Travels i7i the Brazils, " 77 

 pecker which I call Picus melanopterus. All the plumage is 

 , white except the wings, back, and part of the tail, which are 

 black, and the eye is surrounded by a bare orange-yellow skin. 



The two huntsmen^ whom we engaged at Campos, had been 

 sent forward to the Barra of the Itabapuana to hunt for us 

 there, and rejoin us at Muribecca ; and, as the time assigned 

 to them was long past, and they had our best arms in their 

 possession, our anxiety lest they should abscond from us was 

 not small. We manned a canoe, therefore, with our people 

 in all secrecy ; and these falling down the rivtr to its con- 

 flux with the sea, surprised the unsuspecting huntsmen, took 

 pur arms from them, and dismissed them. 



The journey northwards, from the Itabapuana required some 

 foresight, as a tract of six or eight leagues to the river Itape- 

 mirim must be traversed where the Puris have always shewn 

 themselves hostilely disposed. As they had consequently com- 

 piitted a number of frightful murders in this district, it was 

 found necessary to establish here a military post, the .Quariel, 

 or Destacamento das Barreiras, The feitor of Muribecca re- 

 solved to conduct us himself to this post. We proceeded 

 through the high natural forest, across a variable country open 

 and sandy, and marked with frequent traces of the Antas 

 (Tapinis Jmericanus,) and the Deer; and reached, at last, 

 near a high wooden cross, the firm sea shore, where we be- 

 held a wide, extending, but gentle inlet, finishing at a 

 great distance in a headland, and there it was, that on the 

 elevated coast the Quartel appeared. We were well armed ; 

 twenty guns were ready to be discharged in case of attack, 

 and many of our people had prepared cartridges for them- 

 selves, that they might load the more speedily. The soldiers of 

 the Destacamento are accustomed to go forward to meet 

 strangers, when they perceive, from a distance, a troop ad- 

 vancing on the white sand of the Praya ; and thus we soon 

 fell in with a patrole of six men, chiefly negroes and mulattoes, 

 despatched to meet us by the officer, after we had marched 

 ^long the coast for an hour. About noon the troop reached the 

 Quartel, where the commanding officer {Alferes,) received us 

 very hospitably. This post consists of an officer and twenty 

 soldiers from the militia. Two houses are here erected imme- 

 diately over the sea, and some Mandiocca and Millet-planta- 

 tions been laid out, whence the soldiers gain their support. 

 The coast here presents high perpendicular clifts {Barrieras,) 

 on which the Quartel being built, it enjoys a fine prospect of 

 the sea and of the coast, north and south, so that approaching, 

 troops are visible from it at a great distance. On the land 

 ?lide a dark natural forest terminates directly at the dwellings 



