448 



NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



accommodations. I found, indeed, no luxuries, but comforts in abun- 

 bance, and quite free from that formality and suspicion which abound 

 in the neighbourhood of Rio, and are too prevalent in some other 

 parts of Brazil. The master of the house was from home, having gone 

 toward the heads of the Rio Doce, to seek in the forest a more retired 

 situation. Here he possessed half a square league of land, and not only 

 thought the farm too small, but complained, although the Province 

 contains only five persons to a square mile, that the country was 

 becoming too populous. He belongs, it seems, to a numerous class of 

 people in Brazil, who are ever dissatisfied with a settled life ; they love 

 to wander, and would never cease. This spirit showed itself at the early 

 settlement of the country, and has been cherished by a restless and never 

 ending search after Gold. In going Eastward, however, and toward the 

 coast, he had shown more judgment than the greater part of this 

 migrating tribe, who usually proceed in a contrary direction. 



Close by the house is a considerable stream, which, in rainy periods, 

 must become an impetuous torrent. Here it runs South, but taking a 

 long sweep round to the West, passes through St. John D' El Rey. 

 In its bed we found some quartzose sand-stone reduced to rounded 

 masses, and a quantity of the spar in detached nodules. On the brink 

 was a space of peaty earth, cut by the stream, and chipped by the heat 

 into cubes. Among other natural phenomena it was observed that, as 

 we passed Westward over these Downs, the coating of clay became 

 thinner ; and that the South side of the hills is better clothed v/ith 

 verdure than the Northern one, owing probably to the rays of the sun 

 falling less directly upon the soil, and therefore scorching it in a lower 

 degree. Iron-stone was occasionally seen, and twice in one day the 

 compass appeared to lose its polarity, without my being able to account 

 for the circumstance. About two o'clock in the afternoon something 

 like a water-spout was seen in the air, formed, however, only of vapour, 

 instead of that solid and black aqueous pillar which is sometimes observed 

 at sea, and there was no mass of cloud above it. At night, on one 

 occasion, we perceived, in the absence of the moon, a thin red aura, 



