TO VILLA DE ST. SALVADOR. 75 



mules, I pulled my beast on one side ; upon which the whole troop 

 dispersed in the forest ; four or five of them threw off their load, and 

 tore and broke the harness. We all stood breathless and fatigued, 

 without being able to guess what could be the real cause of this tragi- 

 comic catastrophe. We now searched the neighbouring forest in all 

 directions, and it was not till after a considerable delay, that we at 

 length re-assembled all our scattered animals, by the aid of our ex- 

 pert drivers ; some Portuguese, who were hunting deer in this wood, 

 and were looking for a dog they had lost, put us into the right way. 

 The deer of this country are of two different kinds, which Azara 

 has described by the names of guazupita and guazubha^ and which 

 Mawe erroneously calls fallow deer. Koster even says, respecting 

 one of these kinds of deer, that they had shot an antelope, though it 

 is well known that animals of the latter species are not found in the 

 New World. Upon the whole there are met with in Brazil four animals 

 of the stag kind, which Azara first described ; and they seem to be 

 spread over a great part of South America. The most common 

 species is the veado mateiro of the Portuguese, the red deer, or the 

 guazupita, of which there is a very good description in the above- 

 mentioned author. This animal is found in all the woods and thickets, 

 and is frequently eaten, though its flesh is very dry and coarse. 



After we had again set our train to rights as well as we could, we 

 continued our journey through woods of tall slender trees, which 

 frequently alternate with open spots, where meadows, with large 

 marshes, and reedy pools, afford subsistence to great numbers of 

 herons, ducks, plovers, and other similar species. The cry of the 

 quer-quer is every where heard, and the woods frequently ring with 

 the loud shrill voice of the araponga. Several shrub-like species of 

 eugenia were covered with their black, ripe, and very agreeable fruit, 

 of about the size of small cherries. We rode through noble forests 

 of straight, lofty trees, with whitish, or reddish brown bark, which 



