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THE CAPTIVITY OF HANS STADE

along the strand in order to get warm, and saw behind the forests a village, the houses of which were built in the Christian manner. Thither going he found it to be a settlement wherein Portuguese live, and known by the name Itenge Ehm,[1] situated two miles (leagues) from Sanct Vincente. Then he told them how we had been shipwrecked there, and that the crew suffered much from cold and that we knew not whither to go. When they heard this, they came running out, and took us with them to their houses, and clad us. There we remained several days until we had recovered ourselves.

Thence we travelled overland to Sanct Vincente, where the Portuguese did us all honour, and gave us food for some time. After this each one began something by which to maintain himself. As we there saw that all our vessels had been lost, the captain sent a Portuguese ship after the rest of our crew, who had remained at Byasape, in order to bring them, which also happened.

  1. Itanhaem of modern days; some explain the word "bad rock"; others (preferably) "Pedra que falla", stone that speaks, i.e., echoes Southey (i, 189) remarks, "If Fray Gaspar da Madre de Deos" (the monographer of Santos) "had perused these Travels he would have seen that there was a Portuguese settlement at this place in 1555 … which he denies."
    For a short time Nossa Senhora da Conceição de Itanhaem, as it is now called, became under the Counts of Vimeiro (and Ilha do Principe), Capital of the Captaincy of St. Vincent, now the Province of S. Paulo. It lost this rank in 1679, the harbour being found useless. According to local tradition, the port was spoiled by the Dutch, and the same is related of St. Vincent; but in both cases, the shallowness of the modern bars which choke and block up the little rivers, seems to denote a secular upheaval of the shore-level. The chief peculiarity of this place is the high rock, a huge lump of the granite common to all the coast, upon which its church is built. The streamlet can harbour only canoes, and consequently there is no trade. Itauhaem lies ten direct geographical miles from Santos harbour. The only road, a long round, is by the shore, and when I left the country in 1868, the local government was preparing to bridge the S. Vicente river.