Our first stage from Boa Esperança was the Villa de Santa Anna das Mercês, and when about two leagues from it, we halted under the shade of an Imbuzeira to dine and to give the horses a rest. The dry rocky places in this neighbourhood were covered with a little gregarious Melocactus, bearing very long recurved spines, and in a moist sandy place I found many pretty annual plants. About sunset we came in sight of the Villa, which is situated on a slight eminence; on entering it, we put up for the night in a large unfinished house belonging to the Padre Marcos of Boa Esperança, but we were glad to retreat from it as quickly as possible, for it was so full of fleas that we were completely covered with them, nor was it till a large fire had been kindled in the middle of the floor, that the place became at all bearable. As both Mr. Walker and I had on very long boots, we suffered much less than the blacks whose legs, from the knees downwards, were bare: I observed that when they were kindling the fire they would hold first one leg and then the other over the flame, and with their two hands stroke them downwards to get rid of these annoying creatures. In other places in Brazil I have met with these insects in abundance in houses which have been shut up for some time, but never did I see them so numerous as they were here; to escape their attacks during the night, we were obliged to sling our hammocks very high, and to undress on the top of a table.
The Villa de Santa Anna das Mercês, or as it is more commonly called Jaicóz, is situated about five leagues to the west of Boa Esperança, and contains about seventy or eighty houses built in the form of a large square, but only three sides of it were then completed; in the centre of this square there is a very handsome small church. The outskirts of the town contain many huts belonging to the poorer classes, chiefly constructed of the stems and leaves of the Carnahuba palm, which grows abundantly in the neighbourhood; a few shopkeepers and tradesmen, such as tailors, shoe-makers, &c., reside constantly in the town, but the greater number of the houses belong to the neighbouring fazendeiros, who only occupy them during the Christmas and other festivals. Shortly after leaving the Villa, on the following morning, we ascended a low Serra which runs past the northern end of it; like almost all the other Serras which exist in the north of Brazil it is quite level on the top; it consists entirely of a coarse white sandstone very full of rounded quartz pebbles; the latter are also very abundant to a great distance round the Villa, and in many places the roads have the appearance of having been gravelled with them. The breadth of this Serra at the place where we crossed it, is about a league and a half; and it is principally covered with low Mimosas and Croton, which in many places grow so thickly together as to be almost impenetrable. The few open tracts which exist on it afford good pasture during the rains. After descending from this Taboleira, we entered a flat well-wooded country, and having twice crossed a small river which was considerably swollen, we arrived at the fazenda of St. Antonio early in the afternoon; the distance we travelled was only three leagues, but as the next stage was said to be long, and as the accounts we received of the state of the roads were bad, we remained at this place till the following morning. The fazenda of St. Antonio is small, its stock of cattle yielding only about one hundred and fifty calves per annum; many of them, as well as of the full grown cattle, the owner informed me, fell victims to the Ounces which are not uncommon in the neighbourhood. About three months previously he killed a large black one, and the skin and head which he had preserved, showed it to have been an animal of great size and power. This head, as well as those of several others, which from time he had destroyed, were stuck up on the tops of tall posts near the entrance to his curral.
At daybreak on the following morning we left St. Antonio, and after a journey of six long leagues reached a little hamlet called Cachimbinho; the country between the two places is nearly level, and the road one of the worst on which we had yet travelled. The river we forded on the previous day runs to the westward in a zigzag direction, and the road crosses it no less than twenty-seven times, on which occasions, owing to the depth of the water, the loads had to be taken off the horses, and carried over on the heads of the men; we had also to cross several small lakes through which the road passes, and having the mortification to lose our way, it cost us much additional trouble to regain the right track.
Shortly after leaving San Antonio we passed through a forest of Carnahuba palms, in which were several large lakes, which contain water only in the dry season. On the margin of one of these we saw a number of water-fowl, called by the inhabitants Jabirú (Mycteria Americana, Linn.); these birds, which are nearly related to the adjutants of India, are of immense size; they are of a white colour, with the exception of the head, neck, beak, and feet, which are black; the black skin investing the head and neck is destitute of feathers. We afterwards met with them in much greater abundance by the margins of streams and lakes, where they feed upon small reptiles, fishes, &c. The vegetation of the other parts of the country through which we passed was principally virgin forest, with an underwood of Croton Bauhinia and trailing Mimosa. Near a fazenda called Ambrosia, the road led under some large trees, on one of which I observed some hundreds of Marmoset monkeys. One of these I shot for a specimen; it fell before it was quite dead, and its pitiable screams brought back all its companions to the tree from which they had fled when I fired; here they remained for about ten minutes, when the cries of the wounded one having ceased, they left, and soon disappeared among the branches of the other trees of the forest; it was impossible not to admire the graceful activity they displayed in passing from tree to tree, and from bough to bough.
On the following day we travelled about five leagues, and shortly after mid-day arrived at a fazenda called Retiro. The two first leagues led through a virgin forest, consisting almost entirely of a kind of Mimosa called Angica, (the bark of which is used all over the Sertão for tanning leather, and a gum which it exudes is said to form the principal food of the Marmoset monkey,) a Zizyphus (Joazeira), and a few large species of Bignonia, with an underwood of Croton, Bauhinia, Lautana, Myrtles, &c. The road continued quite level, and we frequently passed the same stream we crossed the day before, without the necessity of removing the loads. Leaving this forest tract we entered one more open, and abounding in Carnahubas; in many places the soil was very sandy, and scant of herbaceous vegetation. At about three leagues from Cachimbinho we passed through a small hamlet called Samambaia, consisting of about twenty scattered houses. The principal occupation of the inhabitants is the manufacture of hammocks, which are sold chiefly to travellers who pass this way. They are made of cotton, which grows very well in the neighbourhood. From Samambaia the country still continues very flat till within a short distance of Retiro, when it becomes more undulating, exhibiting several ridges of limestone, nearly bare of vegetation, or of a fine red sandstone, which lies beneath the limestone, full of nodules of iron-stone, which from the wearing away of the rock are thickly strewn over the surface; they are of all sizes, from very minute particles to rounded blocks as large as two fists; they are of a black, or very dark brown colour, assume a variety of shapes, and, judging from their weight, are rich in iron.
The fazenda of Retiro stands on a rising ground on the banks of the Rio das Guaribas, which was one of the largest we had yet encountered, but from the recent dry weather, the water was so low, that on the following morning we crossed it without difficulty; its banks exhibited signs of having but a short time before been very much flooded. A journey of two leagues brought us to a fazenda called Buquerão, where in consequence of rain we remained till the following morning, when continuing our route through a generally flat country, but full of isolated rocky hills, containing few trees, and a very scanty herbaceous vegetation, we arrived at the fazenda of Canabrava, after travelling about four leagues. This estate belongs to Colonel Martins, the father of the two gentlemen whom we met at Boa Esperança, and brother to the Barão de Parnahiba, the President of the Province of Piauhy. As I carried letters of introduction to him from Padre Marcos, I was received with the greatest politeness and hospitality; here we remained for the night, and the following morning were not allowed to leave till we had partaken of a breakfast of coffee, which the Colonel told us was an excellent preventive for ague, which is very common at this season, in the country we were now about to enter. The old man was in deep grief at the loss of one of his sons, who but a short time before had died suddenly at his fazenda, about twenty-four leagues distant. As several roads led off in various directions a little beyond the house, he kindly sent a black boy to put us in the right path. A journey of about five leagues and a half, through a beautiful grassy country abounding in herds of fine cattle, brought us to a plantation called Canavieira, belonging to a Major Clementino Martins, whom we met at Boa Esperança; we saw here a large field of sugar-cane, being the first we had met with since we left Brejo Grande. As the Major never resides at this place, the house is a very poor one, and in a very ruined condition; we were obliged to take up our quarters in a sort of shed, which formed a great contrast to the comfortable lodgings we had enjoyed the night before. A day or two afterwards, we found in consequence of sleeping in this hut, that a number of those little insects called chigoes (Pulex penetrans, Linn.) had got into our feet: they are only found near dwellings, and are met with in all parts of the country I visited, from the sea-coast to the high mountains in the Diamond district. They burrow under the skin to produce their young, the insect itself dying; they are at first easily detected, by the not unpleasant tickling sensation they produce in entering the skin, and of course are easily removed by a pin or the point of a pen-knife. When they have reached maturity, the abdomen becomes a bag about the size of a small pea, full of eggs, of a yellow colour, and the spot looks like a fester. Unless this bag and its contents are carefully removed, a bad sore may be produced; the feet of careless blacks not unfrequently get into so bad a state from neglecting to remove these insects, that amputation of the part becomes necessary.
On this journey I made numerous new and beautiful additions to my botanical collections; when passing over a low flat hill, the top of which was rather rocky and bare, I found large patches covered with a dwarf fruticose Cuphea with small leaves, bearing numerous purple flowers, and so much did this plant at first sight resemble the heather of my native hills, that I imagined I had found a species of that genus; although disappointed, this little incident recalled many pleasant recollections of home. It is a remarkable fact in the geographical distribution of plants, and not generally known to those who have not made that subject their study, that though heaths are very common in Europe and Africa, not a single species has hitherto been detected on the American continent, either South or North. This is the more remarkable, as the great mass of vegetation at the Cape of Good Hope is made up of these plants, nearly four hundred different kinds having already been found there. From Canavieira, a journey of six leagues brought us to the banks of the Rio Canindé, at a place called Passagem de Dona Antonia, and distant only a league and a half from the city of Oeiras. Our route was through an almost continued forest of Carnahuba palms, and as the Rio das Guaribas ran nearly parallel with it, and had recently overflowed the flat country on each side to a great distance, we found the roads very bad from the great deposit of mud, which had been left often more than a foot deep. In many places the palm stems shewed by their muddy appearance, that the water had covered them to the depth of upwards of twelve feet. At this season, intermittent and malignant fevers are very prevalent, from the malaria arising from the vast tracts of country left dry by the fall of the rivers. It being too late when we arrived to cross the river and reach the city before dark, we remained with some other travellers at the ferry-house for the night.
Next morning, the 12th of March, all our luggage was taken over to the opposite side of the river, in a small canoe, which had to return several times, and afterwards the horses were swum over one by one. Passing through the flat sandy country covered with small trees and beautiful flowering shrubs, we reached the city of Oeiras about eleven o’clock in the forenoon.