208 JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE 
are of poor quality ; when the winter-floods are very great, many of the 
cattle perish ; the neighbouring forest is much infested by onças; and, 
worse than all, the herdsman is of a very indolent disposition. Be- 
tween the south bank of the river and the campo is an intervening gapó, 
or forest. of low trees and bushes flooded in the rainy season, of two or 
three miles in width. The water had risen sufficiently to enable my boat 
io traverse great part of this, and it was curious work navigating among 
bushes. In the narrow strip of forest which we had to traverse on 
foot, I found a pretty leafless Voyria, with snow-white flowers. The 
campo is about a mile broad, and three or four miles long ; its southern 
side is skirted by a small river (the Janauarí), which enters the Rio 
Negro near the mouth of the latter. The herdsman's house is near 
the Janauarí; it is built of mud and thatched with palm-leaves, after 
the fashion of the country, but through the negligence of its inhabitants 
it has fallen much to decay, especially as to the roof; and the herds- 
man, rather than be at the trouble to cut palm-leaves to repair it, had 
a few months previously removed his family across the river to a small 
“casa do fórno*," which stood near his mandiocca-plot, and was the 
common property of two or three families. I had my choice between these 
two habitations. But the oven-house was merely a roof supported on — 
poles without any side-walls, and so many hammocks were suspended 
in it that there seemed no room for another, and certainly not for my 
operations. "The house on the campo was so surrounded by mud and 
water as to be inaccessible save at one corner, where a plank was laid 
to step on. It consisted of three rooms, or **quartos;" there were 
pools of water on the floor of all these save the middle one, and in this 
were two opposite doorways without doors or mats, through which the 
trovoados swept furiously. This room I chose, preferring cold to wet, 
and here I remained a week, accompanied by a young fellow, a half- 
Indian and brother-in-law of the herdsman, who cooked my meals. 
The soil of the campo is a stiff clay, while the campos I have pre- 
viously visited are of loose sand; I was therefore prepared to expect 
something new in the vegetation, nor was I disappointed. The brittle- 
ness of the Grasses was quite in contrast with the tenacity of the soil; 
and I was not able to draw a single root without the aid of my knife. 
* The mandiocca fórno, or oven, is generally erected on the skirts of the roga and 
near a running stream. Where two or more roças join, a single fórno often serves 
for drying the produce of all. 
