82 BAHIA. 



back his head with the bit at the same time. This receipt 

 never failed to make the poor brute so thoroughly uncomfort- 

 able that he ambled as softly as possible at once. 



The road led up the steep side of the river valley on to the 

 table land above. From the top of the hill there is a fine view 

 of the river and its valleys, and the white town below. Some 

 trees, the leaves of which turn scarlet before dropping, set 

 off the green of the rest of the landscape. In their action on 

 foliage and plant life generally, the wet and dry seasons take 

 the place of summer and winter at home, and many plants 

 become bare of their leaves at the dry season, and only burst 

 out again into leaf at the commencement of the wet season. 

 This condition is far more marked in other regions of South 

 America. Humboldt observed that certain trees anticipated 

 the coming wet season, and put out their leaves some weeks 

 before there was any appearance of its approach. 



The road was very much like a green lane. In places a 

 regular slough of mud, in others dry and sandy ; it was broad, 

 but usually more or less overgrown with grass and weeds, with 

 a narrow track picked out along the best ground by the mules. 

 There were numerous cottages along the road, and fields of 

 tobacco, maize, and cassava ; every now and then a bit of 

 wood was passed with beautiful flowers growing about it, and 

 amongst them numerous forms of Melastomaceic with their 

 characteristic three-veined leaves. 



I saw here most of the plants which I had collected at 

 Fernando Noronha growing as road-side weeds. As we rode 

 on, a splendid Iguana, about three feet in length, ran across 

 the road. I was astonished at the brilliant dark green and 

 bright yellow-green colouring of the animal, and have never 

 seen any other lizard so bright. 



Every now and then a village was passed ; in the first, as it 

 was Sunday, the villagers were enjoying a cock-fight. Every 

 villager keeps a fighting-cock. Good Lisbon wine is sold along 

 the road ; the drin king-places consist of a hole about a yard 

 square in the gable-end of the usual mud-walled cottage, placed 

 at such a height as to be convenient to a man on horseback, 

 who thus gets his drink without dismounting. Ladies travel 

 along the road either in the saddle or in a sedan chair slung 

 between two horses or mules by means of a long pole. 



A thick growth of myrtles and shrubs which was passed, 

 was pointed out as having been the hiding-place of a notorious 

 highway robber, a negro named Lucas, who used to lie in wait 

 for merchants on their way to the fair at St. Anna ; he was the 

 terror of the district, and committed several murders and worse 

 atrocities. Though he was caught and executed in 1S59, stories 



