210 BOTANICAL INFOTtMATION. 



Extracts from the Brazilian Travels of Drs Spix and Martins. 



Our readers, especially those who feel an interest in the ex- 

 tensive collections recently made by Mr Gardner in Piauhy, 

 will read with pleasure the following narrative of the distin- 

 guished Bavarian travellers, Drs Spix and Martins, which, 

 as far as we know, has not yet appeared in an English dress. 



Journey from Joazeiro, through part of the Province ofPernam- 

 hucOy to Oeiras the Capital of Piauhy. 



On the 21st of April, we crossed the Rio San Francisco 

 in a large ferryboat, which traverses the stream on ropes, 

 and entered the province of Pernambuco at the Registo do 

 Joazeiro. This passage of the river is the most frequented 

 and important, in the w hole Sertao of Bahia ; the entire com- 

 mercial intercourse of the country is thus prosecuted between 

 this district and Piauhy ; Maranliao, Goyaz and Matto 

 Grosso, are also supplied by the same channel. The chief 

 articles of freight are slaughtered cattle for Bahia, and Euro- 

 pean goods. In later times, since the diminution of the 

 direct slave trade between the northern coast of Africa and 

 tile provinces of Para, Maranhao, and Pernambuco, it has 

 been customary to carry the slaves over the Rio San Fran- 

 cisco by this passage to the plantations of Maranhao. But 

 though this intercourse has been but too actively prosecuted, 

 government has gained little revenue from it. The number 

 of slaughtered cattle, too, has fallen off; formerly the annual 

 number amounted to fifty or sixty thousand head ; now to 

 twenty thousand. Government has farmed the income of this 

 ferry to the highest bidder, and a family in Pernambuco now 

 pays the sum of five to six hundred thousand reis yearly, and 

 collects the toll. The rate of charn-e is 100 reis for a fresh 

 negro slave {Negro novo); each head of cattle and young 

 untamed horse cost 80 reis to carry across the river; but a 

 horse properly broken, being much more valuable, pays 320 

 reis. 



At this passage, do Joazeiro, two roads from Piauhy meet, 



