TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



already shut, and our knocking disturbed the fa- 

 mily in their sleep, we were received and treated, 

 because we were strangers, with the most cordial 

 hospitality. On the following day, we crossed the 

 high and steep Serra de Deos te Livre, or da So- 

 lidade. The masses of greyish and greenish white 

 mica, which are here incumbent on the quartz-slate, 

 are of very fine texture, and decomposed by the 

 rain and atmosphere into a very fine powder, 

 which, as a high wind just then arose, involved the 

 adjacent country in dust. We travelled at the 

 bottom of the valley between this mountain and 

 the branches of the Congonhas do Campo, where 

 the iron-stone flotz, or what is called the iron mica^ 

 slate appears here and there over the quartz-slate, 

 reached the Morro de Gravier, adorned with gro- 

 tesque lily trees {Vellosia), and at length returned 

 to Villa Rica. 



Some days after this excursion, we set out for 

 the village of Antonio Pereira, which lay five 

 leagues to the north, in order to examine the con- 

 dition of our mules, most of which had been sent 

 thither to pasture during our stay at Villa Rica. 

 After we had passed the stony ridge of the Morro 

 de Villa Rica, where we saw lily trees and beau- 

 tifully coloured lisianthus on the road, we passed, 

 a league from the city, over the Rio das Velhas, 

 which is here still an inconsiderable stream, and 

 continuing on the whole in a north-west course, 

 flows by Sahara, and joins, at S. Romao, the Rio de 



T ^ 



