In the morning the Juiz de Paz of the district, who lives about two leagues to the north of Bonita, passed, and learning that we were strangers, and about to visit the Arraial de San Domingo, a little village two leagues and a half distant, he told me that he was on the way thither himself, and that his own house, which he only occupied during festa times, was much at my service during my stay there. The distance between Bonita and the village is said to be about two leagues and a half, but they proved to be very long ones. The road till within a short distance of the village is pretty level, and generally sandy, but it afterwards became more hilly and stony; it leads southward along the base of the Serra Geral, but generally a mile or more to the west of it; the top of the Serra still continued to be level with a precipitous face, the rock being of a reddish-yellow. Shortly after leaving Bonita, an elevated pyramidal peak of the same elevation as the Serra, is descried to the S.E. presenting a remarkable resemblance to some enormous work of art; it stands about a quarter of a mile distant from the Serra, and is placed upon a broad regular base. We reached the Arraial de San Domingo a little before sunset, and took up our residence in the house of the Juiz de Paz. Like the rest of the houses it was built of large unburned bricks, with the partitions formed of wicker-work, plastered with clay, smoothed by the hand of the operator, and ornamented all over with the strokes left by his fingers. The village stands among some small hills about a league to the west of the Serra Geral; it is very insignificant, containing only about forty houses, a great many of which, belonging to the fazendeiros, are untenanted, except during the festas; a small limpid stream runs near it, which flows with great rapidity, but it contains no fish, as they are prevented from ascending by a cataract which exists at some distance below the village. We remained here two days, endeavouring to hire another man to assist in the management of my troop, but I had much difficulty in finding one, notwithstanding there were plenty of young men idling about, who had no disposition to work for a livelihood. It is a common saying in these parts, that for every ten who work, there are ninety who do nothing, and maintain a wretched existence by hunting and robbing their more industrious neighbours. Having heard of a man who had already made a journey to Minas Geräes, I sent for him, and found him willing to engage with me; but just as we were concluding the agreement his wife came up and abused me violently for enticing her husband away from her. She was a large mulatto woman, old and ugly, and what very much surprised me, a slave, while he, who was also a mulatto, was a freeman, and considerably younger. They had done little but quarrel during the six years they had been married, and he seemed now determined to get rid of