[33] No person can be permitted to see the diamonds in the Treasury without a joint order from the ministers to that effect.
[34] This name is given to what we should call a huckster’s shop, where various articles, such as liquors, Indian corn, and sometimes sugar, are sold. Though they profess to answer the purpose of inns, they are destitute of conveniences; travellers who carry their beds and cooking utensils with them, generally prefer lodging in a rancho or estallage. Shelter from rain and night air is the only convenience which a lodging in these districts can be expected to afford.
[35] In this country the practice of cutting flax is attended with great success, and is preferred to that of pulling it, which prevails elsewhere. The fibres, though cut, are considered sufficiently long to be spun and made into good common linen. The old roots produce fresh shoots incredibly soon.
[36] They also informed me that green topazes were sometimes found, which I very much doubted. If any substance of that color, resembling topaz, did occur, it was most probably Euclase. It is now known that Euclase is found with topazes.
[37] Our mules required at least six penny-worth each per day, exclusive of their corn.
[38] In England I once knew an instance in which an ingot with mercury adhering to it, in the possession of a person ignorant of metallurgy, was sold at a reduced price, as if the discolored part had really been lead; the purchaser also supposing that to be the case.
[39] The finest parts of these tracts, in the best season, are by no means so rich in grass as an English meadow.
[40] This species of sublimation on a small scale interested me greatly. Could it proceed from any glimmering of science in the minds of the negroes, or was it merely an accidental discovery?
[41] This substance contains fine-formed octahedral crystals of magnetic iron.
[42] An owner of mules, who travels with a number of them, carrying goods for other persons, as well as on his own account.