A history of the Brazil

by James Henderson

The face of the country is almost generally uneven, without any deep valleys, and with few mountains of considerable elevation, if we except the branches of the Great Cordillera, with which it is in great part surrounded. The territory principally consists of a sandy, arid, and sterile soil, partially wooded. Upon the serras alone are to be discovered extensive woods, the soil being substantial and fertile, and there the best plantations of produce are formed, the remainder of the country serving as pasturage for large quantities of cattle bred there.

The winters are irregular, and commonly dry, some years passing without any rain, the consequences of which are many fatalities. This scourge upon the country is said to be repeated about every ten years, with some exceptions. The heat is intense in the flat parts of the central districts. In 1792, a drought commenced, which lasted four years, during which time all domestic animals perished, and many people. Honey was for a long time the only aliment, which produced various epidemics, and swept off many thousand persons throughout the province. Seven parishes were completely deserted, without there remaining a single soul.

In 1632, two Dutch vessels of war arrived upon the coast with the intention of making an easy conquest of it, through the medium of an intrigue with the Indians; and, for the accomplishment of this project, four Indians were ordered to penetrate into the interior, who, with many others, had been taken in the bay of Trahicao, and sent to Amsterdam, where they learned the Batavian language. Two of them being discovered, through the activity of Domingos da Veyga, commandant of the presidio, were immediately executed as an example to the others; and the Dutch, despairing, in consequence, of succeeding in their undertaking, set sail again for Pernambuco.

Five years afterwards, the Indians of this country, hearing of the great successes of the Dutch, on the arrival of Count Nassau at Pernambuco, deputed two messengers to offer submission and obedience to them in case they wished to make themselves masters of the presidio, the commandant of which had concluded his days, and the soldiery were in a sufficiently diminutive state. Four vessels were immediately despatched, with two hundred soldiers, and the Dutch, without difficulty, possessed themselves of this province in the year 1637, which they retained without any considerable advantage for some years, and, on giving it up, did not leave, as in some other places, any public works of utility. The Indians, who spontaneously united with them, undoubtedly expected to have met with that in the new conquerors which they could not find in the first; but it does not appear that they were quite so satisfied, as they retired to the southern lands in the vicinity of the cordillera. The missionaries of the Protestant religion, it would appear, did not please them so well as the spells, rosaries, ceremonies, and parade, accompanied with music, all so imposing on the imagination, and with which the Jesuits allured them from the savage life.

Mountains.—The serra of Jaguaribe, with many spiral heads, is to the east of the river of that name. The serra of Guammame, which commences near the Jaguaribe, ranges for thirty miles to the west, at a distance of about eighteen from the coast; that of Siara, with four heads, is between the river of its name on the east, and the Cahohyppe on the west. The serra of Mandahu is between the river of the same name on the west, and the bay of Curu on the east; that of Caracu, having the river of that name on the west, and the Aracaty-mirim on the east.

The serra Borytamma is behind the morro of Jericoacoara, situated at the bottom of the bay of this name. The whole serve for land-marks to the navigators coasting along these shores.

There is also the serra Uruburetama, running north and south between the rivers Curu and Acaracu; that of Botarite, in the centre of the province; and that of Merooca, seventy miles distant from the sea.

The serra of Hibiapaba, far from being a single cordon, is formed of various mountains, which succeed each other, and is in parts bare and stony; but the main portion is covered with forests of superb timber, nourished by a soil of much substantiality and fecundity. The Tabbajara Indians possess the greatest part of it.

Mineralogy.—Gold in small quantity; minerals of silver and iron, more or less; crystals, chrysolites, pumice stone, amethysts, magnet, calcareous stone, granite, saltpetre, white lead, potters’ earth, and stones of St. Anna, which are applied to females at child-birth.

Zoology.—There are the ferret, hedge-hog, here called quandu, as at Pernambuco, praguica, or sloth, ounce, deer, coelho, guaxinin, quaty, pacca, the wild boar, capivara, otter, and all other wild quadrupeds, peculiar to the neighbouring provinces. The guariba monkeys assemble in large bands upon the thickest trees of the woods, and make a babbling noise like the loud grating of the Brazilian waggon. Among other species of birds are common the emu ostrich, seriema, jaburu, colhereira, tucano, mutun, jacu, torquaze pigeon, guiraponga, nhambu, zabele, parrot, urubu, sabia. In the lakes there are a diversity of ducks, geese, galeiro, a diving bird; and near their margins, the saracura, macarico, and socco. Bats are very numerous, particularly in years of great drought, and more fatal to the cattle than the wild beasts collectively, actually reducing rich farmers to indigence, extensive plains covered with many thousand head of cattle becoming totally deserted. This animal, worse than a pestilence, destroys most in the fazendas that have rocks, in whose caverns they breed, where they cluster together during the day in large piles, and where also they are better killed, either with fire or with the gun. Goats and sheep are sufficiently numerous, though not so much so as they were previously to the fatal drought alluded to; the latter resist the rainy seasons the best, and are more prolific, generally having two at a birth, many three, few one, and some four: goats commonly have two also, many one, but rarely afford three at a birth. In the vicinity of the river Jaguaribe, the most numerous flocks of both species are met with. Neither the flesh nor milk of those animals are held in much repute, and, what is equally singular, the people are imperfectly acquainted with the art of rendering their skins a branch of commerce.