TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



43 



ginous sandstone conglomerate, in which the 

 metal appears sometimes in grains, and sometimes 

 in little scales. From Jacarehy, a small place, the 

 road gradually ascends. The country consists of 

 hills pleasingly grouped, and alternating with nar- 

 row valleys. The eminences are covered with a 

 greyish green high grass, between which there are 

 scattered bushes of myrtles, melastomas, rhexias, 

 &c. ; the more fertile valleys, on the contrary, are 

 covered with low wood. At Cutia, a parish five 

 leagues from S. Paulo, we left our company, in 

 order to reach Ypanema as soon as possible. We 

 were very near having reason to repent of this 

 step, because, as we learnt afterwards, some of our 

 people were said to have expressed an intention to 

 open our trunks, and decamp with the plunder. 

 We took this as a warning never more to separate 

 from our caravan during our tour. The country 

 through which we rode continued to become more 

 mountainous and woody ; the road was indeed 

 broad, and tolerably well beaten by the numerous 

 herds of mules, often amounting to nearly a thou- 

 sand head, which pass through here from the 

 province of Rio Grande do Sul, yet all at once we 

 got out of it, and lost ourselves in the thicket. 

 The silence of this forest, which was only now and 

 then interrupted by the loud note of the uraponga, 

 makes a very melancholy impression on the travel- 

 ler who has gone astray, as he fears at every step 

 to wander farther fiom his destination. After 



