580 ME. weir's journal. 



my quarters for a short time in a place called Capillmlia da Serra. 

 This place consists of a small mud churcli and about a dozen of 

 mud huts around it. 



Jan, ith, — The Serra — which, as I have already mentioned, 

 begins abruptly a few leagues to the west of the village of Peri- 

 sicaba — is a steep and often precipitous face of rock, separating 

 the table-land above from the level campo below. In its highest 

 parts it is perhaps not much more than 1000 feet above the 

 campo. It runs across the country in a direction nearly due 

 west, and runs out, I am told, near the river Tiete, a few leagues 

 from the village of Brotas. The precipitous face of the Serra is 

 broken into by numerous deep glens or guUeys, each having its 

 own small stream and series of waterfalls. These glens are 

 always densely wooded; the other parts of the Serra, where not 

 too rocky, are also wooded, but not so densely. From the top of 

 the Serra, looking northward, the view is over a wide extensive 

 campo of many leagues in breadth, until it is closed by another 

 range of low hills running almost in the same direction. These 

 are called the Morros of Araraguara. Went over part of the 

 campo at tbe foot of the Serra to-day. The soil is generally a 

 sandy loam ; but in the wet swampy part it is a black bog earth, 

 with particles of white sand. Where nothing grows on the 

 campo but grass and other small herbaceous plants it is called 

 Campo limpo ; where there is a mixture of shrubs and small 

 trees it is called Campo serrado. Collected during the day speci- 

 mens of No. 140, a small tree {Eugenia sp.) from the Campo 

 serrado; No. 141 {Lantana sp), a small herbaceous plant of no 

 beauty; No. 142, a species belonging to the Convolvulacece, with 

 small pink flowers; No. 143, also a herbaceous species of Oxalis; 

 No. 144 [Loranthus sp,), a parasite from the trees on the 

 campo — its flowers are white ; No. 145 {Eugenia sp) and No. 

 146 [Myrsine sp\ both small trees; and No. 147, a curious 

 dwarf species {Gornphrena sp,), with large Aster-like flowers of 

 a rose colour of considerable beauty. I collected many dry heads 

 of this for seeds, but find that none of them have brought any to 

 perfection. Much thunder during the day, and it is now 



(9 o'clock) beginning to rain very fast. 



^ Jan. 5th.—YeYj wet day, with thunder. Employed myself 

 within doors. 



Jan. 6;^.— Immediately below the place we are putting up is 

 one of the deep glens I have spoken of as running up into the 

 Serra. I have employed the day in examining it. It is thickly 



