PRELIMINARY EXPLORATIONS. 37 



The road to Suassuhy is remarkable for the innumerable 

 "barrancas" or "canons," which, although tiny in comparison 

 with those of Colorado, are yet very fine. Imagine a track 

 along the top of a gently sloping and undulating ridge of 

 open campo, when suddenly you come to a place where the 

 path dips a little, and has only a slight margin, say with 

 a total width of four or five feet, while on each side there 

 is a huge, deep amphitheatre, from whence the red earth 

 has been washed away by the rains. I saw many of these 

 barrancas in all stages of formation. They begin with a 

 subsidence, caused by the undermining of the ground by 

 springs ; the rains then work upon the subsided portion, 

 washing it gradually away, and the canon increases in size 

 as the sides fall in, so that at length you have a huge area 

 of many acres, in some cases, with more or less precipi- 

 tous sides, often one hundred to two hundred feet deep, 

 the whole area being intersected by a hundred fantastic 

 knife-shaped ridges and columns of bare red earth. The 

 effect of coming suddenly on one of these chasms in the 

 midst of an extensive grass-covered down is very remark- 

 able.* 



The farm where we were to lodge was half an hour's 

 ride off our route, beyond Suassuhy, in a very pretty 

 valley, with numerous clumps of the lovely bamboo ; cer- 

 tainly, so far, my favourite of tropical vegetation, not 

 excepting the ferns. We reached the Fazenda Boa Vista 

 at 4.50, and rode into the farmyard, where were two ox- 

 carts, each drawn by ten oxen, loaded with maize, which 

 several slaves were busy removing into a shed. Crossing 

 the yard, we approached the house through a small garden 

 wherein were fan palms, gardenias, etc., and beyond this 

 another walled garden, full of prange trees and bananas 

 * See Geological notes. 



