[52] In some of the low swampy tracts large serpents are not uncommon. At Tejueo I was shown the skin of a young one, of the Boa Constrictor genus. It was twenty-four feet in length, and about twenty inches in circumference. These formidable reptiles have been killed forty feet long! The strength of such a serpent is not easily to be imagined; they have an undulating motion, and carry their head erect four or five feet from the ground; their jaws, &c. are capable of inconceivable dilatation.
[53] Since my return, His Excellency the Conde de Funchall, ordered a model of a ballast-lighter, which I got constructed for him, and which will one day or other be found extremely useful.
[54] It may become useful at Villa Rica; but the quantity required there at present is so trivial as scarcely to merit attention.
[55] If salt were cheaper they might be cured, and would become an article of commerce, particularly during Lent.
[56] Exclusive of this amount there is a vast quantity smuggled.
[57] One Sunday morning during my stay, an owner of a washing came to the house of the Intendant, and brought him two miserable diamonds of bad color, which did not weigh together above five grains, and these, he said, were all which his ten negroes had found in six weeks. In the course of conversation, the Intendant observed that all the smugglers were either imprisoned or dispersed, when the man immediately assumed an appearance of great disgust at the mention of persons of so vile a description, and was liberal in his epithets of abuse on them. If I durst have enquired how it happened that his negroes in six weeks could find only two bad-colored diamonds, what emotions would this immaculate miner have manifested!
[58] From all accounts relative to the Indians, either by the officers employed against them, and better acquainted with their habits than other men, or from any of the settlers who live near the coast, it does not appear that they have the smallest knowledge of gold or of precious stones; hence they can in no degree have contributed to the discovery of those treasures in the district.
[59] At a place called Caldeiroens, near to Ouro Branco, I received two bits of this metal, but they were so small and disfigured, as to leave strong doubts respecting their being natural; the more so, by reason of the many impositions that were attempted to be practised upon me by false specimens of copper-ores, silver, &c.
[60] A part of the lichen which I brought home with me I presented to a gentleman who was fond of chemical experiments: he obtained from the small quantity of three grains as much coloring matter as imparted to an ounce of fluid a deep purple, sufficiently strong for every purpose of dying.
The following are the results of some experiments which he did me the favor to make: