TO THE llIO GEANDE DE 



BELMONTE. 



251 



rocks on the dry beach ; but at time of flood they cannot be passed, 

 because the waves break furiously against them, and dash their white 

 foam to a great height. A person who happens to be about half w^y 

 between two of these groups of rocks, under the high steep chft' of the 

 coast, just at the time that the tide is rising, may incur great danger, 

 as it is then impossible to escape the rapid swell of the sea. It is 

 therefore necessary for the traveller to endeavour to obtain from the 

 inhabitants of the country accurate information respecting the time 

 which he ought to choose. He is often obliged to wait six hours, till 

 the return of ebb, if he has once missed the favourable moment ; nor is 

 there on the whole coast any way besides this, which keeps close along 

 the sea. Between Prado and Comechatiba, there are such rocks at 

 three different places : at one of them, I myself rode through the waves 

 which came up to my saddle ; ten minutes later I should have had to 

 wait six hours, and been obliged to return to an open spot on the 

 coast. Even then the surf, dashing on the rocks, had a frightful ap- 

 pearance ; we travellers, unacquainted with the road, no longer 

 ventured to push our mules into the furious billows, but a couple of 

 negroes from a neighbouring /azenJcr rode before through the surf 

 and shewed us the way. After we had happily passed this spot, we 

 hastened to come away from this unsafe narrow strand, exposed to 

 the incursions of the most dreadful of the elements, and gallopped on 

 at full speed. Farther out in the sea several species of mollusca are 

 found on these rocks ; among others, two kinds of sea-urchins, one 

 of which is eaten by the poorer class of inhabitants. The inedible 

 kind is whitish, thickly covered with violet-coloured prickles; the 

 edible black, also covered with long prickles. On all these rocks too 

 there are shell-fish, which afford a purple juice ; they are particularly 

 abundant about Mucuri, Vifoza, Comechatiba, Rio do Frade, &c. 

 Mr. Sellow, in one of his excursions, had occasion to make some ob- 

 servations on this subject; and Mawe also mentions it in his Travels. 



