214 



JOURNEY FROM THE RIO DOCE 



animals that inhabit them, you may often travel days together with- 

 out seeing a hving creature; and here too experience shews, that 

 more animals always live near the abodes of man, than in the interior 

 of the great forests. 



Our collections received here some interesting additions ; but our 

 insects, especially the butterflies, were much damaged by the little 

 red ants. We had no means of saving them but by sprinkling them 

 with snuff. On the 25th of January we left Ponte do Gentio, and 

 returned to the house of Senhora Isabella, where w^e found the people 

 employed in preparing mandiocca-flour. Our attention was excited 

 by a tame toucan : its droll motions, with its awkward shape and 

 large bill, amused us much. It devoured, with extraordinary avidity, 

 every thing eatable that came in its way, not excepting flesh. It was 

 offered us as a present, but we declined accepting it, because this 

 bird cannot bear our climate. The people obtain here a great quan- 

 tity of honey from a kmd of yellow bees without a sting. For this 

 purpose they hang up, under the roof, billets of wood, hollowed out, 

 the ends of which are stopped up with clay, and a small round hole 

 bored in the middle for the bees to enter. This honey is very aroma- 

 tic, but not quite so sweet as the European. Honey mixed with 

 water is used here as a very agreeable cooling beverage. 



The following day we rode back to Pindoba, and in the evening 

 arrived ao;ain at Caravellas. Our business here was finished in two 



o 



days, and we embarked again for Vipoza in a beautiful moonlight 

 night. Thousands of fire-flies (lampi/ris, elater, and perhaps other lu- 

 minous insects) flew about the bushes on the bank. When we arrived 

 at the house of the camora at Vipoza, the ouvidors Botocudos were 

 still there. What incommoded us, even more than this disagreeable 

 company, was the uninterrupted howling of a dog that had been 

 bitten by a venomous serpent. They gave him the juice of the 

 cardo santo ( argemo7ie mexicana)^ prickly poppy, a yellow-flowering 



