132 THE TOCANTINS. Chap. IV. 



and business to come on a three months' pic-nic. It is the 

 annual custom of this class of people throughout the 

 province to spend a few months of the fine season in the 

 wilder parts of the country. They carry with them all 

 the farinha they can scrape together, this being the 

 only article of food necessary to provide. The men 

 hunt and fish for the day's wants, and sometimes 

 collect a little India-rubber, sarsaparilla, or copaiba 

 oil, to sell to traders on their return ; the women 

 assist in paddling the canoes, do the cooking, and 

 sometimes fish with rod and line. The weather is 

 enjoyable the whole time, and so days and weeks 

 pass happily away. 



One of the men volunteered to walk with us into the 

 forest, and show us a few cedar-trees. We passed 

 through a mile or two of spiny thickets, and at length 

 came upon the banks of the rivulet Trocara, which flows 

 over a stony bed, and, about a mile above its mouth, 

 falls over a ledge of rocks, thus forming a very pretty 

 cascade. In the neio'hbourhood, we found a number of 

 specimens of a curious land-shell, a large flat Helix, 

 with a labyrinthine mouth (Anastoma). We learnt 

 afterwards that it was a species which had been 

 discovered a few years previously by Dr. Gardner, the 

 botanist, on the upper part of the Tocantins. 



At Patos we stayed three days. In the woods, we 

 found a number of conspicuous insects new to us. 

 Three species of Pieris were the most remarkable. We 

 afterwards learnt that they occurred also in Venezuela 

 and in the south of Brazil ; but they are quite unknown 

 in the alluvial plains of the Amazons. We saw, for the 



