A VOYAGE TO 



hav6 had several travellers, especially Mawee and 

 Koster, who have shed considerable light on the Bra- 

 zils. Much information is collected in Southey and 

 Beauchamp, on the civil and political history. I made 

 diligent search after new works published in the 

 country, but I found that printing and publishing 

 here, are still at a very low ebb. There are but two 

 book-stores at Rio, most indifferently supplied; and 

 the only periodical works published in the whole of 

 the Brazils, are two weekly newspapers, each about 

 the size of a man's hand. The only work I could 

 meet with, is one published in 1817^ entitled the Co- 

 rografia Brazilica. It is a kind of gazetteer, contain- 

 ing a mass of curious local information, but singu- 

 larly deficient in those particulars, which we are 

 in the habit of regarding as indispensable in geograph- 

 ical works. It does not, in a single instance, give the 

 population of provinces, or cities; the writer content- 

 ing himself with some general expressions, that the 

 population is large, moderate, or small. It is, not- 

 withstanding, the most important work issued from 

 the Brazilian press, since the arrival of the royal fa- 

 mily. The work gives a very vague and unsatisfac- 

 tory account of the statistics; it says not a word of the 

 amount of shipping, of exports, or imports; the pro- 

 duce of the mines, or royal revenues. The account^ 

 however, of the navigation of rivers, the descriptions 

 of towns and settlements, which are very minute, add 

 very considerably to the information already possess- 

 ed. No country except New Holland, opens so mag- 

 nificent a field to the enlightened and scientific travel* 

 ler. The men of science now engaged in exploring 

 this interesting country, may be expected before long 



