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page 147 ----caravanseries---Morro de Bom-fim---Rio das Mortes---

The country is poetically rural, but lonely and desolate. The great and extensive forests which run along the declivities of the valleys, and bound the feeding places of the several fazendas, are almost the only indications that the land is inhabited, as the farms are, for the most part, concealed in side valleys. At one of these fazendas, called Vittoria, where we passed the night, is a large rancho built of stone. The arrangement of these houses is similar to that of the caravanseries in Persia and India. Every traveller has a claim to the use of them, for which he gives nothing to the owner, except that he usually pays him a trifle for every mule which is put for the night in the enclosed pasture.

Caravansery, accommodations for mule caravans

From this place the road leads N.N.E. over several rounded mountains, either wholly bare or sparingly covered with some composite flowers, rhexias, and grasses, and which connect the main branches of the Serra Mantiqueira that run from S.E. and N.W. A short distance before we reached the last of these high mountains, Morro de Bom-fim, we passed the Rio das Mortes, which winds through the pretty broad swampy valley with its black waters, and having received some tributary streams, joins the Rio Grande twenty miles from S. Joao d'El Rey.

page 148 ---battle for gold at Morro de Bom-fim---S. Joao d'El Rey---

It was in this valley that the Paulistas once, quarrelling from lust of gold, destroyed each other in a sanguinary contest, from which the river has derived its name. The Morro de Bom-fim is very steep, and therefore very difficult of ascent for beasts of burden; it consists of strata of flexible quartz, and on its bare, broad, long-extended ridges, has an abundance of fragments of quartz. From its summit there is a noble prospect over the

Sao Joao D'El Rey on the river Mortes, province of Minas Gerais

whole valley of the river; and as soon as we descended at the other end of it, of the Vila de S. Joao d'El Rey, formerly Vila do Rio das Mortes, which lies at the foot of the bare mountain Lenheiro, only half a mile from the river from which it derived its former name.

The bare mountain, Lenheiro

The many mountains by which this little town is surrounded, the numerous dazzling white houses, and the little river Tijuco which flows through the middle of it, and is often nearly dry, give it a pleasant romantic apearance. A great number of country houses, scattered on the declivity, lead to the solid stone bridge, which is thrown over the abovementioned river, and unites a part of the town lying along the eminence with the larger portion in the plain. The stranger, especially after such long privations on a journey in the interior, is rejoiced to find himself in a little commercial town. Paved streets, stately churches, adorned with native paintings, shops well stored with all European articles of luxury and manufacture, various work-shops, &c., announce the thriving state of the place, which, on account of its inland trade, is one of the most lively in Brazil.

Sao Joao d'El Rey, bridge over Tijuco river, 2006