NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



371 



On Sunday morning, the day after our arrival at Porto d'Estrella, 

 the people went very early to mass, and then proceeded, as is usual, 

 to their labour. The scene was a very busy one, for at the Venda where 

 I lodged, beside the common business of packing salt, which is put into 

 small bags of raw hide, there were at least five hundred mules to be 

 loaded, and most of their burdens to be arranged and adjusted. Every 

 troop is divided into sections of seven beasts and one driver, who is 

 generally a slave ; ours consisted of seven of these sections, or forty-nine 

 beasts of burden, beside those we rode upon, and was superintended by 

 the owner and one assistant on horseback. 



The business of distributing and loading the packages occupied us 

 until nearly twelve o'clock ; when the first division of our troop set off*. 

 Soon afterward I mounted the mule destined for my riding, a fine tall 

 female, very safe and tractable, and rode nine miles over a sandy plain, 

 so little raised above the level of the water, as to be frequently, if not 

 generally, overflowed. The road passed between thick hedges, and 

 conducted us to Inhomerfm, a small plain, somewhat drier than the 

 surrounding country, where the Parish Church of the district stands 

 pleasantly amidst some of those round hills, which are common at the foot 

 of the mountains. 



The appearance of those before us became very imposing, the range 

 is fully in view, consisting of lofty pinnacles, large projections, immea- 

 surable precipices, and deep recesses ; the whole, except in those perpen- 

 dicular faces where only lichens can grow, covered with a vast sheet of 

 foliage, differing in its tints, its texture, and its altitude ; decorated with 

 the glowing splendour of the mid-day sun, with patches and larger 

 masses of shade. As we proceed, the passage over the Serro becomes 

 distinctly visible, and its white road forms no unpleasing feature in 

 the Landscape. 



Our appointed rendezvous was at a place called O Pe do Serro, 



situated, as its name indicates, at the foot of the mountains, and close to 



a wooden bridge crossing one of those clear, harmless, rippling streams, 



so common in mountainous countries, which, when swelled by rain, rolls 



3 A 2 



