The country is so well-favoured that if it were rightly cultivated it would yield everything. (Letter of Pero Vaz de Caminha, 1 May 1500.)
It is a vast region with favoured terrain. On its soil grow all fruits; On its subsoil exist all treasures… Its fields give the most useful food; its mines the finest gold… It is an admirable country, rich in every respect, where prodigiously profuse nature sacrifices herself in fertile produce for the opulence of the monarchy and the benefit of the world. (J. da Rocha Pitta, 1724.)