EASTERN BRAZIL—CHASE 387 
dactylon) clings to earth even when reduced to mats no larger than 
a 5-cent piece. If given the least chance it would cover the desolate 
earth; not a thing for the agrostologist to rejoice over, but it would 
benefit the poor animals. The bare ground is eroded more or less, 
but is held by the shrubs, except in the little villages where powdery 
dust fills the air. When the rains come the water runs off at once 
carrying the surface soil with it. 
No forage crops are grown in the sertaéo except for little patches 
of Para grass here and there along a stream. In November the dry 
season had only begun, yet every edible plant in the sertéo seemed to 
have been consumed, and there were some eight months more to 
endure before the rains. A large thrifty looking milkweed (Ascle- 
pias), a low temptingly green herb growing in dense patches, and 
scattered plants of Capparis were not even nibbled. Palatable plants, 
overgrazed and not allowed to seed, have been exterminated and only 
such inedible herbs remain. The shrubs were mostly leafless, but 
many were in bloom, glowing patches of yellow of Chamaefistula 
and Cassia being conspicuous. A species of Ruellia with lovely 
mauve flowers was common in the scrub. 
Garanhuns, 850 meters high in the sertaéo, 271 kilometers to the 
southwest of Recife at the end of the railroad, is much less barren 
and more progressive, with fairly good sugar-cane fields and with 
bullock carts in common use. From Garanhuns, accompanied by two 
missionaries, Mrs. Thompson and Miss Kilgore, I visited Paulo 
Affonso Falls in the Rio Sao Francisco, difficult of access until 
recently and not heretofore visited by a botanist. We made the 
trip, some 200 kilometers, by automobile over a newly cut road, 
leaving at dawn. About an hour from Garanhuns we dipped into 
the valley of a small river with fairly dense woods, then, reaching the 
hills again, the country became drier and drier. We were now 
in the true sertaéo in the basin of Rio Sao Francisco. The country 
was less desolate than that about Bello Jardim. Though the grasses 
and herbs were dead and bleached, many of the shrubs and small 
trees composing the caatinga were in gorgeous bloom, some leafless, 
some with brilliant green glossy foliage. Cashews and other large 
trees were met with here and there, and in two places where the road 
dipped to lower altitude were rather thick groves of trees hung with 
a Zillandsia like our Spanish moss. Small birds of astonishing 
colors—green, yellow, and raspberry pink in the same flock—flew 
up in an explosion of color. Doves, much like our ground dove 
of Florida, were common; also parokeets and the red, white, and 
blue (slate blue) “ gallo das campinhas,” seen before at Bello Jardim. 
This “cock of the fields” is a handsome bird about the size of our 
cardinal. 
