Pitangui is in a state of mediocrity, upon the right margin of the Para, three miles below the confluence of the St. Joao, and is well supplied with fish, meat, and all the agricultural productions of the country. It was erected into a town in 1715, has two hermitages, and a church of the Lady of Pilar; a Juiz de Fora, and an escrivao of the conductors of gold. The camara has three thousand crusades of revenue. This town is one hundred miles north of St. Joao d’el Rey, and nearly eighty west-north-west of Sabara. Its inhabitants, amounting to nineteen thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and those of its widely extending district, (including only one other parish, Nossa Senhora das Dores, with one thousand four hundred and nineteen persons,) raise large quantities of cattle, horses, hogs, and sheep, and have extensive plantations of the cotton tree and cane, the rum from which is considered the best of the province. A rich mine of gold occasioned numerous disputes and deaths amongst its first dwellers, who were Paulista miners. There was amongst them one D. R. do Prado, who gratified his vile and avaricious feelings, by assassinating even those who did not offend him; such was the lawless state in which those primitive mining settlements were involved. Paracatu do Principe is a middling town, famous for its mines, well and pleasantly situated upon an elevated plain, with straight and paved streets, having a church dedicated to St. Antonio da Manga, three hermitages of Our Lady of Abbadia, Amparo, and Rozario, another of St. Anna, and two good fountains. The houses are built of timber and earth, and include a royal school for Latin. This town is one hundred and forty miles from the St. Francisco, and about half a mile from the small stream of Corgo Rica, which after forty miles of course enters the Paracatu on the left, near the port of Bezerra. It has decayed much from its first flourishing condition; the people are peaceable, but indolent. Cattle and the produce of mines constitutes what wealth there is amongst them. The vine bears fruit in perfection twice a year. The pine-apple and orange are abundant and excellent. Around this place are an abundance of partridges, deer, and other game. The gold has a fine appearance, but below the proper degree of purity is of difficult extraction for want of water, and is not allowed to be searched for at any great distance. Diamonds having appeared in various parts is the reason of the working of mines being restricted to a few leagues round the town, upon which circuit are detachments to prevent the prescribed limits being passed for the purpose of mining. The district of the town comprises the main portion of the comarca, that is to say, all the territory lying westward of the river St. Francisco, from the Carynhenha to the Abayte. Near the confluence of the latter is the passage from Villa Rica to Goyaz, called Porto Real.