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CHAP. XII. 



Journey from Villa Rica to Tejuco, the Capital of the Diamond 



District, 



T TAVING previously sent letters to His Excellency the Conde 

 de Linhares, giving him an account of my proceedings, I set 

 out from Villa Rica, attended by the two soldiers and my negro 

 servant. I passed through the city of Mariana, and entered upon 

 the plain in its vicinity already mentioned, M^hich in the rainy season 

 is often entirely overflowed. To the left I observed a beautiful and 

 romantic mountain called Morode Santa Ana, on which stood many 

 small neat houses, surrounded by coffee-plantations and orangeries; 

 its base was watered by a corvinha or rivulet, the banks of which 

 contain much gold, and are worked by the inhabitants of the mount. 

 Passing onward, the road became very confined; and the land, though 

 now covered with wood, appeared to have been formerly under cul- 

 tivation. We here met a number of mules laden with sugar, 

 destined for Villa Rica, or if not sold there, for Rio de Janeiro. 



"We arrived and refreshed at a Ij^tle village called Camargo, and 

 passed an excellent house, situated near a rivulet of that name, 

 where there is a gold-washing which employs about two hundred 

 negroes, and is said to be very productive. About a league farther 

 we passed a poor little place called Bento Rodrigo, and about six in 

 the evening arrived at a very considerable village called Infectionado, 

 which contains full fifteen hundred inhabitants. It had been more 

 populous, but its mines having decreased it was then on the de- 

 cline. Finding no inn that offered any thing tolerable, I alighted 

 at the house of a shopkeeper, who very civilly provided me an 

 apartment to sleep in, and introduced me at supper to his wife and 



