United States or British Virgin Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Such districts are the first to be settled on in this country, and the whole coast for many miles was dotted with pleasant-looking sitios like that of our friend. The establishment was a large one, the house and out-buildings covering a large space of ground.
We passed the Guariba, a second channel connecting the two rivers, on the 30th, and on the 31st sailed past a straggling settlement called Manacapuru, situated on a high, rocky bank. Many citizens of Barra have sitios, or country-houses, in this place, although it is eighty miles distant from the town by the nearest road.
I was inclined to doubt the fact of a serpent striking at its prey from the water, and thought an alligator more likely to be the culprit, although we had not yet met with alligators in the river. Some days afterwards, the young men belonging to the different sitios agreed together to go in search of the serpent.
It appears they were hostile to the European settlers from the beginning plundering their sitios, waylaying their canoes, and massacring all who fell into their power.
A few "sitios," or manioc and coffee plantations, were started in parts of the woods which were cleared. Fields of sugar-canes soon required the construction of a mill to crush the sacchariferous stalks destined to be used hereafter in the manufacture of molasses, tafia, and rum.
The port was full of canoes, large and small, from the montaria, with its arched awning of woven lianas and Maranta leaves, to the two-masted cuberta of the peddling trader, who had resorted to the place in the hope of trafficking with settlers coming from remote sitios to attend the festival.
Word Of The Day