This was in 1661. Three years later the Portuguese court, greatly desiring the discovery and development of mining regions which should yield tribute to Lisbon, offered special rewards to discoverers of mines, appointed an Administrator of Mines in Espirito Santo, where some coloured stones had been found, and Affonso VI wrote to Fernão Dias asking him to search the interior that he knew so well for the source of the “emeralds” whose beauty raised hopes of finding mines equal in value to those of the Spaniards in New Granada (Colombia), still today the cradle of the finest emeralds. As a matter of fact the green stones found in Brazil are the beautiful but semi-precious tourmalines. Consenting, the famous bandeirante made some preliminary excursions and in 1676, when he was over eighty years old, led out a great _comitiva_; the first winter’s camp was made in a valley beyond the Rio Grande, the second at Bomfim, the third at Sumidouro. At last in the Serro Frio some showings of gold were located, and on the way back Dias died by the Rio das Velhas, in the far interior across Minas Geraes. The bandeira had gone through great suffering, and scores of men were buried by the way: at one time the remnants of the expedition had appealed to Dias to give up the hunt and return, and on his refusal made a plan to kill him. The conspiracy was headed by a young man who was the son of Dias by an Indian girl, and dearly loved by the old sertanista, but when convinced of his boy’s guilt Dias hanged him, pardoning the other plotters but driving them from the camp. To Fernão Dias was due the exploration of what is now the State of Minas Geraes, the whole of it falling practically under his sway as the founder of at least a dozen towns in that hilly interior, the majority surviving to this day. His search had a curious sequel: his son-in-law and faithful aide, Borba Gato, who had found gold mines in Sabará and registered them in 1700, was returning to S. Paulo after the death of his leader when he met with a party headed by the official Administrator General of Mines. Borba Gato’s charts and proofs were demanded, refused, a quarrel broke out, and the servants of the pioneer set upon the Administrator and killed him. Not daring to face S. Paulo with this tale, Borba Gato fled to the interior where a tribe of Indians friendly to him dwelt by the Rio Doce, and there lived hidden out of the reach of the law for twenty years. At the end of that time, attempts to find the Sabará mines having failed, he was offered a pardon in exchange for the secret; he accepted the offer, returned to civilization, and presently retiring to a farm with his family died peacefully in his bed at the age of ninety.