TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



213 



valley, and reached the fazendas of Oiro Fino, and 

 those of Dos Cristaes, and of Coronel Texeira. 

 Numerous trenches by the side of the way, hollowed 

 slopes, and heaps of rolled stones and clay, bore 

 testimony to the zeal with which the people here 

 wash for gold. The principal works are those be- 

 longing to an ecclesiastic, who has not only the 

 clay which is dug up, but also the boulders of the 

 stream, washed. In the latter we observed besides 

 quartz and mica-slate, hornblende and gneiss. We 

 passed the night at the house of another ecclesiastic, 

 to whom we had letters. Our youthful host, whom 

 we found surrounded by many half-white women 

 and children, and whose library was limited to 

 Ovidius de Arte Amandi, seemed to us a worthy 

 counterpart to the hermit in the Decameron. 



The weather was very gloomy on the following 

 day, and we hastened past several handsome farm- 

 houses upon hills, between which the Ribeirao do 

 Bacalhao winds. Large rhexias (^quaresima) covered 

 with purple flowers adorned the hill from which we 

 descended, towards evening, into the village S.Anna 

 do Ferros formerly called Barra do Bacalhao. At 

 this place, the Ribeirao do Bacalhao, and, soon 

 after, the Rio Turbo, join the Rio Piranga, which 

 runs to the N. E. and joins the Ribeirao do Carmo, 

 after which the two united rivers take the name of 

 the Rio Doce. The village consists of a few houses, 

 which are chiefly inhabited by mulattoes and ne- 

 groes. Even in this remote spot we found traces 



p S 



