NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



213 



rich loamy soil, producing in abundance the broad-leaved species of grass, 

 called in Brazil Gramma. A great extent of land is here comprehended 

 under the name of Charqueados, and is famous for a luxuriant produce, 

 and for its numerous and fine cattle. Houses are scattered over it, 

 many of them spacious, and some not without pretensions to splen- 

 dour; chapels are attached to several of them, and round a few is 

 seen such a collection of smaller dwellings as may deserve to be called 

 a village. 



The name of Charqueados is derived from the Charqued Beef, which 

 the district prepares and exports. When the cattle are killed and skinned, 

 the flesh is taken off from the sides in one broad piece, something like a 

 flitch of bacon ; it is then slightly sprinkled with salt, and dried in the 

 sun. In that state it is the common food of the peasantry in the hotter 

 parts of Brazil, is in itself by no means to be despised ; and as it will 

 keep long forms an excellent sea stock, and would bear carriage to 

 distant parts of the world. Some idea of the immense quantity of beef 

 thus prepared may be formed from the fact that, in one year, an indi- 

 vidual, Joze Antonio dos Anjos, slaughtered fifty-four thousand head of 

 cattle, and charqued the flesh. The piles of bones which lay in his 

 premises, far surpassed my utmost conceptions, and there Avere thousands 

 of Urubus, the Vulture of South America, flying round, and feeding 

 on the offal. 



During the slaughtering season, it is not uncommon for large 

 packs of dogs to make their appearance, and assist the vvjiltures in picking 

 the bones ; and it is said that the ounce will do the same. The bones 

 thus picked, are generally reduced to lime, It is certain that, not in 

 this part of the country only, but in almost every part of Brazil, there 

 are considerable numbers' of wild dogs ; and that the different species 

 of these animals have acquired distinguishing Indian names. Yet 

 I cannot think that they were aboriginal natives of South America, but 

 believe them to have been introduced, in a domesticated state, by the first 

 European settlers, and to have quickly gone wild. 



The Piratinim, the little fish river, runs about a hundred miles, chiefly 



