A NATURALIST IN BRAZIL 



I spent several days in Caruarii. The town is built round a rocky 

 hill, which is crowned by a church. On the top of the tower is a 

 cross, which at night blazes with electric light, shining far over the 

 country. Such illuminated crosses are common in Brazil. There is 

 no mean economy of lighting in Brazil, and I was often surprised, 

 after hours of travelling through an uninhabited wilderness, to come 

 suddenly on a little town all ablaze with light — as brilliantly illumin- 

 ated as any European capital. 



At Caruaru the landscape is already suggestive of the desert. 

 There are wide open spaces, and long ranges of hills ; the colouring 

 is monotonous ; even the gardens are in monochrome, and enclosed 

 by hedges of euphorbia with cactus-like, fleshy branches. But the 

 Sertao is still far away. We must continue our journey to the terminus 

 of Rio Branco (or Gampina Grande on the Parahyba line), as far 

 from Garuarii as Garuarii is from the coast. 



One retires to one's carriage soon after dinner and goes to bed, if 

 there is a bed available ; otherwise one sleeps in the native hammock. 



When I alighted at Gampina Grande, shivering a little in the 

 unaccustomed coolness, I was delighted to find, close to the gates 

 of the town, a long, narrow lake, beside which I strolled all the 

 morning, scarcely removing my binoculars from my eyes. Here for 

 the first time I saw the rich and wonderful world of the Brazilian 

 waterfowl. 



At first there was a sandy beach along the shore; here little 

 ringed plover were tripping to and fro, and curtsying, taking short 

 flights; and a large brown plover flew past overhead, greeting me 

 with a cry; and now, with fanning flight, came the "Teu-teus," 

 the South American peewits, with crested heads and black breasts ; 

 one sees them in hundreds in the Buenos Aires bird-market. They 

 are kept on account of the cry from which they take their name, 

 and with which the watchful birds greet everyone who approaches ; 

 they are therefore valued as "watch-birds." 



Now I was treading on a stretch of grass-covered land which ran 

 out into the lake, a green peninsula. The bay was full of the green 

 leaves of the Eichhornia, with their thick bladder-covered stems, 

 which grew so closely that the leaves stood upright in dense con- 

 fusion. Above the green thicket of foliage the light-blue spires of 

 foliage nodded like bluebells; and like moving flowers the Hyacin- 

 thine Waterhens (Porphyriola Martinica) appeared and disappeared 



ii8 



