We proceeded about a league and a half farther, through thick woods, and arrived at a place named Rosina de Negra, where we halted for the night. Our next day’s journey presented the same varieties of hill and ravine as those we had already passed. In one part of the road we observed a kind of barracks, consisting of an estalagem and some ranchos or huts, where an officer and about twenty horse-soldiers are stationed; they patrole the road, and are authorised to stop travellers, and make the strictest search of those whom they suspect of having gold-dust or diamonds concealed. Proceeding two leagues, we arrived at the Register of Mathias Barboza, situated in the midst of an almost impervious wood. It was built about sixty or seventy years ago, by the gentleman whose name it bears, and who was an ancestor of the noble family of Sousa.
This Register is a large oblong building, with two great doors at each end, through which all travellers, with their mules, are required to pass. On entering, they stop, and deliver their passports to a soldier for examination by the commander, who, if he judges that a correct account is given of the property, suffers them to proceed: but if any grounds of suspicion occur, the mules are unloaded, and all the contents of their cargoes are examined with the strictest scrutiny. In these examinations it not unfrequently happens that a negro has been suspected of swallowing a diamond; in which case, he is shut up in a bare room until such time as the truth can be proved. The command of this station is entrusted to a major. The inner part of the building consists of apartments for the officers, ranchos for the soldiers, cells for the confinement of suspected persons, and stabling for the mules. In the yard there are numerous posts, to which the cattle are tied while loading or unloading. There is also a venda for the accommodation of travellers.
Leaving this place, we proceeded through an extensive tract of wood, in which we occasionally observed a few deer, but no birds, except now and then a green parrot or a wood-pecker. The road, as far as the eye could reach, was bounded on each hand by close continuous thickets, and rarely enlivened by traces of habitation. Those persons who live by the way-side are commonly of the lowest order, who settle there with the view of selling refreshments to travellers, and corn for the mules; they are in general an idle, gossipping race: the more respectable classes reside at a distance from the public road.
We arrived about four in the evening at a farm-house called Madeiras, belonging to Captain José Pinto de Sousa. The situation is cold and salubrious, the vicinity well-watered, and abounding in fine tracts of arable and pasture land, but deplorably neglected. The owner seemed to prefer ease, with inconvenience, to labor, with comfort; and, satisfied with the spontaneous bounty of nature, cared little about improving it by industry. The house itself was miserably out of repair: its walls, which consisted of lattice-work plastered with clay, were full of holes and crevices, and its roof was in a very crazy and shattered condition. We fared but poorly, and passed a very indifferent night; often reflecting on the apathy and listless indolence of the people: who, thought we, in a cold climate would live in a dwelling full of cracks and air-holes, when a few dashes of mud might render it comparatively comfortable!
From this place, which is an hundred miles from Porto da Estrella, we continued our route next day over a chain of mountains, among which we encountered other falls of the Paraiba nearer its source, and, traversing a tract of close woodland, arrived at a station called the Fazenda do Juiz de Fora. Here we procured fresh mules, and proceeded for a considerable distance on the ascent, when we met with two planters from Minas Novas, who were going to Rio de Janeiro with forty-six mules loaded with cotton, packed in raw hides, each beast carrying two packages. They had been nearly three months on the road. We availed ourselves of their kind offers to carry intelligence to our friends in the capital, and gave them letters for that purpose.
The remainder of our day’s journey afforded few incidents worth notice. We observed several pines of a singular species, which yielded abundance of resin. In one part of the road I shot a most beautiful bird, the name of which I could not learn, but was informed that it flew about much in the night. In another part, we noticed a beast of prey, which was crossing the road before us, and fled at our approach. I killed a small water-snake with two fins near its vent.
We arrived towards evening at the fazenda of Antonio Ferreira, formerly a good house, but now almost in ruins. The owner was not at home; but his old negro-servants provided as handsomely for us as we could have expected them to do if he had been present. We made a tolerable supper of stewed fowls, with the addition of a fine wild turkey, which I had killed in the vicinity. I may here observe, that a traveller in this country should neglect no opportunity of providing for himself with his gun, as he is never certain of palatable fare at the places where he alights.
The surface of the country is in general good strong clay; all the rocks are of gneiss and granite, in the composition of which hornblende predominates. We this day passed the site of the first gold-washing, which is very small, and has been many years abandoned. The rivulets have a great deal of oxide of iron in small grains mixed with the sand in their eddies. In some places the granite is in a decomposing state, and there are large nodules of what the Germans call grünstein, which appear not unlike basalt. The air in these elevated districts is fresh and cool, except from two to four o’clock in the afternoon, when I found it rather hot. In the evening, while amusing ourselves with shooting, we observed a man in a friar’s habit, with a box bearing a picture of the Virgin, fastened to his waist by a belt. His face was overgrown with hair, and his whole appearance exceedingly wild and uncouth. On inquiry, we were informed that this extraordinary figure was a hermit; and that he had embraced this austere life by way of doing penance for some great crime.
Having pursued our diversion while day-light lasted, we returned to the house, where, for the first time since our departure from Rio, we partook of a comfortable meal, and regaled ourselves with a bottle of excellent Madeira, which my worthy companion by good fortune had brought with him.