with Remarks on their Vegetation. 167 



fazenda, which stands at an elevation of three thousand one 

 hundred feet above the level, of the sea, is twelve miles. During 

 the whole way the road is very bad, and in many places so 

 steep that it is with considerable difficulty the mules make 

 their way up it. Indeed to one unused to travel on such roads, 

 which have more the appearance of the bed of a mountain 

 torrent than a pathway for beasts of burden, many parts of 

 it appear impassable 5 but he is soon undeceived by the slow 

 yet sure manner in which the mules pass over the worst por- 

 tions of it, especially if left entirely to themselves. During the 

 whole ascent the road passes through a dense forest. The 

 magnificence of these forests cannot be imagined by one who 

 has not seen them and penetrated into their recesses. Those 

 remnants of the virgin forest which still remain in the vicinity 

 of the capital, although they appear grand to the eye of the 

 newly-arrived European, become insignificant when compared 

 with the mass of giant vegetation that clothes the sides of the 

 Organ Mountains. Many of the trees are of immense size, 

 their trunks and branches covered with myriads of parasites, 

 consisting of Orchidece, Bromeliacece, Ferns, Peperomice, &c. 

 I have since ascertained that a great proportion of the largest 

 of these trees are species of Ficus, Myrtus, Laurus, Melasto- 

 macea, and Leguminosce. Some of them have their trunks en- 

 circled by twiners, the stems of which are often thicker than 

 what they surround. This is particularly the case with a spe- 

 cies of Ficus, called by the Brazilians Cipo Matador. It runs 

 straight up the tree to which it has attached itself, but at the 

 distance of about every ten feet it throws out from each side 

 a thick clasper, which curves round, and closely entwines the 

 other stem. As both the trees increase in size, the pressure 

 ultimately becomes so great, that the supporting one dies from 

 the embrace of the parasite. 



At the base of the mountains the underwood principally 

 consists of shrubs belonging to the natural orders Melasto- 

 macecBy Myrtacea, Composite, and Rubiacea, among which are 

 many large species of herbaceous ferns and several palms. 

 About the middle palms and tree-ferns abound, some of the 

 latter reaching to a height of not less than thirty feet. At an 



