122 A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 
July 15f7i. A long botanizing excursion to-day among 
the Tijuca hills with Mr. Glaziou, director of the Passeio 
Publico, as guide. It has been a piece of the good fortune 
attending Mr. Agassiz thus far on this expedition to find in 
Mr. Glaziou a botanist whose practical familiarity with 
tropical plants is as thorough as his theoretical knowledge. 
He has undertaken to enrich our scientific stores with a 
large collection of such palms and other trees as illustrate 
the relation between the present tropical vegetation and the 
ancient geological forests. Such a collection will be invalu- 
able as a basis for palseontological studies at the Museum of 
Comparative Zoology in Cambridge. 
July 23cZ. - - At last our plans for the Amazons seem 
definitely settled. We sail the day after to-morrow by the 
Cruzeiro do Sul. The conduct of the government toward 
the expedition is very generous ; free passages are granted 
to the whole party, and yesterday Mr. Agassiz received an 
official document enjoining all persons connected with the 
administration to give him every facility for his scientific 
objects. We have another piece of good fortune in the 
addition to our party of Major Coutinho, a member of 
the government corps of engineers, who has been engaged 
for. several years in explorations on the Amazonian rivers. 
Happily for us, he returned to Rio a few weeks ago, and a 
chance meeting at the palace, where he had gone to re- 
port the results of the journey just completed, and Mr. 
Agassiz to discuss the plans for that about to begin, brought 
them together. This young officer's investigations had made 
his name familiar to Mr. Agassiz, and when the Emperor 
asked the latter how he could best assist him, he answered 
that there was nothing he so much desired or which would 
so materially aid him as the companionship of Major Gou- 
