390 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1926 
I had the good fortune to be the guest of a family of American 
missionaries, the Andersons, whose veranda and lawn I spread with 
plant driers. Mr. Anderson knows more about Brazil than anyone 
I met, and gave me information that saved endless time and worry. 
One of the Martius localities I wanted to visit was Joazeiro, on 
Rio Sao Francisco. At Pedra I was not far from there. A narrow- 
gauge railroad runs from Piranhas, on the Rio Sao Francisco, about 
50 kilometers below the Paulo Affonso falls, to Jatoba, about as 
far above them. The river above and below is navigable. But the 
journey from Pedra to Joazeiro, around the great bend to the north, 
would have taken over two weeks. From Bahia to Joazeiro, 575 
kilometers, a shorter distance than from Washington to Pittsburgh, 
took two days each way, the train stopping overnight at Santa 
Luzia. After half a day’s ride it seemed to be the journey to Bello 
Jardim over again, the same dry scrub land, the same sorry agri- 
culture and miserable animals. The second day was still worse, and 
my heart sank as we neared Joazeiro. 
This old city is an important center of trade in hides, dried fish, 
and bark for tanning. The produce from the upper river is here 
shipped overland to Bahia. Noisome stacks of hides towered far 
above one’s head at the railway station, and piles of bark bordered 
the track. Water for household use is carried from the muddy river 
by women and children and in kegs on the backs of donkeys, a con- 
tinual stream of water-carriers coming and going. ‘The water is 
filtered through large earthen pots into tall graceful water jars. 
The region is as desolate as Yuma, Arizona. It is obvious that 
long-continued overgrazing has changed the character of the country. 
There is nothing to hold the rains and the overflow from the river. 
The soil is alluvial and ought to support a good growth of plants. 
The few trees, not tall, but sturdy, seem to thrive, but the ground 
is absolutely bare in large patches, deeply gullied and in same places 
exposing very coarse gravel, the latter, because it does not blow, 
forming low flat hillocks. A hundred years ago when Martius was 
there it must have been beautiful semiarid scrub and alluvial savanna, 
for the plants he collected there are those of brushy savannas. 
While botanizing some ten kilometers to the west I saw an excellent 
demonstration of wind erosion. Hearing a roaring like fire I looked 
to see what it was. At some distance was a whirlwind which came 
with a cloud of red dust so thick it obscured the brush as it went by, 
less than 100 meters from me. 
In the river margin was a large colony of Echinochloa polystachya, 
a gigantic relative of our barnyard grass. This, I was told, is 
eagerly eaten by cattle, but while feeding on it they are sometimes 
attacked by piranhas, the blood-thirsty fish which makes bathing 
