IN VAUIOUS PAKTS OF THE GLOBE. 165 



here and there in cultivated places. But at Sahara, where tiie 

 Araucaria is not to be found, we again saw Acrocomia sclero- 

 carpa, the terminal bud of which is eaten just like that of the 

 common cabbage-palm. Farther on, near Pitangui, we also 

 found the beautiful Attcdea compta, or Indaia ; and in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Patrocinho we saw, for the first time, tlie Buriti 

 (^Mauritia vinifera), with its fan-shaped leaves, the largest and 

 most magnificent of all Brazilian palms. 



The Campos themselves, too, began to be clothed with some 

 species of this family ; but not with specimens which suggest 

 themselves to the mind when we hear of the " princes" of the 

 vegetable kingdom; they are little dwarf plants that a person 

 unaccustomed to observe would not have distinguished from the 

 meadow-grass; a few were 2 or 3 yards high, and formed in 

 places small copses, such for example as Cocos fiexuosa and 

 C. campestris. 



Cocos capitata, or Cabe9udo, is common in the west of the 

 province of the Mines, but it never grows in woods ; its stem is 

 at the outside a yard in height, and carries at its summit a cup 

 formed by the persistent base of its leaves, which latter fall 

 backwards very gracefully. The stemless species belong to the 

 genera Diplothemium, Astrocaryicm, Attalea, and Cocos. 



On the 23rd of March we crossed the Rio Paranahyba, whicli 

 divides the province of Minas-Geraes from that of Goyaz. Of 

 all the forests I ever saw, none are so enchanting as those traversed 

 by this river; their peculiar aspect is owing to the presence of 

 Attalea compta, of which I have already spoken. 



We stopped at Villa da Catalao, the first village in this pro- 

 vince we came to, and then pushed on to Goyaz. As far as 

 Bomfim, about half way, the country is very like some parts of 

 Minas ; there are undulating Campos, interspersed witli little 

 woods. From Bomfim to tlie capital the country is more woody, 

 and after leaving the pretty town of Meiaponte, the road plunges 

 into a dense forest known by the name of Matto-Grosso (great 

 forest). The road was a perfect quagmire, in which men and 

 horses sunk deep, and were often with difficulty set right. It 

 was here that I lost many of my most valuable recent collections. 

 The air too was so liot and damp that a beautiful specimen of a 

 palm that I had brought from the banks of the Bio das Velhas 

 was in a few days little better than so much rotten wood. 



The day after our arrival at Goyaz, which is about 420 miles 

 from liio, we fell in for the first time with some Indians. 



We made a pleasant excursion in the environs of this town, 

 which is delightfully situate on a small torrent, the Rio Yermelho, 

 in a basin surrounded by mountains, to the Serra Dourada, the 

 farthest point reached by M. A. St. Ililaire. I there saw among 



