58 



TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



particularly notice the diet which differs essentially 

 from that in the northern provinces. Instead of 

 mandiocca, they use almost exclusively a coarsely 

 ground maize flour : it is brought to table in little 

 baskets, as bread is in Europe, and it is only when 

 the guests require it that farinha de pao (man- 

 diocca) is brought in its stead. They very rarely 

 bake it into bread or cakes. Besides this, Canjica 

 which is also made of maize, and which is never 

 wanting at the dessert, is likewise a national dish 

 of the Paulista. The grains of maize, cleared of 

 the husks by a hammer, driven by means of water, 

 in the hollowed trunk of a tree, are boiled with 

 water or milk, and then sweetened with sugar or 

 treacle. This dish, of the invention of which the 

 Paulistas are not a little proud, is well- tasted, but, 

 on account of the heat of the climate, difficult of 

 digestion. We often hear in this province the 

 expression : if we had not been the first who 

 discovered the gold mines, we should have done 

 sufficient service to the country by the canjica, 

 and the hammocks, which last we first copied from 

 the Indians. " 



The simple inhabitants of this country, had not 

 yet heard anything of animal magnetism, and 

 listened with some incredulity to our accounts of 

 this mode of cure, which in their opinion, was of 

 a magical nature. If we had proposed the cure 

 by magnetism, for hysterical women, their hus- 

 bands would certainly not have been indifferent to 



