sixteen leagues, and Senhor Joaquim’s horse, a fine highly fed animal, began to give way. The guide led, and we followed, through a narrow path, very little frequented, as the bushes oftentimes nearly took off our hats, and were continually brushing against us the whole way. On our arrival at Abia, the house was quite deserted, as the steward was from home, and we did not like to enter a cottage which stood near to the principal house, when we found that the party in it was larger than our own, and not likely to be of the best kind. We had now another half league to go to Senhor Leonardo’s, a friend of my fellow-traveller. He gave us a good supper, and hammocks, took good care of our horses, and in the morning we set forth for Goiana, seven leagues. We passed through Alhandra, an Indian village, containing about six hundred inhabitants. This village is not so regularly built as many of the others which I have seen; instead of a square, with houses on each side, it is built in streets, and though the square is preserved, still it is not the principal feature of the place. The Indians of Alhandra, from their vicinity to Goiana, which is distant about three leagues, are not so pure as those further from a large town; they have admitted among them some _mamalucos_ and _mestizos_. Great part of this extent of coast was uninhabited, but wherever the land was low, and the surf not violent, there we found a few cottages; the banks of the rivers were also not entirely destitute of inhabitants. The two streams which we first crossed might be about eighty or one hundred yards in breadth; they are deep, but do not proceed far into the country. When the action of the tide ceases, all these lesser streams become insignificant, and most of them quite dry. The great river which we were to have crossed is the Goiana; it spreads very widely when the tide enters, but is easily passed at the ebb, and the channel becomes much contracted, and very shallow during the spring tides. It is judged to be about a league in breadth, at its mouth, and is much deeper immediately within the bar than upon it. CHAPTER V. JOURNEY FROM GOIANA TO RIO GRANDE.—THE CITY OF NATAL.—THE GOVERNOR.