TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 301 



with cheerful plantations of maize, mandiocca, and 

 sugar-cane in more extensive spots, make an agree- 

 able impression on the traveller, who involuntarily 

 feels himself constrained and oppressed by the 

 silent uniformity of the woods. We accordingly 

 breathed more freely when, on the following day, 

 still proceeding in the direction to south-west, we 

 at length reached the last summit of this chain, 

 which belongs to the Serra do Mar, and a deep and 

 pleasant valley extended before us. This valley is 

 bounded to the west, at the distance of about two 

 miles, by a part of the Serra do Mantiqueira, the 

 general direction of which, at this point, is from 

 S.W. to N.E. From thence it appears like a long 

 uninterrupted ridge, without steep declivities and 

 ravines, but marked by agreeably picturesque out- 

 lines, with many gently rising eminences, some of 

 which are covered with thick wood, and others with 

 green pastures. The valley itself j which we at 

 length entered, after having passed the huts of 

 Pajol and the river Iripariba, which falls into the 

 Paraiba, extends between the last extremities of 

 the Serra do Mar and those of the Mantiqueira 

 above mentioned, to the south ; the Paraiba, after 

 issuing from the narrow valleys of the first chain of 

 mountains, flows in it towards the north, and takes 

 at Jacarehy a direction quite contrary to that which 

 it had before ; its banks are partly covered with 

 low wood and partly with rich pastures. 



About noon we passed a place where a side road 



