The pulse of patrimony in Paraty: long recognized for its colonial architecture, this Brazilian city has succeeded in protecting its natural environment and traditions, while attracting growing tourism.

• Author: Kiernan, James Patrick

"Vem--dos caminhos do mar, vem navegan do cansado"--Come on the highways of the sea, come wearily sailing." So begins a popular song by Jose Kleber, native son and poet of Paraty. And on that late afternoon in 1967 when I first saw his little town, after a long day's traveling from Rio de Janeiro, first by train and then by boat, over the highways of the sea, I was certainly tired. Yet, at my first sight of Paraty, I shook off my fatigue, entranced. I had come to live in Paraty, a place, I was told, was an isolated ruin, a dump, only to find in the yet-to-be preserved and restored colonial town, from that first night, the unique and special place I had always desired.

Today, Paraty is recognized for its harmonious colonial architecture--some would argue the most harmonious in Brazil--and its entire municipality, not just the historic center, may soon be nominated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

"Paraty is an architectural gem, surrounded by a rich natural environment, protected by parks and reserves, and sustained by an active community that conserves its traditions," says Mayor Jose Claudio de Araujo, who has been active in local preservation efforts. "Our aim is the integration of this historic, cultural, social, and environmental patrimony. This is the patrimony of our life, our patrimony for future generations."

A fish-hook shaped, rain-soaked stretch of land hemmed in by the high escarpment of the Serra do Mar, the Bahia da Ilha Grande, and the sea, Paraty was first settled by the Portuguese on the terminus of one of the principal Indian trails linking the coast with the Brazilian interior. Organized as a vila (town) in 1667, it remained a small trading center with a sparse rural population involved in subsistence agriculture for the next few decades.

With the discovery of gold in nearby Minas Gerais in 1694, however, Paraty was catapulted into importance: The newly improved mountain trail became the major conduit of men and goods moving from Rio de Janeiro to the mines. Almost immediately, the Portuguese crown initiated the construction of a more direct route, and by 1718 the shorter caminho novo (new road) had replaced the so-called caminho velho (old road) as the major artery for commerce to and from the mines. Boom days for Paraty were now over, but the road remained for a time an important secondary route to the mines, and proved the preferred means for transporting goods and slaves. And while the Portuguese authorities tried diligently to stop the illegal and untaxed transport of gold and later diamonds to Rio de Janeiro by way of Paraty, contraband was a constant challenge.

In the last decades of the eighteenth century, commercial activity was revived when Paraty became the principal point of transshipment for goods moving between the developing Paraiba Valley and Rio de Janeiro. Agricultural production also greatly increased during this period, a time described by historian Dauril Alden as Brazil's "agricultural renaissance." The area produced modest quantities of "new" export crops like indigo, but most important was the widespread cultivation of sugarcane--not to make sugar, but to make aguardente (pinga, cachaca, sugarcane brandy, or rum, literally, firewater).

While aguardente was produced on the large sugar plantations of Bahia and Pernambuco, it was a by-product made from molasses and the uncrystallized dregs left after sugar was produced. In Paraty, acidic soft, heavy rainfall, and no long dry season resulted in cane that when milled was more productive in juice, but a juice that had lower properties of crystallization than that of cane grown in the northeast. Mountainous terrain and numerous mountain streams led easily to...