IN vAraous parts of the globe. 167 



cool, and in a very short space of time it dots with a beautiful 

 carmine colour the still smoking soil. Tiie country between 

 Goyaz and Carretao, a Chavante Indian village, and Crixas, is of 

 extraordineiry magnificence ; the large number of Mauritia which 

 grows there gives it an appearance peculiar to itself. These 

 elegant trees mark out all the marshy spots, and serve as ren- 

 dezvous for troops of gay-coloured Aras. Of the herbaceous 

 plants which inhabit these countries, the family of Pipeworts 

 {^Eriocaulacece) attracts especial attention ; I found two species 

 which grow higher than a man. 



As we advanced towards the bed of the Araguay, the height 

 of the great Brazilian plain lowered considerably : Crixas is not 

 more than 1200 feet above the level of the sea. The temperature 

 increased in proportion ; before the day fairly broke the ther- 

 mometer stood at 40^ C* 



Beyond Crixas the aspect of the country changed. The 

 Campos, with their pleasing undulations and copses dotted with 

 the pink-riowered Chorisia speciosa, were replaced by a flat 

 country, here and there a little wooded and intersected by nearly 

 dry marshes, fringed with Bnritis and variegated with JMelas- 

 tomads, Utricularias, and Eriocaulons; at other times covered 

 with dense forests choked with Bamboos and crossed by almost 

 impassable paths, interrupted here and there by prairies of tall 

 grass, called Sape, in which both man and horse soon disappear ; 

 or else again covered with the grass which, as M, A. St. Hilaire 

 has shown, makes its appearance wherever a large forest has 

 been cleared — I mean the Caapim gordura, or Tristegis glutinosa 

 (^MelinU minutifiorci). This country was much more thickly 

 peopled than it at present is ; for many years past the Indians 

 liave reconquered it from the whites, and the traveller himself 

 does not always pass on his way unscathed. 



The preparations for our expedition on the Araguay were 

 being made at the Aldea of Salinas, so called from the salt- 

 works which are near it. This village, like Carretao, is inhabited 

 by Chavantes Indians, and is situate between the Rio Crixas- 

 Mirim and the Crixas- Assu, which falls into the Araguay : it 

 offers a fine field for exploring to every naturalist, but especially 

 to the botanist. The plants I found there were all new. In the 

 bad season the principal food of the inhabitants consists of the 

 fruit of Altalea compta and CEnocarpus Bacaba, which are very 

 abundant in the neighbouring forests, as well as another 

 Attalea (?) with a short thick trunk, and which is called Acuri. 



* The mean climate does not, however, differ much from that of Rio, 

 ■which is more even ; on the table-land of the Mines it a aries from + 20° to 

 + 22° C. 



