140 , TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



ing with him. His unanswerable argument, that 

 the roof a Portuguese soldier was preferable to 

 any encampment in the open air, were it even in 

 Paradise, could not fail to induce us to accept his 

 offer. The old man, who had served forty yeai'S 

 in the line, and had taken part in many an incur- 

 sion (entradd) against the Cajapos Indians in 

 Goyaz, and the Puris in Minas, was a model of 

 loyalty, and thought himself happy to be able, in 

 this solitary country, to exercise the police out of 

 pure love for his king and country. Several of the 

 leaders of the caravans encamped here laboured 

 under chronical diarrhoea from rheumatic causes, 

 against which they had in vain tried the guarana ; 

 this is a paste of the fruit of a hitherto nondescript 

 plant*, and the general remedy used by travellers, 

 who are connected with Goyaz and Matto-grosso, 

 against similar attacks, dysentery, &c., of which we 

 shall have occasion to speak at length, in the course 

 of our narrative. 



The road to S. Joao d'El Rey, goes N.N.E. ob- 

 liquely over the mountain of Capivary, the N. W. de- 

 clivity of which is much less steep than the south- 

 eastern. On that side near to a chapel, granite 

 occurs with yellowish felspar, black mica, and white 

 quartz, instead of the white quartz-slate, which is 

 always much decomposed. In a deep narrow part 

 of the valley, we came to the Rio Grande, the 



* Paullinia sorbilis. Mart. 



