436 



NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



which is found not only in this neighbourhood, but in some other parts 

 of the Province, where whole ridges of it are said to exist. It appears 

 to be composed of the Mica, or unchangeable part of Granite, cemented 

 by the basis of Spar, in an uncrystalized state. In some of its veins 

 the Mica is friable and porous, from a deficiency of. the cementing 

 matter ; in others the stone is soft from an excess of moisture in its 

 component parts. The vessels formed from this substance bear the fire 

 exceedingly well, and are said to communicate to whatever is cooked 

 in them an agreeable flavour; on this account they are sometimes found 

 in the kitcliens of large towns. The country over which we have ridden 

 to-day, through twenty-six miles, in a W. N. W. direction, exhibits an 

 unusual quantity of Spar, and it seems to increase as we proceed. The 

 land is still rising, and we are now probably nine hundred and fifty feet 

 above our station of yesterday. 



Owing to the length of our last day's journey, the troop did not arrive 

 at the halting place before it was late in the evening. One of the mules 

 belonging to the strangers, either from the heat of the day, or fatigue, had 

 died on the road, and his load was laid upon another, which had previously 

 become so lame as to be unable to touch the ground with one of its fore 

 feet. In this miserable condition the creature was compelled to carry 

 his burden, and we had a distance of nearly seventy miles to proceed 

 before he would be finally relieved from it. This case, connected with 

 innumerable others, which I have noticed, tended to convince me that 

 the Portuguese, and their descendants in Brazil, are extremely deficient 

 in sympathy towards the inferior animals. Such an instance, I arii 

 willing to think, could not have occurred on any public road in 

 Britain, without a warm interference on the part of the public. 



The next day also, those of us, who had no care of the loaded mules, 

 left our troop and proceeded through a country which I deemed un- 

 healthy, not because the forest flourished with extraordinary luxuriance, 

 but by the side of the road were many symptoms of stagnant water. 

 In Rio I had heard so much of the district named the Campo, which I 

 learned we should this day enter upon, that I became almost impatient 



