132 A YEAR IN BRAZIL. 



without leaves, but with strong curved spines about three 

 inches apart and half an inch long, similar, I dare say, to 

 the African "wait-a-bit" thorns; besides many smaller. 

 There were also many trees and shrubs whose trunks and 

 branches were studded all over by a mass of long sharp 

 spines, some of them sticking out from the trunks in 

 bunches, branching out like the end of a lightning con- 

 ductor, about three or four inches long by six inches across. 

 I also met with thick clumps of long, jointed, reed-like 

 grass, or dense masses of. feathery bamboos, through which 

 it was impossible to see a yard in advance. So I went on, 

 with at least one ranging-rod in my left hand, and my 

 " facao " (long knife) in my right, my mackintosh torn in 

 a dozen places, shaking off fresh showers at every step ; 

 every stitch on me soaking wet, above my waist from 

 perspiration, below with rain ; my hands scratched and 

 dotted over with many thorns ; my long porpoise-hide 

 boots wheezing and squeaking with the water in them, and 

 my feet slipping every few steps on the steep saturated 

 ground or on some hidden moss-covered trunk, or stum- 

 bling against a huge dead and decayed tree, fallen but 

 partly upheld by creepers. 



On reaching the virgin forest, several large trees had to 

 be cut down, some of them rising forty to sixty feet with- 

 out a branch. With a great sound of tearing asunder the 

 creepers and breaking off of the branches of other trees, 

 they fell some forty or fifty feet into the River Camapuao. 

 The course of the river itself was hardly distinguishable, 

 except by a rather stronger eddying current, as the floods 

 formed a red lake some half-mile in breadth, revealing 

 as far as the eye could reach a submerged swamp, with 

 islands of bushes and a few fences peeping above the 

 waters. 



