Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/330

298 Superintendent of the Cuiabá Mine. After cordial greetings he joined our party.

We eventually arrived at Gongo Soco, the original peat-mining village, once gay and rich, now worked out, abandoned, and poor. The river of the same name runs through it. It. was now a little before five o'clock, and we came to a better track, and rode on some miles farther to the house and iron foundry of Senhor Antonio Marcos, the Ranger of Woods and Forests, who had prepared hospitality for us. We dismounted at six o'clock very stiff. We had been nine hours and a quarter in the saddle, and had ridden thirty-two miles of difficult country, which did not, however, prevent us from passing a merry evening with Mr. Brown's assistance.

After a good night, yet still aching from the rough road, we went out early to see the iron business. The soil is a mixture of iacutinga (iron and charcoal), and the process, slow and primitive, is known as the "Catalan process." We saw the whole thing done from beginning to end. We left the foundry at 10.15, and went down the watershed of the river Gongo Soco, crossing it twice, and in an hour and a quarter arrived at São Joao do Morro Grande. Thence we rode to Brumado, a decayed village. Here we stopped for an hour in the great house of the Commendador João Alves de Sousa Continho, where we changed animals. This was once a gay and high house in great repute. It looked now as if withered; it has fallen into decay, and is inhabited by the old ex-courtier, once a favourite of the first Emperor. We proceeded across the ridge to