MINAS GERAES, an important interior province of . Brazil, in South America. On the south it is separated from the provinces of Rio and St Paulo by a mountain chain called the Serra Mantiqueira; on the north the rivers Verde and Carynhenha divide it from Bahia and Pernambuco; on the east it is bounded by part of Bahia, Porto Seguro, and Espiritu Santo; and on the west by Goyaz. It is situated between the thirteenth and twenty-second parallels of south latitude, and is above six hundred miles in length by about three hundred and fifty in average breadth. This is the most mountainous province in Brazil. Hills swell up in every direction, forming an elevated table-land, and the country gradually assumes the features of a romantic alpine region. The golden mountains traverse the whole extent of the province, but they do not rise more than 4000 feet above the level of the sea; nor are they characterised by rugged cliffs or gigantic rocky summits, such as the Alps or Cordilleras exhibit. They consist of long series of detached ranges, having agreeable campos on their summits, and are separated from one another by sloping and pastoral, but not very deep valleys. Owing to the elevation of its table-land, the climate of Minas Geraes is temperate when compared with other countries under the torrid zone; and none of the provinces of Brazil abound more with rivers and mountain torrents. Of these, the greater part have their origin in the Serra Mantiqueira, and are received by four general channels. Two of them, the Rio Doce and the Jequitinhonha, flow to the eastward, the former irrigating the comarca of Villa Rica, and the latter that of Serro do Frio. The St Francisco has a northerly course, and waters the comarca of Sahara; whilst the Rio Grande, or Para, takes a westerly direction, after receiving the Rio das Mortes, which gave its former name to the comarca of St Joao del Rey. The soil in general is very fertile, yielding in abundance, and with little trouble, the grains and fruits of Europe; besides the aromatic plants and other vegetable productions characteristic of such regions, such as cotton, tobacco, sugar, maize, mandioc, coffee, indigo, ipecacuana, columbo root, jalap, liquorice, vanilla, various gums, and Jesuits’ bark. The grape yields a delicious wine, but the inhabitants of the gold and diamond districts drink a humbler liquor, and neglect their vineyards. The forests in this province have only been partially explored, and they still constitute strongholds of the Indians. The trees of which they consist are consequently little known, but many of them are well adapted for dyeing and tanning. These arts, however, have hitherto made little progress, as the inhabitants are averse to employments of this nature, their attention being chiefly directed to the glittering but often useless treasures found in the bowels of the earth. The adraganth, or dragon’s gum, in this district, is of the best quality. The sugar-cane grows in a wild state; the roads are covered with arcades formed by its branches, which reach in many parts to the height of thirty feet. The cattle are allowed to go at large on the open tracts of the country, and left to subsist on whatever they can find. In the summer months, when the grass throughout the wide extent is withered and burnt, they flock to the margins of brooks; but this resource soon fails them, and vast numbers perish from hunger. This province is very rich in mineral productions, and here the principal mines of gold and diamonds are situated. The following metals and minerals are also found: Platina, silver, copper, iron, lead, mercury, antimony, bismuth, fossilcoal, sulphur, emeralds, rubies, topazes, chrysolites, sapphires, agates, aqua-marinas, amethysts, and almost all the precious stones.

Minas Geraes is divided into five comarcas; namely, St Joao del Rey, Sahara, Paracatu, Villa Rica, and Serro do [7:15:109]Frio. In drawing up an account of these, we have been chiefly indebted for information regarding them to the works of Mr Mawe, Mr Luccock, and Drs Von Spix and Martins. We shall follow the route of the first-named traveller from the frontier to Villa Rica. At rather more than a league’s distance from the river Paraibuna is Rosinha do Negro, a small village, situated, like others in this part of the country which are connected with a large plantation, at the bottom of a deep hollow, and by the side of a small stream. Two leagues farther on is another register, called Mathias Barboza, formed by mud-walls, enclosing a large area, with a gateway at each end, through which the public road passes. This place is the great toll-house of Minas Geraes, and the duties collected, amounting to L.25,000 annually, are every three months remitted to Villa Rica. The road, which lies through extensive tracts of wood, continues to ascend in a direction north-west by north; and there is a very sensible change in the temperature. Amongst the trees are the pine and the common box-tree, the latter attaining a height of more than twelve feet. As the road continues to ascend, the trees get smaller, the heaths and ferns larger and more vigorous, and the air becomes cool and fresh, except between the hours of two and four p. μ. Several fazendas succeed one another at intervals as the traveller proceeds on his journey to the capital. That called Mantequeira is situated in a large plain, consisting of rich land, watered by numerous streams, but overrun with weeds and brushwood. Some leagues further inland is Barbazena, which consists of between three and four hundred houses, and where a considerable traffic was at one time carried on with the interior in baize, cotton goods, salt, and iron. Much of the trade, however, is now removed to St John’s. Barbazena is pleasantly situated on the southern declivity of a considerable hill, and here the two great roads from the mining country unite; the one to the westward leading to St Joao del Rey, Sahara, and Cujaba; the other in a northerly direction, conducting to Villa Rica, Tijuco, and Minas Novas. In the vicinity of a place called Louza there is a hill covered with micaceous iron ore, and the road for above half a mile is strewed with a rich oxide of iron. At Alto de Virginia and S. Antonio do Ouro Branco are extensive gold washings; but between these places and the capital the route lies oyer bleak and sterile mountains.

Villa Rica, the capital of Minas Geraes, dates its title as a town no further back than 1711, previously to which period it bore the name of Piro Oreto (black gold), which is still retained by the mountain on the eastern declivity of which it is situated. It occupies two hills, and part of the circumjacent valley or hollow. The principal street runs for nearly two miles in a straight line along the slope of the Morro. Several streets lead from the lower part of the city to that situated on the high ground; and they are all paved, and connected by four stone bridges. The houses are built of stone, two stories high, covered with tiles, and in general white-washed. It is well supplied with water from a number of public fountains distributed through the town. Amongst the public buildings, some of which are not without a claim to splendour, is the governor’s palace, which is situated on the highest projection of the hill; and opposite is a group, of which the inhabitants are particularly proud, formed by the town-house, the prison, and the theatre. In one of the lower parts of the town stands the treasury, attached to which are the mint and the custom-house. There are ten churches, several of which are richly ornamented, and contain paintings and images. Villa Rica enjoys a very considerable trade. Almost every week large convoys set out with the productions of the country, consisting of cotton, hides, marmalade, cheese, precious stones, bars of gold, and other articles. In exchange they bring back salt, wines, calicoes, handkerchiefs, hams, iron-ware, and negroes to be employed in the gold washings and other occupations. Almost all kinds of trades are here carried on; the principal are saddlers, tinmen, and blacksmiths. There are likewise manufactories of gunpowder, hats, and pottery; and they spin and weave wool, worsted, and cotton; but the trade of the goldsmith is prohibited. All the manufactures are purely domestic: ,and the implements and modes of using them are of the oldest and most unimproved description. The climate of this city is delightful, being equal, it is said, to that of Naples. The range of the thermometer in summer is from 64° to 80°; and in winter it rarely descends below 50° of Fahrenheit. From the great elevation of the city, however, it is subject to sudden alternations of temperature during the course of a single day, and thunder-storms are frequent. Both soil and climate are remarkably .favourable to fruits and vegetables, and numerous orchards are situated on the side of the mountain. The system of horticulture, however, is very bad; and, notwithstanding the fertility of the country, the market is but ill supplied with culinary articles. Of the population it is difficult to form an estimate, as the amount is given by different travellers at from eight thousand to twenty thousand; and Mr Luccock states that it is continually fluctuating. According to one traveller, the greater part of the inhabitants consist of blacks and mulattoes; another says there are more whites than blacks; and a third states that there is a considerable proportion of Portuguese.

This is the very centre of the gold country, and a somewhat particular description of this extraordinary spot is necessary. “To contemplate the gold mines of Villa Rica with advantage,” says Mr Luccock, “it will be necessary to recollect, that the land is composed of schist, or a sort of slaty clay, resting upon a core of granite, gneiss, or sandstone, sometimes laminated, at other times solid, the gold being scattered in small particles amid the superjacent schist and clay;^[1. Dr Von Spix, however, denominates the superjacent stratum an ironstone floetz, consisting partly of clay coloured by oxide of iron, but principally of lithomarge, generally of a reddish-brown colour. In this mass there is a large quantity of compact brown ironstone: and also detached nodules of quartz, mica slate, and, though rarely, fragments of topazes. The gold in this formation occurs either in very small grains and crystals within the layers of clay and lithomarge, or as a coating on brown ironstone, or imbedded in it in folia. Below this ironstone floetz is a species of mica slate, containing a large proportion of iron; and through the mass there is disseminated a considerable quantity of gold, particularly in the quartz veins by which it is traversed. Gold in abundance is likewise found in other formations. ] and that the town is placed at the junction of several streams, whose waters have only one outlet by a narrow bason, cut by their force through the surface down to the more firm component parts. Before this outlet, called the Rio do Carino, became so deep as it is, a small lake must have existed among the hills, through which all the waters of the upper country passed, bringing with them and depositing in the bottom a variety of heavy matter.” By this means the ground was raised, whilst the outlet was deepened, until the water was entirely drained off; thus leaving the bottom dry, in the shape of a level plain, composed of the debris of various kinds, mingled with which was a considerable quantity of gold. This plain is surrounded by mountains containing, it is supposed, much gold, notwithstanding what has been washed down or extracted from them. A stream traverses the plain, and, when flooded by rain, small trenches are formed on its banks, into which the water runs, and, [7:15:110]depositing the sediment suspended in it, more or less gold is generally mingled with the mass; and on the occasion of a flood the whole of the inhabitants turn out and pursue the search for the precious metal. On the side of the hill the bottoms of the natural streams are searched, and where these do not exist, excavations are formed, and the courses of streams are turned and made to pass through them. So numerous are the perforations of this kind, that the side of the mountain presents the appearance of a honey-comb. The greatest quantity of gold has been found on the eastern declivity of the Mono of Villa Rica, and here the search for it is conducted more systematically. Sieves and raw ox hides are placed at certain distances in trenches full of water, which is conducted from the summit; the first is intended to stop the coarser sand, and the second is to catch the gold dust in the hair, which stands erect; sometimes woollen cloths are used for this purpose. The gold found here varies in colour according to the nature of the other metals or minerals with which it is mixed. The Morro of Villa Rica extends in a direction east and west along the valley of the Ribeiro do Oiro Preto or do Carmo, to Passagem, a village containing about one hundred and fifty houses, situated about two leagues from the capital. Gold mines or washings are likewise situated in the vicinity of the episcopal city of Mariana (see Mariana), at the Presidio de St Joao Baptista, on the Rio de San Joze, where it washes the base of the Altos de St Miguel, at the aldeaof St Joze de Barra Louga, and at various other places throughout the province. A district in which the beautiful fazenda of Capao is situated, is that where the well-known Brazilian topazes are found. What is called the topaz mine is only an open quarry, consisting of two breaks or slips in the mountain side. These precious stones are found in three different places. The mine which Dr Von Spix examined was a hill immediately behind the fazenda of Lana, which, on one side, for a considerable breadth and to a height of sixty feet, had become so softened by rains, and by water conducted upon it by art, that it had become like a marsh. The soil is thrown up into long heaps with shovels, and washed, by means of water conducted over it, into a narrow channel, with some wooden lattices fixed in it, so that only the more solid parts remain behind, which are then broken with hoes, and with the hands in search of topazes. The quantity found here annually may amount to between fifty and sixty arrobas,, but many of them are of an inferior, quality. The greater part of these topazes is exported from this place to Rio de Janeiro, and a smaller portion to Bahia. The euklase is also found here, and has attracted the attention of the inciros since mineralogists have inquired after it. This stone is in general scarce, and is more frequently met with in the mine of Capao than in that of Lana. Five leagues to the westward of Çapao is the iron foundery of De Prata, which produces annually about one thousand arrobas of iron. The ore is a rich iron glance, but particularly magnetic iron stone, the very thick beds of which stand out near the foundery. The rock is mica slate. A league and a half to the south-southeast of De Prata are the gold and lead mines of Senhor Romualdo Joze Monteiro do Barros. The gold mine is a cream-coloured clay slate traversed by auriferous veins of quartz, amongst which the metal is disseminated, along with manganese. The mine of Cujabeira, in which the chromate of lead is found, is a low hill of clay, scarcely a league distant from the fazenda. The red lead ore is found in a vein of friable, grayish-white, granular quartz, amongst pretty much integrated, white, sealylithomarge. The crystals of the chromate of lead are very small, and seldom show well-defined terminal planes. Not far from this estate is the arraial of Matozinho, which contains about one hundred and fifty houses, with several churches; and on the opposite side of the river Paraopeba is situated Congon-has, containing about two hundred houses, and several chapels, one of which, although small in dimensions, vies in the splendour of its ornaments with any ecclesiastical edifice in the country. It has indeed been designated the Loretto of Brazil. ìn external appearance it is not more than respectable, but the interior decorations and emblazonry, consisting of the precious stones of Brazil, are on the most splendid scale. Eight miles to the north-east of Marianna is the arraial of Antonio Perreira, where gold mines are situated; but we must now quit the land of gold for the land of diamonds, situated in the comarca of Serro do Frio.

The comarca of Serro do Frio is divided from that of Villa Rica by the river Doce. Villa do Principe, the capital, is situated about one hundred and ten miles northnorth-east of Marianna, close upon the confines of the diamond district. Like the other provincial capitals of Minas, this town has its smelting-house, with the usual appointments, its ouvidor, who holds also the office of mint master, and a juiz de for a. It contains a church, five chapels, and about five thousand inhabitants, a considerable portion of whom are shopkeepers, the rest being artizans, farmers, and miners. The country around Villa do Principe is very fine and open, being free from those impenetrable forests which occur so frequently in other parts of the province. The climate is mild and salubrious; the soil is productive, yielding Indian corn, legumes, cotton, and sugar. A few leagues beyond this town the aspect of the country changes, and the district in which Tejuco is situated is sterile and unproductive. This town is irregularly built on the side of a hill, and contains a church, several chapels, and a number of shops stocked with English cottons, baizes, and cloths, with other kinds of manufactured goods. What is termed the diamond ground extends about sixteen leagues from north to south, and about eight from east to west; and several thousand negroes, who are superintended by about two hundred whites, are employed in searching for the precious mineral. The largest of the diamond works, called Mandango, is situated on the river Jequitinhonha, which in this part is about nine feet deep, and about as broad as the Thames at Windsor. .Mr Mawe has minutely described the process by which the diamonds are obtained, the chief object of his visit being to examine the mines. The part of the river which was then worked was a curve or elbow from which the current had been diverted by means of a canal. The deeper parts of the channel were laid dry by means of chain-pumps worked by a waterwheel, and the cascalho was then removed by means of machinery. This stratum of debris consists of similar materials to that found in the gold district. During the dry season sufficient cascalho is dug up to occupy all the hands during the rainy months. This gravelly matter is washed in troughs placed under sheds erected for the purpose. The negroes are formed into working parties called troops, containing two hundred each, under the direction of an administrator and inferior officers. Besides the precious stone, which is principally sought, gold is found in the debris. Diamonds are by no means peculiar to the beds of rivers or deep ravines; they have been found in cavities and water-courses, even on the summits of the loftiest mountains. They of course vary exceedingly in size. Some are so small that four or five are required to weigh one grain, consequentlysixteenor twenty to the carat. There are seldom found more than two or three diamonds of from seventeen to twenty carats in the course of a year; and not once in two years is there found throughout the whole washings a stone of thirty carats. There are other diamond works in this comarca besides Mandango, particularly those of Monteiro, and those situated on the Rio Pardo. Thirty-five leagues from Tejuco, in a north-easterly[7:15:111] direction, is Tocaya, the principal place in the district of Minas Novas. The road to it runs nearly parallel with the Jequitinhonha, in the numerous rivulets flowing, into which river are found white and blue topazes, aqua-marinas, and the chrysoberyl, a stone held in high estimation in Brazil. Twenty-five miles north-north-east of Villa do Principe is the town of Fanado or Bom Succeso, in the neighbourhood of which diamonds of an inferior quality are found. There are several other arraials in this comarca, amongst which may be mentioned Bara do Rio das Velhas, a place of considerable commerce, and, but for its insalubrity, likely to become one of the largest places in the province.

The great river San Francisco is the boundary line between the comarca of Serro do Frio and that of Paracatu. This almost Unknown district, prior to 1815, was included in the comarca of Sahara. A new ouvidor was then appointed for the township and circuit of Paracattf, the villages of Desemboque and Araxa being subsequently detached from the comarca of Villa Boa in Goyaz, and annexed to the new ouvidoria. Paracatu do Principe, the only town, owes its origin to its mines, first discovered in 1744. These consist of gold and lead; but diamonds have also been found in some places.

The comarca of Sahara, which-formerly included all the western part of Minas Geraes north of the comarca of Rio das Mortes, takes its name from its head town, the Villa Real do Sahara. This town stands near the confluence of the small river of the same name with the Das Velhas, about thirty-five miles north-north-west of Marianna, and is surrounded with mountains. About twelve miles from Sahara there is said to be a tepid lake, two miles in length by one in breadth. It has acquired the name of the Holy Lake, from its waters having been found to possess medicinal virtue in various diseases. Fifteen miles north of Sahara is the flourishing parish of St Luzia, which contains a considerable population, and is ornamented with five Roman Catholic temples. The only towns in the comarca besides Sahara are Villa Nova da Raynha, better known by its Indian name of Caethe, containing about 5000 inhabitants; it is twelve miles east-south-east of Sahara, and has in its suburbs good potteries; and Pi-tangui, situated on the right margin of Para, about eighty miles west-north-west of Sahara. Its inhabitants, about 20,000 in number, breed horses, cattle, hogs, and sheep, and cultivate cotton and the sugar-cane.

The comarca of St Joao del Rey or Rio das Mortes occupies the southern extremity of the province adjoining those of St Paulo and Rio. It is itself larger than the whole kingdom of Portugal, and the land is for the most part rich and fertile in a high degree. From March to November the climate is fine and dry, the nights being sometimes sharp and frosty. Ice is occasionally formed, and snow falls, but they disappear before the noon-day sun. About the middle of November the rainy season is ushered in by violent thunder and lightning. Rain comes invariably from the south, and in continued damp weather the air is unpleasantly cold. The Villa St Joao del Rey, antecedently called Rio das Mortes, is a handsome little town, surrounded by a bulwark of romantic hills and broken rocks, with tracts entirely sterile, and others covered with the most luxuriant verdure. Its situation is so agreeable and central, that an intention was once formed of making it the capital. There are in St Joao about 6000 inhabitants, of whom only one third are white people, the rest being negroes and mulattoes. For their employment and support there are no manufactures, except a small one of hats of a peculiar kind. In the adjoining country a large quantity of woollen cloth is made from native produce, and serves for ordinary clothing. Yet the trade of St Joao del Rey must be considerable; for Dr Von Spix informs us that four constantly employed caravans, each of fifty mules, annually go backwards and forwards to the capital, conveying thither bacon, cheese, some cottons, woollen hats, horned cattle, mules, and gold bars; and bringing back in return European goods, chiefly Portuguese and English, such as calicoes, handkerchiefs, lace, iron-ware, wine, porter, and liqueurs. The gold mine, to which the town owes its origin and celebrity, and whence such masses of mineral wealth have been extracted, is situated within the town. It is nothing more than a deep pit, and is now little resorted to. St Joao del Rey is situated eighty miles south-west of Villa Rica, about the same distance south-south-west of Sahara, and upwards of two hundred miles north-west of Rio. The population of Minas Geraes has been computed at between six and seven hundred thousand inhabitants, of whom nearly a fourth are slaves. Indians are found only upon the eastern confines of the province, or in the impenetrable forests of the Serra do Alar.