TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. , 115 



On the following day, as it rained incessantly, 

 and we were enveloped in thick fog, we could not 

 advance more than four leagues on the muddy 

 road, and thought ourselves happy to meet at night- 

 fall with an abandoned hamlet, of which we took 

 possession after having expelled the bats. Our 

 guide thought it dangerous to proceed any further 

 because the river Mandu was so swelled by the 

 rains that the passage over it could not be effected 

 except by daylight. The environs of our night's 

 quarters showed traces of former cultivation, though 

 now run wild. Single guava and calabash trees 

 (^Psidium pomiferum, and Crescentia Ctijete, L.), 

 loaded with fruit, stood round it, and the gourd 

 (Cucurbita Lagenaria, L.) had entwined so as to 

 form high hedges. 



The following morning, when, after passing se- 

 veral swelled mountain streams, we descended into 

 the valley of the Rio Mandu, we found that this 

 river, which is at other times inconsiderable, had 

 overflowed its banks to the extent of above a quar- 

 ter of a league, carrying down with it, in its turbid 

 waters, whole trees and little islands composed of 

 bushes of myrtles, sebastianias and chomelias, 

 which it had rooted up along its banks. After hav- 

 ing shouted a long time, a small boat rowed by two 

 mulattoes at length appeared, which was not large 

 enough to contain a sixth part of our baggage. 

 We ourselves rode with great danger a quarter of 

 a league farther through the overflowed meadows, 



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