are steep, high, and deeply cut with gullies, which give it 

 a singular appearance. 



About a league from Barbazena there suddenly burst upon us 

 another of those vast panoramas which have been noticed in other parts 

 of the country, and which excite reflections commensurate with their 

 greatness. I could not contemplate without emotion the magnitude and 

 length the streams which part from thence, and of which we yet 

 know so little ; the ages they have flowed, and the nations they blessed 

 while utterly hidden from Europeans. I thought of that day whose 

 dawn I had witnessed, which, in its progress, will place upon their 

 banks thousands of villages, and myriads of people. The period arose 

 when these vastly extensive wastes, capable of giving food to all the 

 inhabitants of Europe, (and still, with respect to their ultimate powers, 

 remain a waste) shall be divided into small properties, and be fully 

 thronged with happy families. I reflected on the ages which must 

 revolve, and the misery which must be endured, ere such a change can 

 be completed. 



At Barbazena we again entered on the great road from Villa Rica 

 to Rio. The town is pleasantly situated on the Southern declivity of a 

 considerable hill, is divided into two principal paved streets, at right 

 angles with each other, and contains about three hundred iand fifty 

 houses, many of them good ones, and whitened externally, together 

 with two churches. The people whom we saw were chiefly of the mixed 

 colours, and were employed in spinning cotton, and other domestic 

 manufactures. But there were no prominent marks of commercial pros- 

 perity ; on the contrary, many of the shops, which, for the country. 



