PROVINCE OF SIARA. 



415 



The serra of Hibiapaba, far from being a single cordon, is formed of various 

 mountains, which succeed each other, and is in parts bare and stony ; but the 

 main portion is covered with forests of superb timber, nourished by a soil of 

 much substantiality and fecundity. The Tahbajara Indians possess the greatest 

 part of it. 



. Mineralogy. — Gold in small quantity ; minerals of silver and iron, more 

 or less ; crystals, chrysolites, pumice stone, amethysts, magnet, calcareous stone, 

 granite, saltpetre, white lead, potters' earth, and stones of St. Anna, which are 

 applied to females at child-birth. 



Zoology. — There are the ferret, hedge-hog, here called quandu, as at Per- 

 nambuco, praguica, or sloth, ounce, deer, coelho, guaxinin, quaty, pacca, the 

 wild boar, capivara, otter, and all other wild quadrupeds, peculiar to the neigh- 

 bouring provinces. The guariha monkeys assemble in large bands upon the 

 thickest trees of the woods, and make a babbling noise like the loud grating of 

 the Brazilian waggon. Among other species of birds are common the emu 

 ostrich, seriema, jahuru, colhereira, tucano, mutun, jacu, torquaze pigeon, 

 guiraponga, nhambu, zabele, parrot, urubu, sabia. In the lakes there are a 

 diversity of ducks, geese, galeiro, a diving bird ; and near their margins, the 

 saracura, macarico, and socco. Bats are very numerous, particularly in years of 

 great drought, and more fatal to the cattle than the wild beasts collectively, 

 actually reducing rich farmers to indigence, extensive plains covered with many 

 thousand head of cattle becoming totally deserted. This animal, worse than a 

 pestilence, destroys most in the fazendas that have rocks, in whose caverns 

 they breed, where they cluster together during the day in large piles, and where 

 also they are better killed, either with fire or with the gun. Goats and sheep 

 are sufficiently numerous, though not so much so as they were previously to the 

 fatal drought alluded to; the latter resist the rainy seasons the best, and are 

 more prolific, generally having two at a birth, many three, few one, and some 

 four : goats commonly have two also, many one, but rarely afford three at a 

 birth. In the vicinity of the river Jaguaribe, the most numerous flocks of both 

 species are met with. Neither the flesh nor milk of those animals are held in 

 much repute, and, what is equally singular, the people are imperfectly ac- 

 quainted with the art of rendering their skins a branch of commerce. 



Phytology. — There are a diversity of trees which afford excellent timber for 

 building, others for cabinet work, and dyes ; also those which produce benzoin, 

 gum copal and gummastick ; likewise various species of the palm, of which the 

 carnahuba is the most common and useful tree in the country ; of it houses ar^ 



