William Lewis Herndon, Lieutenant, U.S.N.

“ A man in the diamond region may stumble upon a fortune at an instant of time, and without a dollar of outlay; but the chances are fearfully against him. I would rather depend upon the supplying of the miners with the necessaries and luxuries of life, even by the long land-travel from Rio Janeiro, or by the tedious and difficult ascent of the Tapajos. ”

“ The men are well formed, robust, and active; the women are generally pretty. Less warlike than the Mundrucus, they yield willingly to civilization; they surround their neat cabins with plantations of banana trees, coffee, or guaraná.
“The precious and medicinal guaraná plant, which the Brazilians of the central provinces of Goyaz and Matto Grosso purchase with its weight in gold, to use against the putrid fevers which rage at certain periods of the year, is owed to the Mahués Indians. ”

“ In 1809 a royal mandate established at Cuyabá a diamond junta.
“Gold and diamonds, which are always united in this region, as in many others, are found, especially in the numerous water-courses which furrow it, and also throughout the whole country.
“After the rains, the children of Diamantino hunt for the gold contained in the earth even of the streets, and in the bed of the river Ouro, which, as has been said, passes through the city; and they often collect to the value of one or two patacas (from eight to fifteen grains) Brazil weight. ”

“ The passage from Diamantino to Santarem occupies about twenty-six days.
Cuiabá is a flourishing town of about ten thousand inhabitants, situated on the river of the same name, which is thence navigable for large vessels to its junction with the Paraguay, which river is free from impediments to the ocean. It is the chief town of the rich province of Matto Grosso. It receives its supplies — the lighter articles of merchandise and luxury — by land, from Rio Janeiro, and its heavier articles — such as cannot be transported on mules for a great distance — by this route of the Tapajos. ”

“ In time of war the chiefs have right of life and death over simple warriors. The Mundrucus never destroy their prisoners; on the contrary, they treat them with humanity, tattoo them, and afterwards regard them as their children.
“This warlike nation, far from being enfeebled as other tribes are, who, since the conquest of Brazil by the Europeans, are nearly annihilated, increases, notwithstanding the long wars they every year undertake against the most ferocious savages. ”

“ The forests that border the Tapajos are infested by savage Indians, who frequently attack the Moncaos; and dangerous fevers sometimes carry off those whom the Indian arrow has spared.
“I left the caravan at Sta. Ana dos Caxoeiras; it continued its route towards the source of the Tapajos, and I entered the country inhabited by the Mundrucus.
“The Mundrucus, the most war-like nation of the Amazon, do not number less than fifteen or twenty thousand warriors, and are the terror of all other tribes.
“They appear to have a deadly hatred to the negro, but a slight sympathy for the white man. ”

“ M. Castelnau has given the value of diamonds and gold in the Portuguese currency of reis, and occasionally in francs. In turning the reis into dollars, I have estimated the dollar at two thousand reis. When I left Brazil, the Spanish dollar was worth nineteen hundred and twenty reis, and the Mexican eighteen hundred: so that my values are under the mark; but there is probably less error in this than in any estimate that Castelnau could form from his data.
One will readily perceive, from these estimates, that diamond-hunting, as a business, is unprofitable. ”

“ The inhabitants of Diamantino only complain that the prohibition of the slave trade renders it impossible for them to profit by the wealth of the country.
“In 1746 valuable diamonds were found, for the first time, in Matto Grosso, and were soon discovered in great quantities in the little river of Ouro. The governor, Manuel Antunes Nogueiza, designing to take possession of these lands for the benefit of the Crown, ejected the inhabitants therefrom. Famine made great ravages among the wretches thus deprived of their homes. ”

“ Following the example of the other nations of Brazil, (who tattoo themselves with thorns, or pierce the nose, the lips, and the ears,) and obeying an ancient law which commands these different tortures, this baptism of blood, to habituate the warriors to despise bodily sufferings, and even death, the Mahués have preserved from their ancestors the great festival of the Tocanderia.
“An Indian is not a renowned Mahué, and cannot take a wife, until he has passed his arms at least ten times through long stalks of the palm-tree, filled intentionally with large, venomous ants. ”

“ A caravan, called here Mon ao, which is loaded at Itaituba, for ten contos of reis, (five thousand dollars,) with salt, guaraná, powder, and lead, arriving in safety at Cuyabá, can calculate upon fifteen or twenty contos of reis profit.
“At Pará the salt can be sold for three francs the alquiere; at Cuyabá, it is worth one hundred and fifty francs.
“They can descend the river in forty days; but it requires five months to ascend it. ”

“ The diamond region is, as I have before said, in the neighborhood of the village of Diamantino, situated on the high lands that divide the head waters of the tributaries of the Amazon and La Plata. M. Castelnau visited this country, and I give the following extracts from his account of it. He says:
"The mines of gold, and especially those of diamonds, to which the city of Diamantino owes its foundation and its importance, appear to have been known from the time the Paulistas made their first settlements in the province of Matto Grosso ”

“ These are principally salt, iron, iron implements, wines, liquors, arms, crockeries, and guaraná, of which the people there are passionately fond.
St. Ubes or Portuguese salt is worth in Cuiabá thirteen and a half dollars the panero, of one hundred and eight pounds. Lately, however, salt has been discovered on the bottom and shores of a lake in Bolivia, near the Paraguay river. It undergoes some process to get rid of its impurities, and then is sold at four dollars the panero.
Cuiabá pays for these things in diamonds, gold dust, and hides. ”

“ It is true, these insects disappear at night, but only to give place to others yet more formidable. Large vampire bats literally throng the forests, cling to the hammocks, and, finding, a part of the body exposed, rest lightly there and drain it of blood. ”

“ I have heard afterwards that when he was fighting so generously with his Mundrucus for the cause of the white man, a Brazilian colonel, who commanded the expedition, ordered him to pull manioc roots in a field supposed to be in the power of the rebels. The chief was furious, and, angrily eyeing the Brazilian, said, ‘Dost thou believe my canoe
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is made to carry to the field women and children? It is a war canoe, and not a boat to bring thee farinha.’ ”

“ The houses are comfortably furnished, though I believe every one still sleeps in a hammock. The rides in the environs are agreeable, the views picturesque, and the horses good. A tolerably good and well-bitted horse may be had for seventy-five dollars; they graze in the streets and outskirts of the town, and are fed with Indian corn. ”

“ The Mundrucus do not believe that diseases afflict them. When a prey to them, they say it is a spell some unknown enemy has cast over them; and if the Pugé, or Magician of the Malocca, interrogated by the family of the dying man, names a guilty person, he whom he names may count upon his death. ”

“ M. Castelnau, speaking of this trade, says that, taking one article of merchandise with another, the difference of their value at Pará and Diamantino is eight hundred and fifty per cent., the round trip between the two places occupying eight months; but that the profits to the trader are not to be estimated by the enormous difference of the value of the merchandise at the place of purchase and the place of sale. ”

“ His return-cargo of hides, with what gold dust and diamonds he has been able to purchase, will also pay the trader one hundred per cent. on his original outlay, increased by his profits.
Let us suppose a man sends a cargo from Pará, which cost him there three hundred and fifty dollars. His two hundred per cent. of clear profit in Diamantino has increased this sum to one thousand and fifty. One hundred per cent. on this, the return-cargo, has made it two thousand one hundred dollars ”

“ My cause, however, was not altogether lost; my hunter, who had been in a cabin of the village, took me to see a young Indian who had been bitten the evening previous by a surucucurano serpent. I opened the wound, bled him, and again used the volatile salts. Whilst I operated, a young Indian woman, singularly beautiful, sister of the
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wounded man, supported the leg. ”

“ They conducted him to the chiefs, where the instruments awaited him; and, when muffled in these terrible mittens, he was obliged to sing and dance before every cabin of the Malocca, accompanied by music still more horrible. Soon the torments he endured became so great that he staggered. (The father and relatives dread, as the greatest dishonor that can befall the family, a cry or a weakness on the part of the young
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martyr. They encourage and support him, often by dancing at his side.) ”

“ These marks are never effaced. But if this first tattooing, which is compulsory among the Mundrucus, sometimes suffices for woman’s coquetry, that of the warriors is not satisfied. They must have at least a good layer of geni papo, (huitoc,) or of roucou, (annatto,) upon every
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limb, and decorate themselves moreover in feathers. ”

“ The richest man of Diamantino had in his possession, at the time of our journey, two hundred oitavas of diamonds.
“The slaves sell the diamonds they steal at two, and two and a half dollars the vintem; large and small, indifferently. ”

“ The diminution of the number of African slaves, in consequence of the laws against the slave trade.
“2d. The diminution of the quantity found.
“3d. The celebrity which this rich locality has progressively acquired, and which attracts there many persons.
“At present the vintem of diamonds in very small pieces is worth in commerce from four and a half to five dollars. A stone of a demi-oitava would be worth now from two to three hundred dollars, according to its beauty. A stone of an oitava would be worth seven hundred and fifty dollars. ”