160 FLORA OF BRAZIL. 
peracee and Graminee, and other aquatic plants, peculiar to 
tropical America. Almost no Ferns, no Begoniacee, Pipe- 
racee, or Orchidee, are to be met with. 
The months of February, March, and April of 1838, were 
spent in exploring the province of Alagoas, situated between 
Pernambuco and Bahia, and in making a voyage up the 
Rio San Francisco ; during which, I narrowly escaped falling 
a vietim to dysentery, which is endemic along its banks, 
and which forced me to retreat sooner than I had intended 
to the coast. After suffering many privations from exposure 
and from want of provisions, I returned to Pernambuco 
about the end of April, bringing with me upwards of 200 
species; a small number, considering the extent of country 
explored; but, my journeyings being made late in the dry 
season, the greater part of the herbaceous vegetation was 
scorched up, and the trees on the hilly tracts had shed their 
leaves, according to their annual custom, the low forests there 
being deciduous. Some fine Leguminose and Loranthacee 
resulted from this expedition. In many places, the dry, 
arid, and hilly rocky places along the banks of the rivet 
abound with Cactee of various forms, some of the larger 
angular species attaining a height of nearly 30 feet, with 
stems more than 3 feet in circumference. 
The months of May, June, and part of July, the depth of . 
the rainy season, were spent in Pernambuco, and during this 
time I completed my arrangements for a long journey into 
the interior, being desirous of exploring the high lands 
which lie to the westward of the province of Piauhy, between 
the Rio Paranahiba and the Yocintins. Finally, quitting 
Pernambuco about the middle of July, in a coasting schooner, 
I reached, in four days, Aracaty,a small town in the province 
of Ceará, about 34 degrees to the north of Pernambuco, 
and from whence there is the easiest access to the interior. 
Here I purchased horses, and commenced that journey to which 
I had always been anxiously looking forward, since my af- 
rival in Brazil, and which, in the end, proved so much longer 
than I had originally intended, and attended with such dan- 
