92 



Prince Maooimilian's 



butterflies, particularly the Nyynphales. Here too we found 

 the curious purse-formed nest, of a small bird of the genus 

 Todus, or flat-bill, which is constantly to be found near a 

 peculiar kind of wasp's nest {marimbondo,) which, as the 

 natives assert, is to secure itself from the attacks of its enemies. 

 I had an inclination to approach this bird's nest, but the wasps 

 showed themselves so effectually, as to compeJ me to retreat. 



In the thickets along the coast, a great number of wretched 

 families reside, subsisting on the produce of their little planta- 

 tions and fishi-^^g ; they are principally Negroes, Mulattoes 

 and other people of colour, with but few whites among them ; 

 they complain of their distress and poverty in such pitiable 

 tones, that their prayers are most commonly productive of the 

 desired effect. Hence, northwards, we found no more Creoles 

 or Mulattoes, only Indians drawn together in a state of civi- 

 lization, whose lonely habitations lay scattered up and down 

 in a rich shady wood of superb lofty trees. Obscure intri- 

 cate winding paths led from hut to hut ; in the clear chrys- 

 tal waters of the brooks, we beheld the naked youths in all the 

 simplicity of nature, with their dark brown skins and coal black 

 hair sporting in the stream; objects like these united with the 

 stillness of the scene, carry the mind back to that primseval 

 state of happiness and bliss from which mankind have fallen.. 



In this forest ramble we met with beautiful birds; the 

 gold-green Jacamarf Galhula magna) perched on slender twigs, 

 on the watch for insects ; and we heard unknown notes in 

 this lonely wood. After we had travelled about four leagues, 

 we issued from the wood and discerned right before us upon 

 a height across the gulph, the Villa Nova de Almeida. 



Villa Nova is a large Aldea of civilized Indians. Here is a 

 large stone built church belonging to the Jesuits who reckon 

 within a circle of about nine leagues, about 1200 souls; the 

 greater part of the inhabitants of Villa Nova are Indians, but 

 there are some Portuguese and Negroes. In the library of the 

 Jesuits there are some very ancient manuscripts of the order, 

 but the superiors have seldom felt any esteem for its contents 

 and have destroyed or dissipated this treasury of knowledge, in 

 a scandalous manner. 



The Jesuits taught here in former times the Lingoa geral, and 

 their chapel of Dos Reys Magos was very magnificent ; the 

 district is but thinly inhabited and poverty reigns here in splen- 

 did misery. The Indians bring food for their subsistence which 

 consists of Maize and Mandiocca on their horses, and expose 

 sometimes wood and earthenware which, with their fisjiery in 

 the sea and in the river Saüanha or Dos Reys Magos that 

 flows by the Villa, is altogether not inconsiderable. Sellow, who 



