15d 2' E.) The whole district is extremely beautiful.
The hills are all bedecked with trees of various hues of foliage,
and among them towers the graceful palm, which yields the oil of commerce
for making our soaps, and the intoxicating toddy.
Some clusters of hills
look like the waves of the sea driven into a narrow open bay, and have assumed
the same form as if, when all were chopping up perpendicularly,
they had suddenly been congealed. The cottages of the natives,
perched on the tops of many of the hillocks, looked as if the owners
possessed an eye for the romantic, but they were probably influenced more
by the desire to overlook their gardens, and keep their families
out of the reach of the malaria, which is supposed to prevail most
on the banks of the numerous little streams which run among the hills.
We were most kindly received by the commandant, Lieutenant Antonio
Canto e Castro, a young gentleman whose whole subsequent conduct
will ever make me regard him with great affection. Like every other
person of intelligence whom I had met, he lamented deeply
the neglect with which this fine country has been treated.
This district contained by the last census 26,000 hearths or fires;
and if to each hearth we reckon four souls, we have a population of 104,000.
The number of carregadores (carriers) who may be ordered out
at the pleasure of government to convey merchandise to the coast
is in this district alone about 6000, yet there is no good road in existence.
This system of compulsory carriage of merchandise was adopted
in consequence of the increase in numbers and activity of our cruisers,
which took place in 1845.
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