The mean temperature of Crato is much lower than that of Icó; it is not considered so healthy as the latter place, for the heat of the day is nearly as great, although the nights are much colder. Ophthalmia is truly endemic, and, during some part of the year, few escape its effects: I had an attack which confined me to the house for several days. Many persons suffering from the disease in its chronic state, consulted me, and I gained no little reputation from having either cured or much alleviated the symptoms in most of the cases that presented themselves, even when the complaint had been of long standing; blindness is a very common result, and nowhere have I seen a greater number of blind people than in this district. Secondary syphilitic complaints are also very common, and many are the miserable wretches which they have here produced; in such cases, mercury is very seldom employed for the primary symptoms, these being generally cured by a species of Croton, commonly known by the name of Velame; it is used both externally and internally with some effect, but under this treatment sooner or later the secondary symptoms make their appearance, under some one or other of their protean forms. A residence of but a short time in the interior of Brazil, would soon convince those medical men who would cure these complaints without mercury, of the danger of such treatment.
CHAPTER VI.
CEARA CONTINUED.
Reasons for delaying journey into the Interior—Visits, meanwhile, different places in the Vicinity of Crato—Crosses the Serra de Araripe—Reaches Cajazeira—Arrives at Barra do Jardim—Description of that Town and Neighbourhood—Meets with an interesting deposit of Fossil Fishes—Geological character of the Country—Detects a very extensive range of Chalk formation—First discovery of such Beds in South America—The accompanying formation described—This range of Mountains encircles the vast Plain comprising the Provinces of Piauhy and Maranham—Arrives at Maçapé—Great Religious Festival on Christmas Day—Meets with an Accident—Visits also Novo Mundo—Discovers other deposits of Fossil Fishes near these places—Vegetable productions along the Taboleira—Different Tribes of uncivilised Indians in that Neighbourhood—Curious account of the Fanatical Sect of the Sebastianistas—Their extravagant belief—Commit human sacrifices—Their destruction and dispersion—Returns to Crato.
I found on my arrival at Crato that it would be necessary to remain there longer than I had previously anticipated, owing to the desert state of the country, in the dry season, between it and Oeiras, the capital of the province of Piauhy, at which time water and grass are so scarce, that only those well acquainted with the country would undertake this journey: I was, therefore, strongly recommended to defer leaving Crato till the rains should set in, to which advice I was the more willing to listen, finding that district a very good field for my botanical researches, and knowing well, moreover, that a journey to Oeiras at that time would yield very little. It was now the beginning of December, and the rains were not expected to set in till the beginning of February. Having pretty well exhausted the neighbourhood of Crato, I determined to visit in the interim a small town about sixteen leagues distant, called Villa da Barra do Jardim, being the more desirous to spend some time at that place in order to search for a deposit of fossil fishes which were reported to exist in the neighbourhood. My friend Capitão João Gonsalvez gave me letters to his relation Capitão Antonio da Cruz, the principal person in the place, and on the afternoon of the eleventh of December I left Crato. The road for the first five leagues runs nearly eastward along the Serra de Araripe, and after having accomplished four of them we halted for the night, about eight o’clock, at a little village called Cajazeira; on enquiring for a place where we might pass the night, it being then quite dark, we were directed to a shed used for the preparation of farinha, which, besides being open all round, was but indifferently roofed; this, however, proved a better shelter than a large tree under which we first thought of encamping, for about midnight we were awakened by a tremendous peal of thunder that broke right over us. The storm continued with more or less violence for nearly half an hour, and was followed by a very heavy shower of rain, which caused me no inconvenience as my hammock was slung under a comparatively well-roofed part, although Pedro and the guide were soon obliged to change their quarters. On our arrival we found the village illuminated with several bonfires, and there was also much firing and other rejoicings, occasioned by the presence of the Visitador who reached this place during the day, intending to proceed to Barra do Jardim on the following morning. It was seven o’clock before we could resume our journey, and in an hour’s time we reached the foot of the Serra with the view of crossing it, but we first halted for a short time in order to take some breakfast, being informed that neither houses nor water were to be met with during the next eight leagues of the journey. At a distance of half an hour’s ride from Cajazeira we met a number of well-dressed horsemen, one of whom, finding on enquiry that I was the English Botanist about to visit Jardim, told me that his name was Gouvea; that he had heard of my intended visit from his friends in Crato, to which place he was then going, intending to return in the course of a few days. From him I also learned that his companions had come to meet the Visitador, and escort him to Jardim; in half an hour’s time they all passed us on their return, in company with the prelate, and soon afterwards the Visitador’s troop overtook us, consisting of eight or nine horses, one of which was loaded with water for the journey across the Taboleira, as all elevated flat tracts are called in the interior. The water was carried in large leathern bags, and as I had not as yet provided myself with such an apparatus, I was contented with purchasing a number of oranges, and a few pieces of sugar cane, as very palatable substitutes, and on a short journey easily carried. The Serra is scarcely so high here as it is at Crato, but the ascent is very rugged, and in several places very steep. About half an hour after we descended the Serra we passed the Visitador and his party, all lying under the shade of a large tree, eating the fruit of the Mangába which grew abundantly around them: he kindly invited me to remain and partake of his breakfast, for which he was awaiting the arrival of his troop, but I declined his kind offer as I was anxious to cross the Serra without halting. It occupied a ride of nearly six hours to traverse this table land, which is perfectly level all the way; it is thinly studded with small trees, which give it very much the appearance of an English orchard; the soil was thickly covered with long grass, which was now dried up like hay; in many places it had been set fire to, and large tracts burned, which I afterwards found to be a very common practice in the open campos of Brazil towards the end of the dry season, in order that after the first rains a good crop of new grass may thus be obtained; it is, indeed, astonishing to witness the rapidity with which it then springs up. The vegetation on this Taboleira I found to be so very similar to that on the top of the Serra at Crato, that with the exception of a single specimen of a shrubby species of Cassia, I did not meet with anything I had not before collected; on the ascent of the Serra, however, I found a new species of Rollinia in flower. It was not till we had reached nearly the extremity of the Taboleira, that I came in sight of the valley in which the Villa da Barra do Jardim is situated, from the rich and verdant appearance of which it takes the name of Jardim, or Garden. The Serra being lower on the south than on the north side, the descent is much easier, and the road is also better.
On reaching the Villa, which is nearly a league from the foot of the Serra, I found that we had passed the house of Captain Antonio da Cruz, so that we were obliged to turn back half a league, and I felt annoyed for not having sooner made enquiries, as our horses were greatly fatigued after so long a journey, performed during the whole time under a burning sun. On arriving at the house, which is attached to his Engenho, I met with a kind reception from the Captain, as well as from his son, and the lady of the latter, who was the daughter of my Crato friend, Captain Gonsalvez, with both of whom I had been previously acquainted during their visit to the latter place. My horses were immediately sent to pasture, and dinner prepared, for which I felt an excellent appetite after this long day’s ride. Aware of my intended visit, they had kindly prepared an uninhabited house in the town for my reception, to which they would not allow me to go till the following morning after breakfast.
The Villa da Barra do Jardim lies south from Crato, bearing a little to the eastward, the valley in which it is situated being about a league in length, and in its widest part about half a league broad; the town is small, in the form of a large square, three sides of which only are completed, and nearly in the centre of this square stands its only church, also in an unfinished state. At the time of my visit the surrounding country was very much burnt up, particularly towards the south; but on the north side of the town, towards the bottom of the Serra, there were many small plantations of cane, watered by small streams which take their rise in the Serra; without these the valley would then have been quite at variance with its name. Here, as around Crato, cane is the principal article cultivated, but in the neighbourhood of the Villa there are two or three very small plantations of coffee, for which the place seems well adapted, judging from their vigorous appearance, and the large crops they were said to yield; the quantity raised in this neighbourhood is not, however, sufficient for its own consumption, what more is required, and indeed the whole that is consumed in other parts of the province, being imported from Rio de Janeiro. Upon asking several of the proprietors of cane plantations why they did not plant coffee in preference, seeing the much greater profit it would bring them, they all replied that, being accustomed to the making of Rapadura, they did not like to risk it for a system of cultivation with which they were but imperfectly acquainted; but the principal cause, in my own opinion, is their lazy and indolent habits, and the great horror they entertain of anything like innovation on the customs of their forefathers; were the country in the possession of an industrious people, this would no doubt become one of the richest districts in the north of Brazil.
Two days after my arrival I paid a visit to Captain Antonio da Cruz, where I learned that on a rising ground between his house and the Serra, there were often found rounded limestones, which when split exhibited the remains of fishes; two of his sons accompanied me to the spot, where I made a collection of several species more or less perfect. The place where these were found was on the slope of a low hill about a mile from the Serra,—the stone in which they occur being an impure dark-coloured limestone: I found them of all sizes, but none larger than I could lift, all were more or less rounded, having evidently undergone attrition. The place which they occupy is not above a hundred yards square, and in this extent scarcely any other kind of stone is found, but beyond it the ground is covered in a similar manner with rounded blocks of sandstone of the same nature as that which forms the mass of the Serra. Similar deposits exist along the base of the range, but all in isolated patches, as in the present instance. I have purposely deferred till now making any remarks on the geology of the district around Crato, but I must premise that the substance of what is here stated is taken from a paper read by me before the Glasgow Philosophical Society, in April 1843, and which has since appeared in the Proceedings of that Society.
Nothing like chalk, with its accompanying flints, has yet been found on the continent of North America; but in New Jersey Dr. Morton has described a deposit which he considers to be equivalent to the lower or green sand beds of that formation, and to which he has given the name of “The ferruginous sand formation of the United States.” The fossil remains which it contains prove the correctness of his opinion. As regards the South American continent, it is asserted by Humboldt, that it contains neither oolite nor chalk, from the fact that no traveller who has hitherto written on the geology of that immense continent, has ever met with either; it was therefore a source of no little satisfaction to me to find that I had been the first to discover, in the new world, the entire series of rocks which constitute the chalk formation, specimens of all of which I did not fail to collect.