540 NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



different place. But this could not be granted, and we were obliged to 

 resort to cleansing and fumigation. An abundance of odoriferous herbs, 

 particularly of rosemary, being consumed in it, according to the Brazilian 

 fashion, the apartment was rendered not only tolerable, but pleasant. 



This establishment belonged to a Widow Lady, whom the etiquette 

 of the country did not permit me to see ; and the rites of hospitality 

 were performed for her by a man of respectable appearance, and intelli- 

 gence sufficient to render his company instructive as well as amusing. We 

 learned from him that the Parahyba is supplied by six principal streams, 

 between that place and St. Salvador, and that most of them fall into its 

 Northern side. The distance of the two places he reckoned, not very 

 correctly, I conceive, somewhat less than seventy leagues ; to the falls of 

 St. Fidelis upwards of sixty. To the Eastward, he said, the country 

 was all open, and much of it occupied by domesticated Indians ; while 

 in the road to Campos fewer inhabitants were to be found, yet all was 

 peace and quietness, and a man might travel thither without difficulty. 

 The sum paid here for our accommodation may serve as a specimen 

 how cheaply we travel in our present mode, for the cost of an ample 

 supper for three men, and of corn and pasture for two horses and two mules, 

 amounted to no more than two patacas, about three shillings English. 



At a very early hour of the following morning, we entered upon 

 our former track at Chapeo d' Ovas ; and before we reached Juiz de Fora, 

 obtained a fine view of the country we had left. Its outline appeared 

 familiar, and I almost persuaded myself that we saw the Serro of 

 Ouro Branco, the bluff head over Rodeiro, the Mountains near Caan- 

 cunha, and the break, through which the Parapeba makes its way to 

 Sahara. I found, too, that the bearing of these distant heights was 

 correct, and that the angle, which they made with the level of our 

 station, then nearly a thousand feet above Juiz de Fora, was about 

 six degrees, 



!i Amidst a hard day's ride, my heresy had nearly occasioned our want 

 of a dinner, for without adverting to the circumstance of the day being 

 Sunday, I thoughtlessly asked, at several different houses, for flesh. At 



