_ PART FOUR
CHAPTER THREE. CENTRAL BRAZIL
The centre of Brazil is occupied by a high tableland, crossed by a series of serras, mostly running north and south. The most eastern,-- the Serra de Espinhaco,--rises about one hundred miles from the coast, and the table-land extends from it westward for upwards of six hundred miles. Numerous peaks besides the serras rise amidst it, few of them reaching a greater elevation than one thousand feet above its surface. It is mostly clothed with coarse grass and bushes, and single-standing trees, which in summer shed their leaves, when, the grass being burned up by the sun, the region has a desert and barren appearance. Here and there the plain as well as the hills are covered with sand, and at others with bare rocks.
Still more desert regions exist, which may vie with those of Africa in barrenness. Almost in the very centre of the continent is a sandy desert, called the Campos dos Paricis. Here the surface is formed by long-backed ridges of sandy hills parallel to one another. So loose is the soil, that even the patient mule with a burden on his back can hardly make his way across it.
Between the western end of this table-land and the Andes of Bolivia is a wide plain from one thousand to fifteen hundred feet in height, with here and there a few hills rising above it. It is mostly covered by dense forests; but occasionally there are barren districts, in which only a stunted vegetation appears. This plain is traversed by several tributaries of the great River Madeira, which falls into the Amazon. In this wide-extending table-land, and among the serras amidst it, rise innumerable streams, which flow into the Amazon on the north and the La Plata on the south--many of them, as they plunge into the plain, forming foaming torrents and magnificent cataracts. The vegetation of these highlands offers a great contrast to the dense forest of the great valley and the seaboard.
The cerrados, as they are called, or scrub--consisting chiefly of acacias and leguminosae--reach to the height of ten or twenty feet. Numerous other shrubs and smaller plants, many of which are medicinal, cover the ground, and send forth a delicious perfume into the pure air. The tussock, in thick clumps, is also seen growing in various directions; indeed, altogether, the Campo is far more completely clothed than either the Llanos or Pampas.
Among these mountains are the celebrated diamond-mines of Brazil. Some of the mines are reached by shafts of great depth, sunk into the earth, whence galleries are run along the veins, somewhat in the mode of gold-mines. Gold is also obtained, by washing in the streams. The diamonds are procured in the same manner. The strictest watch is kept over the slaves employed in searching for diamonds, to prevent them from secreting the precious stones, and for this purpose numerous overseers are required.
The operations are simple. The loose stones at the bottom of the stream are first raked up into baskets, and then carefully washed, under the inspection of the overseers.
In one district it is calculated that, from 1730 to 1830, diamonds worth upwards of three millions sterling were collected; and in that of Abaete, in 1791, a diamond weighing 1382 carats--the largest in the world--was discovered.
Possibly, however, if the labour which is bestowed on mining were employed in cultivating the ground, it would be productive of greater profit to the country. _