a province of Brazil in South America, seated between the tropic of Capricorn and 22° S. Lat. It is bounded on the north by the province of Spiritu Sancto, on the east and south by the Atlantic Ocean, and on the west by the mountains which separate it from Guiana, in Spanish America. This is the most valuable province which the Portuguese are masters of; for they import from thence yearly great quantities of gold and precious stones, which they find in the mountains, to a prodigious value.