where
it is allowed to evaporate. At this place, which is called Jaguaribe,
there are twenty-four distinct manufactories, belonging to as many
individuals. The place where the water is evaporated is divided into
small compartments, measuring sixteen feet by twelve. In that belonging
to Senhor Alcantara, there are one hundred and twenty such
compartments; into each of these, two inches of water is allowed to
flow from the large reservoir, and in eight days this is completely
evaporated. It \ ields him, altogether, annually, about four hundred
alqueires of salt, each alqueire weighing eight arrobas, and each
arroba thirty-two pounds. Three qualities are produced, the best being
used for domestic purposes, a middle sort for curing fish and an
inferior kind used principally to salt hides. On an average it brings
about 2*. Gd. an alqueire, so that his whole income from tins source is only about 50L a year. Besides the manufactories at this place, there are others in different parts of the island.
The
island, which is separated from the main land by a strait about half a
league broad, is nearly three leagues in length, and from one and a
half to two in breadth. It contains only two small villages, viz.,
Itamarica, situated on a height near the sea, on the south-east side,
containing only about twenty houses; and Pilar, the place at which we
landed, formed of a few irregular streets, and containing about eighty
habitations. The whole number of houses in the island, we were told,
amounted to three hundred, and the entire population to about two
thousand. Although there are many very comfortable looking dwellings,
yet the mass of the houses have a poor appearance, being either formed
of wicker-work and mud, or of cocoa-nut leaves. As fishing is the
principal occupation of the inhabitants, their houses are generally
near the shore. The fish are mostly taken in pens (currals) that are
constructed of stakes a little beyond low-water mark. Another source of
income to the inhabitants, is the cocoa-nut trees, which form a dense
deep belt round the upper part of the island; both the fish and nuts
are taken to Peruam-buco for sale. In the interior of the island there
are three, sugar plantations; and several of the more wealthy of the
inhabitants
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