With the exception of a small Serra to the south-east, the country around the Villa is flat, and but for the lake, it would have a very unpicturesque appearance. I took several walks in the neighbourhood, but in consequence of the long-continued drought, I did not meet with much to reward my labour. In a marsh, which in the rainy season forms part of the lake, I found two species of water-lily (Nymphæa), both small and bearing white flowers, one of them smelling very sweetly, while the other had exactly the fœtid smell of coal-tar. On the Serra I found a small-leaved Gomphia, a Triads, and a tree-lily (Vellozia); the latter was not in flower, as was the case with one I found at Oeiras. These are the two most northerly stations in which I have met with species of this genus, whose great focus lies in the mountains of the Diamond District.
CHAPTER IX.
PARNAGUÁ TO NATIVIDADE.
Leaves Parnaguá—Arrives at Saco do Tanque—Carrapatos a great pest to Travellers and Cattle—Vegetation of the Country—Crosses the Serras da Batalha and de Mato Grosso, the boundary of the Province of Piauhy—Descends into the district of Rio Preto—Account of the Cherente Indians—Arrives at Santa Rosa—Crosses the River Preto—Reaches the desolate Region of Os Geräes—Passes over the elevated table-land Chapada da Mangabeira—Arrives at the Indian Mission of Duro—Description of these Indians—Reaches Cachoeira—Crosses the Serra do Duro—Fords the River Manoel Alves—Arrives at Almas—Galheiro Morto—Morhinos—Abundance of Wild Honey—Description of several kinds of Bees—Reaches Nossa Senhora d’Amparo—Mato Virgem—Goître not uncommon—Passes Sociedade—Arraial da Chapada—And arrives at Natividade.
It was with much difficulty that I procured in Parnaguá a person to replace the soldier who accompanied us from Oeiras; chance threw in my way a mulatto, who having come with a large drove of cattle from the province of Goyaz, was therefore acquainted with the tracks through the unfrequented country into which we were now about to enter. We left Parnaguá on the 29th of September, and continuing our journey nearly in a southerly direction, we arrived at a little fazenda, called Saco do Tanque, on the 7th of October, the distance being about twenty-six leagues. It was late in the afternoon when we left Parnaguá, and being nearly dark by the time we reached the head of the lake, we halted there for the night under some trees. Towards morning we felt so chilly in our hammocks, that we were glad to get up and warm ourselves at a large fire, which the men kept burning all night. As we rode along the side of the lake, we saw several capivaras and alligators, which upon our coming near them made for the water.
Shortly after leaving Oeiras, we began to be much tormented by a species of tick, to which the Brazilians give the name of carrapato. These insects abound in dry bushy places, where they attach themselves to the slender twigs; at first they are very small (carrapatos miudos), and may be seen in clusters consisting of many hundreds; these as soon as any animal passes by and touches them, instantly adhere to it, burying their suckers so deeply into its skin, that it is only by using considerable force they can be withdrawn. If not taken off they go on increasing in bulk till they become as large, and even larger, than a common horse-bean; they even increase in size on the grass and bushes, but then have a lean flat appearance; it is to this form that the name carrapato grande is given. Spix and Martius believe the large and small kinds to be distinct species, but I think there can be no doubt that they are the same insects in different stages; St. Hilare is of this opinion, and so are the inhabitants themselves. It is only in the beginning of the dry season that the small carrapato is to be found in those districts which are infested by them, but as the season advances, they gradually disappear, to be replaced by the larger ones. They attach themselves indiscriminately to all kinds of quadrupeds, but the horse and the ox suffer most from their attacks, and in very dry seasons they exist in such numbers, that whole herds of cattle perish from the exhaustion which they produce. If, however, the animal on which they live can hold out till the rains set in, it soon regains its strength, as wet is very fatal to the carrapato; I have frequently seen some of my horses that were infested by these creatures, get nearly free from them after swimming across a broad river. Some horses I found were much more subject to them than others. We found the dry bushy country above Parnaguá swarming with these pests, and almost every night, we had to pick hundreds of them off our bodies before we could turn into our hammocks. The men suffered more than either Mr. Walker or myself, as they were on foot, and their legs were bare from the knees downwards. When I walked out to botanize in the neighbourhood of the places where we encamped, I used generally to get completely covered with them, and had to change my dress, but by laying the infested articles in the bright sun-shine for a quarter of an hour they became fit to put on again. A favourite little ring-tailed monkey, which I obtained from an old Indian some days after we left Oeiras, also used to suffer very much from these insects. When full grown, a large carrapato very much resembles the ripe seed of the castor oil tree. In dragging off very large ones, the wound which is left often becomes a very bad sore. The carrapato belongs to the genus Ixodes, of Latreille.
Although the country between Parnaguá and Saco do Tanque is comparatively level, yet there is a very perceptible rise; and although the general vegetation has very much the same character as that of other Catinga districts, many of the shrubs and trees were quite new to me. At this season very few were in flower; of these, the most remarkable was a very large tree to which the name of Sicupíra is given by the inhabitants, and which I afterwards found extending far into the province of Goyaz; it belongs to the natural order Leguminosæ, and has only very recently been described by Mr. Bentham, under the name of Commilobium polygalæflorum: it is easily recognised at a great distance by its numerous large panicles of lilac flowers. An essential oil, which is contained in the fruit, is much used by the inhabitants to alleviate the pain of the tooth-ache. A very large silk-cotton tree (Bombax), entirely destitute of leaves, was also common, but on one of them I found a few blossoms, which were of enormous size, measuring when fully expanded about a foot and a half across; the petals were of a dark brown colour without, but white within. Near a fazenda called Riacho d’Area, where we stopped a day, grew a number of large palm trees, on the stems of which I found a large fleshy-stemmed orchideous plant, a species of Cyrtopodium, which produced flowering stems about four feet high, terminating in a large panicle of flowers, with brown blotches on an orange ground, and smelling sweetly like wall-flower.
In marshy bushy places on this journey I saw many plants of the Vanilla planifolia, seldom bearing flowers, and more rarely producing fruit. It has now been satisfactorily determined, that this is the species from which the true Vanilla of commerce is procured. In Mexico it is extensively cultivated for the sake of its fruit, which it yields abundantly; while the plants which have been introduced into the East Indies, and the hot-houses of Europe, though they have frequently produced flowers, have very seldom perfected their fruit. Dr. Morren of Liège was the first to study attentively the natural history of this plant, and to prove experimentally that the fruit of the Vanilla may be as freely produced in our hot-houses as it is in Mexico. He has discovered that from some peculiarities in the reproductive organs of this plant, artificial fecundation is required. In the year 1836, a plant in one of the hot-houses in the botanic garden at Liège produced fifty-four flowers, which having been artificially fecundated, exhibited the same number of pods, quite equal to those imported from Mexico; and in 1837, a fresh crop of about a hundred pods was obtained upon another plant by the same method. He attributes the fecundation of the plant in Mexico to the action of some insect which frequents the flower; and hence accounts for the non-production of fruit in those plants, which have been removed to other countries. There can be no doubt that this plant is as perfectly indigenous to Brazil, as it is to Mexico; but it is no less certain that its fruit is there seldom matured. Is this also to be attributed to the absence of the means by which nature is supposed to effect fecundation in Mexico? This is a subject which, as Professor Morren justly observes, well deserves attention in a commercial point of view, since his experiments go to prove, that in all intertropical countries, vanilla might be cultivated, and a great abundance of fruit obtained.[9]
The country in which we were travelling, is much infested by the Onça of the inhabitants, the Felis onca of Linnæus, which is also known by the name of Jaguar. In our encampments, we used to hear them night after night roaring at some distance, but they never came near enough to be seen. The night we remained at Riacho d’Area, we were prevented from sleeping during the early part of it, by the loud roaring of one of these animals, which was so distinct and audible that it appeared to be within a short distance; but the fazendeiro, who was more accustomed to the sound, assured me it was at least half a league distant, and from its noise he supposed it to be a very large male; its roar was more like the growl of an angry dog, which generally continued for a quarter of an hour at a time, when it terminated by a sound, two or three times repeated, not unlike the smothered bark of a large mastiff. The dogs belonging to the fazenda were on the alert and barking, but none of them offered to leave the house. My horses which were feeding at a little distance, came closer to us, when they heard the almost unearthly sounds produced by the fierce inhabitant of the forests; even those I had brought from the coast, and which I am certain had never been exposed to the attacks of these animals, followed the example of the others.