252 TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



From Mandiocca, the road for the caravans to 

 Minas Geraes passes between grotesque stems of 

 the aloe (Fourcrocea gig ant ea, Vent.) and hedges 

 in full blossom, through the forest, by the edge of 

 steep precipices, and gloomy clefts thickly grown 

 with wood to the top of the mountain, to which 

 there is an expensive paved road, at present the 

 only one of the kind in Brazil, nearly a mile in 

 length. But at the end of this road there is no 

 longer any possibility of using carriages, which 

 could not be employed without danger on the 

 rugged roads. In Brazd they think as little of 

 facilitating the intercourse by means of good roads 

 and carriages, as we do in Germany of laying down 

 iron rail-ways ; the conveyance of goods upon mules 

 being sufficient for the wants of the inhabitants. 

 From the summit of the mountain called Serra de 

 Estrella, 3376 Paris feet above the level of the sea, 

 there is a prospect of the bay with its verdant 

 islands and the city in the back-ground. On the 

 opposite side there is a more limited view of a hilly, 

 very uneven, thickly wooded tract, which extends 

 from this place along the coast to the Rio Paraiba. 

 The mountain road on the north side first leads to 



to infer the presence erf, at least, the greater part of the above 

 minerals in the Brazilian granite, from its resemblance to that 

 of the N.E. frontiers of Bavaria, in which we find imbedded 

 dichroite and turmaline, veins of rose or milk quartz, and mica- 

 slate, accompanied by Andalusite. 



