The general features of the captaincy of Rio Grande, may be laid down as displaying tolerable fertility to the southward of Natal, and as having a barren aspect to the northward of it, excepting the banks and immediate neighbourhood of the Potengi. We passed through the estate of Ilha, distant from St. Luzia one league and a half, and proceeded, after taking water, four leagues beyond it, to an uninhabited and unfinished house. The owner had commenced building during the rains of the former year, and had gone on with the work until the spring of water, near to the place, failed. The house was tiled and spacious; but the wood work only of the walls was erected. It had been the intention of this person to establish a _fazenda_ here; but the failure of the spring of water would, probably, deter him from his purpose. The country from Ilha to Tibou, where we halted at noon on the following day, a distance of ten leagues, was now without water. Two parties of travellers, besides our own, had taken up their night’s lodging at this unfinished house. The several fires, the groups around them, some cooking, some eating, and others asleep; the pack-saddles and trunks strewed about, as they had been taken from the horses’ backs, formed a scene worthy of a painter; all was darkness around, and the wind blew fresh, for the house had no walls, and no obstruction to oppose its entrance, save the upright posts which supported the roof. The light of the fires sometimes flashed upon one or other of the countenances of the travellers, and on these occasions alone could I discover their colour and consequently, in some degree, their rank. I might be in the company of slaves or of white men, for both would have taken up their night’s station in the same manner. An old man of colour addressed me, asking if I was the Englishman who had rested at noon at St. Luzia; on my answering in the affirmative, he said that he was at the commandant’s at the time, and that there were several debates about the mode of proceeding respecting me and mine—that my determination not to give up my passport had caused some demur, and that among other suppositions of who I might be, one wiseacre said, there was no knowing whether I was not one of Bonaparte’s ministers, and what might be my diabolical plans. Indeed I was often amused with the strange ideas which the country people entertained of distant nations, of which they had heard the names, and perhaps some further particulars; these were altered in such a manner by their misapprehension, that it was oftentimes difficult to discover what the real circumstances were which had been related to them.