Phytology.—There are a diversity of trees which afford excellent timber for building, others for cabinet work, and dyes; also those which produce benzoin, gum copal and gum mastick; likewise various species of the palm, of which the carnahuba is the most common and useful tree in the country; of it houses are formed without any other ingredient than clay, the trunk serving for the substantial part, and the leaves in the shape of a fan for the covering; the latter are also used for mats, hand-baskets, hats, and little panniers. They afford, besides, sustenance for cattle at the period of great droughts, for, whilst new, the pith of the trunk is soft, and given to animals in default of other aliment: a sort of farinha, or flour, is also made from it, which is a resource in times of famine. In the centre of the foliage there is a glutinous pod, which, when applied to the fire, acquires the consistency of wax, of which it has the smell. Its fruit, which is a bunch of a black colour, supplies sustenance to all living creatures; and beautiful walking canes are made of its timber, which become speckled on being polished.
The oiticica is the largest, and has the most abundant foliage of any tree of the certam. Its cool shade is grateful to man, as well as all animals of the country, but only grows where its roots can find water. In the woods the jabuticaba is common, and in the catingas the ambuzo.
The culture of cotton is in the progress of augmentation, and its produce is the principal branch of commerce, and introduces into the country the greatest part of foreign commodities, which the necessities of life or luxury may require. The cane prospers in many districts, but its juice is almost all distilled into spirit, or reduced into what are termed rapaduras, which are portions of muscovado sugar, in the form of a brick, which it receives after being put into wooden moulds. The produce of coffee, which with industry might become prodigious, is yet insignificant. The same may be said of the cocoa shrub. Indian corn is the only grain which prospers in the country.
The atta, which is the pine of the southern provinces, is here abundant, and the best of all in the Brazil, and perhaps in America. Melons, and water-melons are excellent in many situations, also the pine-apple. Orange trees are almost useless in some places, and the banana, or plantain, is rare in consequence of the occasional deficiency of rain. The mangaba and araca are common in all the districts, as well as the cajue-nut and the tobacco plant. Cattle, hides, cotton, and salt, are almost the only articles of exportation.
Formerly a considerable quantity of amber was collected, which the high tides deposited upon the beach. The bees produce a great abundance of honey in the cavities of trees. Quinaquina, or Jesuits’ bark, is rarely seen.
Rivers and Lakes.—Of the great number of rivers in this province the only large one is the Jaguaribe, which, in the idiom of the Indians, means the “river of ounces.” It has its origin in the serra of Boavista, which is a portion of the Cayriris, in the district of Inhamu, and runs, like all the others, to the north, passes the towns of St. Joam do Principe, St. Bernardo, and Aricaty, and discharges itself into the ocean fifty miles west of the Appody. Its course through the cattle plains is handsome and interesting; the tide runs thirty miles, and gives it a majestic appearance. It has a diversity of fish, a considerable part of which enter with the inundations into the adjacent lakes, where they are greatly diminished by the jaburu and other ichthyophagous birds. Its principal tributaries are the river Salgado, which flows from the same cordillera, breaks through a mountain which it encounters, passes by the parishes of Lavras and Icco, and enters its superior by the right margin, having traversed the district of Mangabeira, where there is gold, the extraction of which was forbidden. The Banabuyhu, little inferior to the preceding, comes from the vicinity of the before-mentioned cordillera, joining its waters to the Jaguaribe a few leagues below the last confluence, having received, amongst other smaller streams, the Quixeramuby.
The river Caracu has its heads in the centre of the province, waters the town of Sobral, and is discharged by two mouths near forty miles to the east of the bay of Jericoacoara. The tide runs up some leagues, rendering it navigable for a considerable space.
The river Camucim, which in the interior of the country flows under the name of Croaihu, and which has one hundred miles of course, originates in the serra of Hibiapaba, refreshes the town of Granja, and empties itself twenty-five miles to the east of the last-mentioned bay. It is navigable for a considerable distance, and has at its embouchure a commodious anchorage for sumacas, which export from thence a large quantity of cotton, principally to Maranham.
The river Aricaty is extensive, and enters the sea by two unequal mouths, denominated Aricaty-Assu and Aricaty-Mirim; the first is the eastern. The intervening island is four miles in diameter and about twenty-five east of the Caracu.
The Cahohyppe, which flows into the ocean, fifteen miles to the west of the capital; the Cioppe, eighteen miles more to the west; the Curu, which discharges itself twenty miles further in the same direction; and the Mandahu, nearly fifty miles more, and eighteen to the east of Aricaty-Assu, are the only others worthy of notice.