174 The Aborigines of Brazil. 



sufficient to characterise the Amazon basin, and hot and dry, 

 the north-eastern provinces. The latter of these climates 

 the Brazilians call clima agreste, the former clima mimoso. 

 In this part of Brazil then we have a high temperature dur- 

 ing the dry, as well as during the damp season ; both periods 

 alternate with each other with great regularity, and in both 

 we find sudden lowerings of temperature, which have their 

 influence on the general health, and often modify it in a very 

 striking degree ; the elevated position of many localities, espe- 

 cially in Minas, which on the whole may be counted high land, 

 the steep conformation of the coast Cordilleras, which seem 

 thickly wooded through the greater part of this district, 

 besides this the occurrence here of deep winding villages, 

 there of wide-spreading table lands, in fine, the absence 

 of extended river districts, and the preponderance of forest 

 vegetation throughout the whole — all these circumstances 

 unite to give this division of the country a separate character 

 as to its diseases, which is made up of that of tropical as 

 well as of extra-tropical lands. In consequence of this the 

 catarrhal and rheumatic character is more marked, and is in 

 a certain degree linked with the bilious. Violent catarrhs, 

 diarrhoeas that end in dysenteries, and inflammations of the 

 bones, are here especially common. The strong winds 

 which blow thither sometimes from the sea, sometimes from 

 the interior of the land, the south and south-west, bring- 

 commonly acute muscular pains, pleurisies, and pneumonias. 

 But here also diseases in which the liver and portal system 

 are especially involved, are common, and a painful erysipela- 

 tous inflammation particularly of the lower extremities (Sarna) 

 is one of the commonest evils. In Rio de Janeiro, Sarcocele 

 and Hydrocele are almost endemic. The Indians of this 

 district live in greatest numbers in the woods north of Rio 

 Janeiro between the Rio Paraiba, Rio Doce and Rio Bel- 

 monte. Small-pox and measles have often made fearful 

 ravages among them, and they seem to have suffered still 



