i8o A YEAR IN BRAZIL. 



passengers. Reaching Paraopeba Station about sunrise, 

 the mists were just beginning to gather, but by nine they 

 were entirely dispersed. 



The Parahybuna valley looked magnificent — its lofty 

 sides covered with coffee plantations, and the wide, tortuous 

 river rushing over its rocky bed strewn with countless 

 boulders, or boiling and seething in its headlong course 

 over numerous rapids. These beauties reach their climax 

 at the huge perpendicular precipice named Pedra da For- 

 taleza (the stone of the stronghold or fortress), which is 

 some five hundred feet high — a bare face of rock, on the 

 top of which is a forest, the trees looking like bilberry 

 bushes owing to the height. This rock is close to the 

 station of Parahybuna, and is the boundary between the 

 provinces of Minas Geraes and Rio de Janeiro. It was 

 the scene of a great battle when the Mineiros were strug- 

 gling for their independence, the passage along the banks 

 of the Parahybuna river being one of the most accessible 

 entrances from the province of Rio de Janeiro. The Para- 

 hybuna, flowing south, empties itself into the Parahyba do 

 Sul, flowing east, and the latter enters the Atlantic some 

 150 miles east of the junction.* Descending the Parahy- 

 buna valley for a long distance, after passing Entre 

 Rios, the railway ascends the valley of the Parahyba as 

 far as the Barra (junction) do Pirahy, where there is a 

 junction not only of rivers, but of railways. (See map.) 

 This part of the Parahyba valley is much wider though 



* Parahybuna appears to be a " corruption of Parayuna, 'a river rolling 

 black waves' — at once a picturesque and remarkably correct description." 

 Parahyba do Sul is so called to distinguish it from the province of the same 

 name north of Pernambuco. The derivation of the name from Para, a river, 

 and Ayba, bad, "would be an excellent descriptive name. It is one of the 

 most dangerous streams in Brazil. Many of those working on the railway lost 

 their lives in it. " — Captain Burton. 



