The next day we reached Aracati, distant seven leagues from where we had slept, about five o’clock in the afternoon. Great part of this day’s journey was through salt marshes or plains covered with the Carnàûba; the tall naked stems of the palms, crowned with branches like the coco tree at the summit, which rustle with the least breath of air, and the bare and dark coloured soil upon which no grass grows and rarely any shrub, give a dismal look to these plains. The computed distance from Açû? to Aracati is forty-five leagues. When I approached Aracati, I sent my Goiana guide forwards with the letter which I had received from the governor of Rio Grande to Senhor Joze Fideles Barrozo, a wealthy merchant and landed proprietor. On my arrival, I found that the guide had delivered the letter, and that Senhor Barrozo had given to him the keys of an unoccupied house, which I was to inhabit during my stay. The town of Aracati consists chiefly of one long street, with several others of minor importance branching from it to the southward; it stands upon the southern bank of the river Jaguaribe, which is so far influenced by the tide. At the ebb, the stream is fordable, and as it spreads considerably from the main channel, some parts remain quite dry at low water. The houses of Aracati, unlike those of any of the other small places which I visited, have one story above the ground floor; I enquired the reason of this, and was told, that the floods of the river were sometimes so great, as to render necessary a retreat to the upper part of the houses. The town contains three churches, and a town-hall and prison, but no monasteries; this captaincy does not contain any such pest. The inhabitants are in number about six hundred.