still all in working order, I declined accepting his offer. These circumstances are mentioned to show the frankness with which strangers are treated. I could not get away before ten o’clock, and therefore only advanced two leagues to dinner; I stopped by the side of a rivulet under some trees, upon a most beautiful spot. At a short distance from the estate of Cunhàû, is a hamlet of the same name through which I passed in my way to the colonel’s plantation. This hamlet, or the estate itself, was the scene of a massacre, which was committed by the Pitagoares and Tapuyas from the Potengi in the year 1645. A battle was fought by Camaram, the Indian chieftain, to whose prowess the Portugueze are so much indebted, against the Dutch, in the following year, between Cunhàû and Fort Keulen which stands at the mouth of the Potengi.[34] The captaincy of Rio Grande commences some leagues to the southward of Cunhàû, at a place called Os Marcos—a deep dell inhabited by runaway negroes and criminals; the paths of the dell are intricate, and when once a man has taken up his residence here, it is impossible to dislodge him. This season the crop of cotton had failed; it was one of those years in which a great want of rain was felt. The colonel of Cunhàû had, for the first time, planted a piece of land, from which he expected to have gathered 10,000 _arrobas_, but in the end only gathered about 100; and he told me that he should keep to his sugar henceforwards. He is lenient to his slaves; they looked fat and well, and he has the character of not making as much of his plantation as he might, which is one proof of his kindness to them. The estate of Cunhàû is one of the largest, if not quite the most extensive, in these parts. There are upon it about 150 negroes, and the lands belonging to it would employ four or five times the number, but the colonel pays more attention to cattle, by which his father increased his fortune very largely.