412 A YEAR IN BRAZIL. 



hills are forest-clad, to the northward are the real watersheds 

 expanses of rounded downs much broken up by canyons and 

 intersected by deep valleys. The campos are of two kinds : 

 "campos abertos," or open downs with short grass; and "caatin- 

 gas," or grass dotted over with shrubs. In the bottom of all the 

 valleys, near the divides, are " capoeiras," or " mato " (second 

 growth of trees after the original forest has been burnt), and 

 "mata virgem," or virgin forest; these sometimes creep up the 

 gorges to the edge of the downs. There are also " carrascos," 

 which are growths of shrubs and small trees, amid which occa- 

 sionally rises a monarch of the forest. When the streams, after 

 passing through the forest-clad cloughs, reach the widening valleys, 

 they generally have a belt of trees and shrubs growing along the 

 banks ; and as the valleys become broader, there is usually a con- 

 siderable extent of marsh or " brejo," which is sometimes grass- 

 land, sometimes thicket. These brejos are always flooded in the 

 rainy season. The clearings are called " rogas." The two sketches 

 may, perhaps, give an idea of the scenery ; in each case the back- 

 ground is formed of rounded hills covered with virgin forest. 

 The view from Casa Grande shows various clearings, which were 

 (when the sketch was made in July, 1883) bare, but in the follow- 

 ing December were covered with maize ten feet high, castor-oil 

 plants, cotton, sugar-cane, black beans, and gourds. The view from 

 Camapuao Valley shows a wide marsh, with a belt of trees and 

 shrubs about a mile off, through which flows the river ; rising 

 behind this is a bare rounded down (campo), in which a barran- 

 cado or canyon has been formed. Whatever fault may be found 

 from an artistic point of view, these sketches are at least true 

 to nature ; while I am sorry to say that many of the illustrations 

 I have seen in Gardner's Travels and some other books are very 

 imaginative, and can scarcely be recognized. 



With regard to my botanical specimens, I regret that I can 

 only give a very brief account, as the majority of the plants 

 collected were destroyed by the extreme damp of the rainy 

 season. The ceaseless downpours sometimes for a week to- 

 gether during the rainy season are sufficiently depressing, but a 

 watertight tent is more or less proof against them. When, how- 

 ever, the sun does appear, and the whole atmosphere is full of a 



