^^B 



144 



TABOLEIROS AND CAMPINAS. 



and are doubly acceptable in crossing the sands 

 upon which they are to be met with. The 

 former has been often described ; the latter is a 

 small round fruit, and is not unlike a crab-apple 

 in appearance, but it is sweet, and is unfit to 

 be eaten until it drops from the tree ; the pulp 

 is fibrous but soft, and three seeds or kernels 

 are contained in it, of which the taste approaches 

 that of almonds. The palm or cabbage * trees 

 also afford fruits, which are eaten when other 

 food fails ; but these are insipid. 



These plains are the taboleiros, of which there 

 exists also another kind, which are covered with 

 brushwood, of stinted height, from the nature 

 of the soil, but it is close and higher than a 

 man on horseback. The road lies, in many 

 places, through it ; but as it does not afford any 

 shade, and prevents the wind from alleviating 

 the intenseness of the heat ; it is here that the 

 power of the sun is fully felt. This brushwood 

 is, however, not too thick to prevent cattle 

 from breaking their way through it, and feeding 

 among it. The third description of plains arc 

 those of a better kind of soil, which produce 

 good nourishing grass, but upon these no trees 

 grow ; small shrubs and briars alone are to be 

 seen, and often-times not even these. They are, 

 in parts, stony, and have rising ground upon 

 them, which is not sufficiently high to deserve 



Vide Appendix. 



