THAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



283 



lour, which sometimes passes into gneiss, and is 

 covered with a thick forest. The steep road turns 

 in the mountains from south to west, and leads 

 through several agreeably watered valleys, but 

 lonesome and gloomy from want of cultivation, to 

 a miserable village in the midst of the mountains, 

 which might afford a very attractive residence for 

 a, naturalist, because its environs have an endless 

 variety of beautiful vegetation, and interesting ani- 

 mals. Myrtles, rubiacese, scitamineae, and orchi- 

 de^E, constitute the principal feature in the phy^ 

 siognomy of these woods, which, like those of the 

 Serra de Estrella, are at an elevation of 2500, to 

 5000 feet above the level of the sea. Before we 

 reached the Fazenda S. Rosa, where we intended 

 to rest for the night, we passed a royal farm, which 

 is a dependency of that at Santa Cruz, and is chiefly 

 employed for the purposes of felling fine wood 

 (^Madeiras reads or de ley\ which work is peiv 

 formed by the king's slaves. The progress of the 

 journey became more and more inconvenient and 

 dangerous, on account of the steepness of the moun- 

 tain, the frequent hills and clay pits, wliich obliged 

 us to make a considerable circuit. The narrow 

 valleys, covered with thick forests, contract on all 

 sides, and a cool and clear brook sometimes flows 

 through them. Profound soUtude reigned here, 

 and, with the exception of a few wretched clay 

 huts, or spots lately cleared of the wood, the tra- 

 veller meets with nothing which reminds him of thq 



