TO THE RIVER ESPIRITO SANTO. 



149 



from the luxuriance of the tropical vegetation, and the great quantity 

 of vegetable matter impregnating the soil oxer which they flow. 



As we crossed the bridge the Indians, with their characteristic 

 dark brown faces, were attracted by curiosity to see the strangers. A 

 Spanish sailor settled here acted as host, addressed us immediately 

 in several languages, which he spoke imperfectly, talked of all the 

 countries which he had seen, and hinted pretty plainly that we were 

 English. In the valleys, and even on dry eminences, there are fre- 

 quent thickets of a strong kind of fanlike reed, sixteen or eighteen 

 feet high, which bears on a rather compressed stem, a beautiful fan 

 of lanceolated smooth-edged leaves ; these rise nearly from one com- 

 mon point, and from their centre shoots a long stem, from which the 

 flowers are suspended like a little flag. This beautiful kind of reed is 

 here called uba, farther north, on the Rio Grande de Belmonte, 

 canna brava, and is used by the savages for making arrows. Such 

 thickets of reeds form an impenetrable mass, and cover whole districts. 



In a little pleasant valley we found a wood of noble shady trees, 

 such as cecropia, cocos, melastoma ; among them flows the dark- 

 brown rivulet Iriri, over Mhich is a picturesque bridge of trunks of 

 trees. Toucans and the maitacca (psittacia mcnstruus. Linn.) were 

 common here, and were shot by our hunters. Monkeys fled so 

 quickly through the branches of the trees, that we could not touch 

 them. In the hollow of an old trunk we discovered a prodigious bird- 

 spider ( aranha caranguejcira which we intended to fetch when we 

 had reached our quarters, but were afterwards prevented from doing 

 so. We rode through a hilly country, presenting alternate woods and 

 meadows, and arrived tovvards evening at the last eminence, on the 

 river Benevente, where we were suddenly surprised by a beautiful 

 prospect. At the foot of a hill, on the north bank, we saw the 

 Villa Nova de Benevente, a village ; on the right the blue mirror of 

 the ocean, and on the left the river Benevente, which expands like a 



