S62 



NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



1 



claimants. Sworn Commissioners, appointed by Government, examine the 

 qualities of the lands, and apportion them much in the same way as is prac^' 

 tised in England in the case of inclosures. While looking after game, and 

 attracted by some rare kinds, which seemed to us to claim the attention 

 of Naturalists, we fell in with a horse in the last agonies, I wished to 

 shorten his sufferings with my gun, but our host prevented me by 

 observing, that though it would be an act of charity, it might involve 

 him in much trouble and some loss. The horse, it seemed, had been 

 left on the estate by a traveller, in a worn-out condition; and though 

 the owner of the place was not obliged to maintain it, nor to prevent 

 its wandering into another property, he could not destroy nor injure it 

 without finding the traveller another ; " and no one can say," he added, 

 " what would satisfy him." 



Returning to the mouth of the Guaxendiba, we found the land to 

 the South of it bold and lofty, bearing the appropriate name of Morro 

 Grande, We landed at Itadca, and noticed the appearance of the rocks 

 lying close to the shore. They consist of large masses of granite, rising 

 abruptly out of the water ; some of them in the shape of parallelepi- 

 pedons, with sides and angles naturally smooth, as if well-wrought with 

 the chisel, but most have a roundish face, and in the fracture appear 

 as though, when crystalizing, there had been a tendency towards the 

 shape of a globe a circumstance common in the rocks of Brazil, and 

 not very unusual, I apprehend, in granitic rocks in general. Here we 

 examined, also, a natural trap for fishes, which the Indians are said to have 

 made use of many ages ago. I suspect that to the narrow passage 

 between the rocks, where the stream runs strongly, and doubtless carries 

 along many of the finny tribe, contrary to their wish, they applied a 

 weir, and thus easily secured their captives. 



Hence we passed to Paqueta, the island, which of the whole number 

 contained in the bay, is accounted the most picturesque. Its form is 

 like the figure of 8 ; being narrow and low in the middle, at the ends 

 broad and elevated. Almost the whole of it is studded with pleasant 

 houses, particularly along the coast of its two bays ; one of which, facing 



