IN ALAGOAS AND EIO DE SAN FKANCISCO. 295 



of Calandrinia ? with rose-coloured flowers, the large green 

 leaves of which are made use of by the Brazilians in the same 

 manner as spinach. The river was greatly flooded, and overflow- 

 ing its banks, and many families had been obliged to quit their 

 dwellings, which were either carried away or quite submerged. 



From this place I made a voyage up the river for about 

 140 miles, to a large island called the Ilha de San Pedro, 

 which is chiefly inhabited by civilized Indians. I remained 

 several days at a large town called Villa do Penedo, about 30 

 miles from the sea, but the vegetation was so much scorched up 

 there that with the exception of a few Myrtle-blooms, Loranths, 

 and Cinchonads, nothing was to be met with in flower. The 

 country on both sides of the river, as far up as I went, was of 

 an undulating character, and had a most desert-like appearance, 

 from being covered with low deciduous forests, which at that 

 season were almost entirely destitute of leaves, rendered more so 

 by the herbaceous vegetation being entirely withered up on the 

 red-coloured soil. The greater part of the interior of Brazil is 

 either open grassy campo, or covered with these forests, which 

 in the language of the country are called Catinga. The great 

 heat towards the end of the dry season produces exactly the 

 same effect on them as the cold of winter on the deciduous forests 

 of England, and other cold countries. Along the banks of the 

 river to the distance to which it had overflowed its banks, a 

 stripe of green existed, and there also the trees were larger than 

 on the higher and drier parts of the country. Many of these 

 trees and shrubs were in flower, and but for them my collec- 

 tions in this voyage would have been very poor. The large 

 trees consisted of several kinds of ivild Fig (^Ficns), arboreous 

 BignoniaSy Leguminous plants, &c.; and the shrubs of C^^aZ- 

 pinias, Melochias, Crotons, Lcmtanas, a Machaonia, Schmide- 

 lia, LcBtia, a Tocoyena, Sapotads, Cordias, &c. Where the 

 banks were dry and rocky, they were covered with many fine 

 species of Cacti. Among these were several kinds of Opun- 

 tia, some of them covered with the Cochineal insect, various 

 species of Cereus, one of them with a stem three feet in circum- 

 ference, branched only towards the top, and upwards of 30 feet 

 high, and a handsome Melocactus {M. Hookerianus, Gardn.) 

 with long spines, and about a foot in diameter. A single spe- 

 cimen of this exists at Kew, and another at Glasgow. When 

 nearly opposite the Ilha de San Pedro we were all nearly 

 drowned, being overtaken in the middle of the stream by a tre- 

 mendous thunder-storm. From exposure at this time I was 

 seized with a severe illness, from which I did not expect to 

 recover. This caused me to remain about a fortnight on the 

 island, and, giving up all idea of proceeding further up the river, 



