50 



JOURNEY FROM RIO DE JANEIRO 



in horizontal rings. Its leaves are long, and feathered as in all 

 kinds of cocoa trees. In most of these forests there is also a similar 

 thorny palm, which always remains small, and is called airi mirirn. 

 Neither of them has been as yet introduced into the systems of Na- 

 tural History. About all the trunks grow both woody and tender climb- 

 ing plants, such as C(7c^z<.s, agave, and epidendrum, twining with their 

 richly coloured flowers round the branches. When a trunk has a de- 

 cayed hole or a crevice in it, arum, caladium, dracoiitium, and other 

 productions of that kind, throw out large tufts of juicy, heart or arrow- 

 shaped, dark green leaves, so that the traveller beholds the most ex- 

 traordinary intermixture of different species of vegetation. Among the 

 above-mentioned plants is frequently seen the dracontium pertmiim., 

 with its leaves perforated in the most singular manner : a splendid 

 blue-flowered maranta also attracted the attention of our botanist. 



It was our intention, on setting off, to reach Ponta Negra this day; 

 but v,e lost our way in the mazy and almost impracticable forest 

 through which the road lay. We however arrived at a large fazenda, 

 the proprietor of which, Mr. Alferes da Cunha Vieira, received us 

 with great hospitality. This estate is called Gurapina, and contains 

 a very considerable sugar-refinery. The mode of preparing sugar in 

 these establishments is nearly as follows : The cane is placed between 

 three perpendicular cylinders, provided with teeth of hard wood, 

 which catch in each other, and thus press it out. It appears again 

 on the other side like straw squeezed quite flat ; and the syrup runs 

 into a wooden trough below. These cylinders are turned, by means of 

 a long pole, by oxen, mules, or horses. The syrup, after it has 

 crystallised in the vessels, is then boiled in pans, and put into large 

 pointed pots, with a hole at the bottom, by which the superfluous 

 moisture runs off ; the surface of the sugar that fills the pot is covered 

 with grey clay, which is said to whiten it. Our host assured us that, 

 with 20 slaves, he now obtains annually about 19j200 lbs. of sugar ; 



