TO CARAVELLAS, &C. 



215 



thistle, which is e\ery where common*; but the animal died. The 

 number of poisonous serpents in Brazil is here erroneously supposed 

 to be greater than it really is. Even the inhabitants of the country 

 assert the greater part of the serpent species to be venomous : they 

 know the contrary only of a few kinds; for instance, the large spe- 

 cies of boa. However there are certainly some venomous species, 

 for example, the green viper, and the jararacca, both of the genus 

 trigonocephalm ; but by far the most terrible are the rattle-snake 

 (crotahis horridus) and the furucuc6 (hichesis mutus, Daudin, or 

 crotalus ?nutus, Linn.); the latter, particularly that M'hich grows to 

 the length of seven or eight feet, is found in all parts of Brazil. The 

 rattle-snake, called by the Portuguese cobra cascavella, frequents 

 only the high and dry parts ; in Minas Geraes and in the interior of 

 the Capitania of Bahia, it is pretty common. 



From Vicoza we returned to the Mucuri, but did not stop long in 

 the town because the oiividor was already at the spot where they are 

 employed in founding the new fazenda at Morro d'Arara. Mr. 

 Freyreiss had resolved to return from this place to rejoin our tropa at 

 Capitania. I preferred sailing up the Mucuri to the works in the 

 woods, in order to pass some months in those forests. We packed 

 up our baggage, and passed a couple of days in Mucuri. From this 

 place we made some excursions together on horseback, one of which 

 was to inspect the beginning of the new road, which Captain Bento 

 Lourenzo, with his Mineiros and other workmen, had already begun, 

 and continued for about three leagues. This road begins immediately 

 behind the houses of Port Alegre, and at first intersects marshy mea- 

 dows and open tracts ( ca>npos ) with hard reed-like grass, in which 

 rude bridges had been made of boughs of trees : farther on it had 



* Azara undoubtedly alludes to this plant, when he speaks in his Travels, vol. I. \^. 132. of 

 a fever being cured by the infusion of a thistle. 



