208 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
troop of horses now amounts to nine, I am on the point of : 
purchasing other three, and before I reach Rio I expect — 
will be needful for me to have three or four more, as we are 
obliged to carry every thing with us, provisions, cooking 
utensils, and often even water itself. Besides the young 
Englishman mentioned above as having accompanied me. ; 
from Crato, I have three men in my employ, and amongst us 
an ox scarcely lasts a month; happily a very fat one costs — 
about four or five dollars only. The mode in which we pre 
serve the beef is by cutting it into very thin layers, sprinkling 
them with a little salt, and drying them in the sun. Thus 
cured, the meat becomes almost as hard as a piece of deal : 
board, and is generally cooked by roasting on a wooden spit, — 
and eaten along with the ground root of the Mandiocca. P 
requires good teeth to masticate such food, and I am becom- — 
ing very tired of it, as we do not see fresh beef above onte — 
a-month. Figure to yourself one plate of saw-dust, 
another of roasted sole-leather, and you have our bill of fare 
for daily breakfast, dinner, and supper. My greatest com — 
fort is a good stock of excellent tea, which I purchased before - 
leaving. Pernambuco, and which is not yet exhausted, but 
this again I have to drink without milk, and the sugar 5 
about as whiteas peat earth. Notwithstanding all these dis- 
comforts, the people here say there is no place on earth eq 
to Goyaz. Poor souls! they know no better. 
But wherefore list ?—when her joyous lays, 
Like a lov'd one’s voice, are heard always! 
They breathe in the echo of bygone years 
And the Past in the Present again appears. 
“I wander alone, and my wandering eye 
Is dimm'd with a tear as it gazes on high, 
On the myriad worlds of argent hue 
Spangling the dome of ethereal blue, 
Or glances round on the flowery earth, 
, Where so much of odour and beauty has birth ; 
And I sigh that no friend of my bosom is nigh, 
. To gaze on these scenes with a kindred eye.” 
“ Villa da Natividade, Province of Goyaz, Brazil, Nov. 189^ — 
