Villa Real do Sabara, (Royal Town of Sabara) is the head of the comarca, and ordinary residence of its ouvidor, who also acts in other situations. It stands near the right margin of the Velhas, where this river receives the small stream that affords the town’s name, in a low situation, surrounded with mountains, and is large, flourishing, well supplied with meat, fish, and the common necessaries peculiar to the country. It has a church of the Lady of Conceiçao, a chapel of Our Lady of O, another of Rozario, and a numerous fraternity of blacks, two Terceira orders of Carmo and St. Francisco. There is a Juiz de Fora, who is head of the orphan establishment; a vicar; the usual professors of the first letters and Latin; and a smelting house for gold, the expenses of which are forty thousand crusades annually, having the same appointments as that of Villa Rica, with the exception of the engraver of stamps for coining, and the third founder. This town has a good fountain of excellent water in the street of Caquende, and four entrances from the cardinal points, all but one having wooden bridges; the eastern and southern are over the Sabara. The judicial officers are the same here as in the capital of the province; the annual revenue of the camara, or municipal body, is nine thousand crusades. The heat is here more intense in the hot months than in any other povoaçao in the province, arising, most probably, from its reflexion from the circumjacent mountains. A register for receiving the royal duties was, in 1712, established in this place, which is thirty-five miles north-north-west of Marianna, seventy north-east of Tamandua, near one hundred south-west of Villa do Principe, and seventy-five north-north-east of St. Joao d’ el Rey. The inhabitants, and those of six parishes within its district, (viz. Rio das Pedras, St. Antonio, Curral d’ el Rey, St. Luzia, Congonhas, and Rapozos,) comprising altogether forty-six thousand three hundred persons, are miners and farmers, and form two regiments of cavalry, one with eleven, and the other with eight companies, all whites; twenty companies of infantry; a regiment of eleven companies of mulattoes; and another of seven companies of _forro_, or free blacks. In the year 1788, the population of Sabara consisted of seven thousand six hundred and fifty-six persons, and eight hundred and fifty houses. In 1819, its inhabitants did not exceed nine thousand three hundred and forty-seven.