404 



NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



as circuitously as possible, to the height of thirteen hundred feet, having 

 passed in our way two or three torrents, which rattled through ravines 

 of various declivities and depths. The road is kept in excellent repair, 

 or it would be impassable ; the forest is excessively grand and untouched, 

 the soil a rich, red clay, mingled with an uncommon quantity of mica. 

 As we went on the views opened grandly behind us, toward the South- 

 East, and the most distant Serro appeared to us about fifty miles off; 

 we looked towards it over mountains of different elevations, which form 

 a scene uniting grandeur, expansion, and beauty. Now and then, 

 through the thick foliage which skirts the road, we catch a view of the 

 valleys to the right and left of us, and, looking below our level, see the 

 sky. The sides of the mountain are almost precipitous, and bear many 

 tokens of mules having slipped with their loads, and tumbled down, 

 until impeded by the trees, into a frightful depth below. 



In this region some of the trees lose their verdure, and, at present, 

 though budding, are not fully clothed with leaves ; perhaps this circum- 

 stance might affect the imagination, and make me think the air more 

 cool and refreshing than it really was, for though the thermometer, this 

 morning, pointed to a temperature of only 68", at noon, in the dell of 

 Farinha, where we halted, at an elevation only of five hundred feet 

 below the highest point of the road, it showed a temperature of 82". 



It is scarcely possible to conceive of a greater plague, than that which 

 is produced by ants. In the forests below, they form their nests beneath 

 the surface of the ground, or pile cones of sand, eight or ten feet high, 

 generally round the root or stem of a tree ; but on these heights tlieir 

 nests stand by the road side, in the form of rough pillars, made of earth and 

 leaves, more than eight feet high and three in diameter. They resemble 

 bee-hives in shape, and, at first, I thought them the production and 

 abode of bees, for some of them have been opened with a machado, for 

 the purpose, as I was told, of procuring honey. Examining them, I 

 found the inside hollow and very black, the walls were from six inches 

 to a foot thick, and full of innumerable passages, communicating with 

 each other, but with the external air only at the base, which is a little 



