72 ' Prince Maximüian^$ 



to feed them in the morning, had scratched ^ hole in the sack, ami 

 worked its escape through the thick mud-wall of the building. 

 We spent two days at S. Jodo, one of which was consumed in 

 preparing ^'our Jacare, The Juiz (judge or burgomaster) sup- 

 plied us with sailors and four large canoes to transport our 

 baggage across the river, the surface of which was rendered so 

 rough by the wind that small craft would have been in danger 

 of upsetting. We constantly heard the roaring of the sea, 

 while, much lower down the river, we coasted round a pleasant 

 island covered with bushes. Among these were a shrub species 

 of C/eome, with large white and yellow tufts of flowers and scarlet 

 stamina ; the Malvacea from twelve to fifteen feet high, with 

 large flowers of a faint yellow colour; and the Aminga, a re- 

 markably high-grown species of Arum, {Arumliniferiim, 'Arruda) 

 with large oval fruit and whitish flowers. We now crossed 

 the second arm of the river and a small canal traversing two 

 islands, in which the water, shaded on all sides by high wood, 

 is completely stagnant, and consequently full of Jacares. The 

 Conocarpus and Avicennia, with their bare-bowed roots spring- 

 ing high out of the stem, formed a curious web on the bank, 

 between which we sometimes saw the Jacares basking on old 

 stumps and stones; but the motion ofthe boat defeated my efforts 

 to shoot them. At the outlet of this canal we found on the banks 

 ofthe island a number of the blue Halcyon, (Alcedo Alcyon, Linn.) 



Without making any further discoveries we were obliged to 

 content ourselves with having found two species of the Fucus,* 

 which is also met with at Rio de Janeiro ; and catching in a 

 small narrow Lagoa/a Cormorant, with a bill very similar to our 

 Cormorant, {Carbo Cormoranus) of which bird there were large 

 flocks diving about, but they were very shy. Northwards from 

 this place, the coast at some distance from the strand is over- 

 grown with a variety of plants, among which the Pitangeira, 

 (Eugenia Peduncidata) with its well- tasted fruit; a new species 

 of Sophora, with yellow bloom ; the hexagonal Cactus, and 

 other species of the same genus, are particularly abundant. 

 Messrs. Freyreiss, Sellow, and. myself^ having hastened on before 

 our tropa, reached ere night the only fazenda Madinga lying 

 on the sea-shore; where our people, detained by a very narrow 

 channel, did not arrive till morning. We met here the Correo, 

 or letter-post, which goes from JRio to Villa de Victoria, but not 

 farther north; and received letters which furnished us with 

 agreeable conversation for the evening. From Madinga we 

 proceeded northwards along the sea-shore, wading through 



* Fucus lendigerus, {Linn.) and a middle-sort of FucuS; incisi foliusj and 

 latefolius, Turn. Hist. Tire. 



