54 



TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



of these unhappy people, hinders them from in- 

 vestigating the healing virtues of plants. Super- 

 stition and indifference to life, and insensibility 

 to the sufferings of their fellow- creatures, prevent 

 the Indians from making use of the beneficent 

 gifts of nature which everywhere surround them, 

 and which their senses, quick in simple observation, 

 would readily discover if they took any lively 

 interest in them. The greatest merit in discover- 

 ing and making use of healing plants, as well as 

 the finding of the gold mines, is therefore due 

 to the Paulistas. Their active minds and their 

 curiosity, excited by the bounty of nature, pursued, 

 with the acuteness peculiar to Europeans, the 

 discoveries which occurred to them by chance, 

 or very seldom by information obtained from the 

 aboriginal inhabitants. 



In this branch of research, the human mind 

 everywhere takes advantage of the indications of 

 nature, and from the physical character of objects 

 from the smell, colour, from the similarity of 

 certain forms with parts of the human body, 

 draws analogical conclusions respecting their in- 

 ternal virtues and their effects as medicines. Thus 

 the Paulista, endowed with a lively sensibility to 

 nature, saw in every deep red colour a reference 

 to the blood, in the yellow to the gall and liver : 

 to the Urupe {Boletus sanguineus)^ which is of the 

 colour of red lead, suddenly appears on decayed 

 trees, and frequently continues only a month, he 

 ascribed peculiar properties for checking hemor- 



