Chap. VI. A SHADY GLEN. 399 



was now building a number of small houses on a piece 

 of unoccupied land attached to her property. I found 

 these and many other free negroes most trustworthy 

 people, and admired the constancy of their friendships 

 and the gentleness and cheerfulness of their manners 

 towards each other. They showed great disinterested- 

 ness in their dealings with me, doing me many a piece 

 of service without a hint at remuneration ; but this 

 may have been partly due to the name of Englishman, 

 the knowledge of our national generosity towards the 

 African race being spread far and wide amongst the 

 Brazilian negroes. 



I remained at St. Paulo five months ; five years 

 would not have been sufficient to exhaust the treasures 

 of its neighbourhood in Zoology and Botany. Although 

 now a forest-rambler of ten years' experience, the beau- 

 tiful forest which surrounds this settlement gave me 

 as much enjoyment as if I had only just landed for the 

 first time in a tropical country. The Zoology revealed 

 plainly the nearer proximity of the locality to the 

 eastern slopes of the Andes than any I had yet visited, 

 by the first appearance of many of the peculiar and 

 richly-coloured forms (especially of insects), which are 

 known only as inhabitants of the warm and moist val- 

 leys of New Granada and Peru. The plateau on which 

 the village is built extends on one side nearly a mile 

 into the forest, but on the other side the descent into 

 the lowland begins close to the streets ; the hill sloping 

 abruptly towards a boggy meadow surrounded by woods, 

 through which a narrow winding path continues the 

 slope down to a cool shady glen, with a brook of icy- 



