NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



39 



Beyond these limits were a few scattered houses, but within a few 

 hundred yards of theni we were completely in the woods, or among 

 marshes. From the Gloria to Bota-Foga was only a narrow mule-track, 

 which by use became more open, and passable for carriages. The first 

 time I rode along it with a companion or two, the woods thoroughly 

 hid the sea from our view, and the road terminated upon a beach, 

 where we had no expectation of finding one. Along the side of the 

 aqueduct, above the convent of Santa Thereza, was an obscure foot-path, 

 so overgrown with brushwood, that the wall of the Caraoca was not 

 always visible. The roads through Mata-Cavallos and Caatumbi were 

 well frequented mule-tracks ; but beyond Mata-Porcos, when I first 

 tried them, that to the left was impassable on horse-back, and that to the 

 right embarrassed with the tide and swampy ground. There was then 

 no road over the marsh from the Campo da Santa Anna, and a track of 

 the most confined sort led, through lofty and pleasant woods, to the 

 Saccos dos Alfares and Gambda. The noise in these woods, during the 

 day time, made by frogs, grasshoppers, crickets, and cigarras, was 

 truly astonishing. It communicated to the mind an idea as different 

 as possible from solitude, and taught the wanderer that, though at a 

 distance from the hum of cities, he was surrounded with myriads of 

 animated beings. At night every thicket and marsh was illuminated by 

 an equally countless multitude of fire-flies, and the eye discerned another 

 class of creatures as striking to us as those which the ear had indicated. 

 There were certainly many others concealed from both the eye and the 

 ear ; the first wild monkey, which I ever saw, was on a spot near the 

 Campo, where the barracks now stand. 



In more extended rides, the country was found full of woods ; from 

 Mata-Porcos to St. Andrea were no houses, except one or two at 

 Engenho Velho, where was also a small cleared space, and a new church 

 begun; from thence to St. Christophe we were so enveloped in the 

 forest as to make it necessary carefully to observe the direction which the 

 road assumed at every turn, that we might not wander out of our way ; 

 and we rode hard to reach the city, or a more public place, before night= 

 fall At St. Christophe was a narrow bridge for the passage of cattle 



