144 TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



Minas Geraes, S. Paulo and Parana, has nearly 

 the same physical character through this great 

 extent. Only the north-eastern tract, from which 

 the river rises, and the eastern boundary, are tra- 

 versed by those mountains, among which we had 

 hitherto travelled, and the nature and formation of 

 which we have attempted to describe. Farther to 

 the west the land is either level, or broken only by 

 gently rising hills and insulated mountain ridges, 

 through which, for the most part, that quartzy mica- 

 slate (flexible quartz) is diffiised, constantly accom- 

 panied by iron, platina, and gold. On the east side, 

 the river is joined by several considerable streams, 

 the Tiete, Paranapanema, and the Iguagu or Curi- 

 tiba, all of which have a rapid course frequently in- 

 terrupted by cataracts ; the Rio Pardo, which rises 

 in the mountains of Camapuao, is the only consi- 

 derable collateral stream on the west side. The 

 low lands, and particularly the banks of those ri- 

 vers, are covered with thick, but not very high 

 forests ; the other, and by far the greater part, of the 

 surface, is overgrown with bushes and grey-green 

 hairy grasses, and forms those boundless plains, 

 the pasture of numerous herds of cattle, to which 

 the inhabitants, on account of their uniformity and 

 extent, have given the name of Campos Geraes. 

 Among the bushes, which here and there occupy 

 great tracts in these plains, the matte or gon- 

 gonha shrub (Cassine Gongonha, Mart.), the dwarf 

 acaju (Anacardium humile, Mart.), and innumer- 



