220 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 



and we obtained some sleep; whence we were quickly roused 

 by the slave-dealer, who, with every token and expression of 

 deep distress, came to crave our advice and assistance ; in- 

 forming us that nearly half of liis '■able party were violently 

 ill, in consequence of having plundered a plantation in the 

 vicinity, and eaten the raw Ma?idiocca roots, which they mis- 

 took for the wholesome Aypion. Their symptoms were 

 exactly those of persons who had taken poison — headache, 

 vertigo, trembling, inflammation and cramp, accompanied 

 with vomiting, manifested tliemselves severely in all who had 

 partaken of the deleterious food. By our advice the owner 

 administered emetics to some, and tobacco injections to 

 others, with large doses of oil and the expressed juice of the 

 Mandiocca plant; which, by a highly curious provision of 

 nature, forms an antidote to the injurious properties of its 

 own root. At sunrise we certainly beheld a scene of great 

 confusion in the negroes' camp ; prostrate bodies, and symp- 

 toms of fever and suffering were sufficiently apparent; still 

 no individual life was lost in consequence of this act of 

 imprudence. 



As we found it impossible to reach the Fazenda do Bom 

 Jardin on the followinfj niiiht, we were affain obliged to en- 

 camp in a district, peculiarly marked by its numerous woods 

 of Carnaiiva, reminding us of the scenery in Minas Geraes. 

 Here, too, the Palms occupy the lowest and most swampy 

 spots, and the banks of brooks and ponds; but they do not 

 rise so majestically as does the Buriti Palm, over the neigh- 

 bouring clusters of bushes and low trees in the Mine district. 



Before coining to the Fazenda do Bom Jardin, we again 

 ftll in with the chalky-sandstone formation, on the scattered 

 square-looking hills, among which winds the Rio Caninde. 

 One branch of this river takes its rise in the Serra Topa, and 

 the other on the Serra dos dois Irmaos. We also saw the 

 channels of many pretty little brooks, now dried up, like the 

 river which they feed, but still giving a pleasing character 

 to the landscape by the verdant line wliicli marks their ser- 

 pentine course. When following the track of one of theso 



