After I had collected a variety of specimens, we returned to our mules, continued our journey over bleak and sterile mountains, through roads covered with dust, and arrived about three o’clock in sight of Villa Rica. Though the town stands on an eminence rather steep and lofty, the approach to it is not noble or striking, neither is there any thing in a near view of it, which, to the eye of a traveller, corresponds with the grandeur of its name. The environs, unlike those of opulent towns in general, exhibited few signs of cultivation; not an acre of good pasture was any where to be seen, nor an inclosure of any kind. We arrived a little after four, and alighted at one of the first houses to the left, on entering the town; it had been recommended to us as one of the best inns, but we found, that, in point of cleanliness and accommodation, report greatly overrated it. The owner, being a priest, entrusted the entire management to a mulatto, who acted as if he was seldom under the eye of his master. Having ordered dinner, we walked into the town for about a mile; the streets were very irregular, and so badly paved as to give us no favorable idea of the opulence of the inhabitants. As night was coming on, and we felt fatigued, we postponed delivering our letters until next day, and returned to our inn. Our dinner, which was served up in as slovenly a manner as we had ever witnessed, even in the poorest _rancho_ on the road, consisted of some stewed beef and a fowl. The bread was tolerable, but dear. Being little inclined to sit up after our repast, we retired early to rest; our rooms, though destitute of almost every appropriate convenience, were better than those to which we had of late been accustomed.
Notwithstanding the fatigue of the journey, which heartily disposed me to sleep, my mind was for some time occupied in reflecting on the place at which we had now arrived, and which had long been the theme of our wonder and conjecture. Villa Rica—the rich village! The capital of the province of Minas Geraes, and the seat of its government; a place which had for many years been reputed the richest in Brazil, as to it was brought all the gold found in the vast district around. Impatient to see some vestiges of that splendor which its name implies, I slept but little, and rose at an early hour. We, with difficulty, obtained our breakfast, consisting of coffee and eggs, with bread and English butter, after which we dressed and went to deliver our letters.