We remained two days at this fazenda, called Mato Virgem, having to wait one day longer that I intended, owing to our want of farinha; the day after our arrival they commenced the manufacture of a quantity, which could not be got ready until the evening before we left. The place in which it was prepared, was the apartment where we were allowed to put up, the persons engaged in it being the mistress of the house, who was a young mulatta, and eight slaves, four men and four women; I was astonished to find all of them, except one man and one woman, affected with goître; the swelling on the neck of one of the women was much larger than her head. They assured me it was a very general complaint in this part of the province of Goyaz, particularly in the Villas of Natividade and Arrayas; in the Aldea of Duro, I saw only one woman affected by it, and another in the Arraial of Almas. One of the slaves was an old man upwards of one hundred years of age, and quite blind, but he was, notwithstanding, occupied all day in sifting farinha; his only dress consisted of a small dirty rag rolled round his middle; that of the others was but little better, indeed, in no part of Brazil did I meet with slaves so wretchedly attired as at this place. It was surprising to me that the mistress was not ashamed to see them in such a state; but I have no doubt, the fault was with the owner of the fazenda, who, judging from his appearance, seemed to be an old miser.
When we left Mato Virgem it was our intention to reach a little hamlet, called João Lopez, said to be three long leagues distant. We were told that we should have no difficulty in getting there, as there was a straight road to it; but we had scarcely travelled a league and a half when we came to a place where there were two equally beaten paths, and not knowing which to take, we chose that leading to the right, and continuing onwards all day, through a flat thinly-wooded country, without seeing either man or house, we arrived at a fazenda, a little before sun down, where we were told, what I already suspected, that we had taken the wrong road; but it was of little consequence, as it led also to the Villa de Natividade, the place we finally intended to reach. This fazenda, called Sociedade, belongs to Senhor Manoel José Alves Leite, a young Portuguese, who was then Juiz de Paz of the Arraial da Chapada, a village about a league distant. On our arrival, we were very kindly treated by him; a fowl was immediately killed, and an excellent supper prepared, to which we did ample justice, after our long day’s journey. The Portuguese who settle in the country, are said by the Brazilians to be of a mean and grasping disposition, and deficient in the sentiment of benevolence; this may be the case with many among the great number of the uneducated, who emigrate from Portugal to Brazil, where there is not much inducement to the improvement of their character, but among them there are many young men, who have received some education, and who by their good behaviour, and closer attention to business than the proud and indolent Brazilians, sooner acquire means of independence, which causes them to become the objects both of their envy and dislike. I had little opportunity of associating with the Portuguese on the coast, but in the interior, I have met with many worthy men of that nation, who have shown me the greatest kindness, when this has been refused by a Brazilian. Ever since the independence of Brazil, they have been very greatly persecuted, and whenever any political disturbance takes place, as a necessary consequence, numbers of Portuguese are murdered, and robbed of all they possess: there exists no fellow-feeling between the two nations. As soon as our host became aware of my intention to remain a month or two at Natividade, in order to give rest to my horses, he most kindly urged me to send them to his fazenda, where he would take charge of them till our departure; such, indeed, was the civility we experienced, that I had no reason to regret having taken the wrong road.
Early on the following morning, the 25th of October, we left Sociedade, and after a journey of two long leagues, reached the Villa de Natividade. The country between these two places is flat and thinly-wooded, but on the east side of the road, near the Villa, there is an extensive Serra, about 2,000 feet high, which stretches from north to south. The road passes near the base of this Serra for about half a league, and I was astonished to see the soil, which is of a gravelly nature, dug up into deep trenches, and at intervals the ruins of what appeared once to have been houses. These trenches, I was informed, were old gold workings, which had been abandoned for a long time, on account of the gold being exhausted. The gold-workings seem to have been carried to a considerable extent, for the entire soil, for about half a league in length, and more than a quarter of a mile in breadth, had evidently been completely turned over, to some depth, and the whole appeared to have undergone the process of washing; I afterwards found that most of the country in the vicinity of the Villa had been explored in the same manner. On our arrival, we had no difficulty in finding an empty house for our accommodation, and shortly afterwards; the rains set in very heavily, on which account we were detained here upwards of three months. This, however, I did not regret, after our long journey of considerably more than a thousand miles, reckoned from the time we left Oeiras, from the effects of which the horses had become much exhausted.
I must not omit to mention, that on our journey from Duro to Natividade, we met with great abundance of a delicious wild fruit, a kind of Mangába (Hancornia pubescens var. Gardneri, Alph. DC.) different from the one that grows so abundantly in the province of Ceará and Pernambuco; the fruit is nearly twice its size, and even more delicious. We first met with it on the Serra do Duro, where it is called Mangába do morro, but it is also abundant on the Chapadas, on the plain below, and like that of the other species, this is only good to eat when ripe enough to fall from the tree.
CHAPTER X.
NATIVIDADE TO ARRAYAS.
The Town of Natividade described—Its Population—Dress and Manners of the People—Its Climate—Diseases—Goître extremely prevalent—Excursion to the neighbouring lofty Mountain Range—Its Geology and Vegetation—Visits the Arraial da Chapada—Leaves Natividade—Passes San Bento, and arrives at the Arraial de Conceição—Its Population—Very subject to Goître—Probable cause of this Complaint—Reaches Barra, and crosses the Rio de Palma—Arrives at Santa Brida—Stays at Sapê—Account of the Animal and Vegetable Productions of the Neighbourhood—Reaches the Villa de Arrayas—The Town described—Geological Features of the surrounding Country—Its Climate and Productions—Alarm of the Inhabitants—Muster of the National Guards—Preparation for Departure.
The Villa de Natividade is situated near the western base of the southern extremity of the Serra already mentioned, which bears the same name, and like most of the towns in the interior is very irregularly built. The population amounts to about 2,000 souls consisting of the same mixed races we had so frequently met with before. It contains four churches, which although now very old, are not yet quite finished, nor is it at all likely that they ever will be completed. There is also a jail, but it is built of unburned bricks, through which the prisoners generally contrive to escape, so that it can scarcely be called a prison. Most of the houses are constructed of this material. The inhabitants are lazy and indolent in the extreme, and consequently there is always a great scarcity of the common necessaries of life among them; notwithstanding that much of the country in the neighbourhood of the Villa is well suited for plantations of mandiocca, &c., still very few are to be seen; and although there are many large cattle farms at only a few leagues distance, it is not above once a month, that fresh beef can be purchased; but this is not much to be wondered at, as the mass of the inhabitants, from their indolent habits, have not the means of buying it, or any other useful article. On enquiry of one of the most respectable persons in the place, how these persons contrived to live, he told me that the few who were industrious had to support the others, for they generally stole from their plantations as much as served to sustain their miserable existence. During our stay, we were obliged to live almost entirely on farinha and dried salt beef, neither rice, plantains, nor yams being obtainable. Occasionally I was able to purchase a kind of coarse biscuit, made of Indian corn flour, and once or twice I had a present sent me of a few small loaves, made from wheat grown on high lands, near the town of Cavalcante, a long way to the south. I never saw wheat cultivated in any of those places I visited, and this was the only time I ever tasted bread made from that grain grown within the tropics.
Although the dress of the men is here much the same as in other northern parts of Brazil, that of the women differs greatly, for when dressed either for attending church, joining in processions, or visiting their friends, in place of the large white cotton shawl, which the women of Ceará throw over their heads, or the small white handkerchief used in Piauhy for the same purpose, I was rather surprised to find that here, they all wore cloaks made either of Scotch tartan or blue cloth, very similar to those worn by the factory girls of Glasgow in the winter season. Here it is a universal custom for the women to smoke; and the pipe, which has a wooden tube about three feet long, is seldom out of their mouths from morning till night. They work little, but eat and sleep a great deal; the lower classes of females are also much addicted to drinking the rum of the country (cachaça). The only prisoner confined in the jail while I was there, was a woman, who a few years before was condemned to twenty years’ imprisonment, for causing her own son to kill his father. The son, who was condemned to perpetual imprisonment and hard labour, broke through the walls of the prison shortly after his sentence, and effected his escape.