ioo RIO DE JANEIRO. 
It will not be expected that I should be able to give any 
account of^the state of the country, as to the mode and the 
extent of its cultivation, or the condition of its inhabitants. 
Our short excursion to the vale of Tejeuca, about twenty miles 
to the south-westward of St. Sebastian, furnished us, how- 
ever, with an opportunity of observing how wretchedly ne- 
glected was this most beautiful and fertile country, even in the 
vicinity of its most populous city. From the outlets of the 
town, none of the roads, admitting of wheel carriages, are 
carried beyond ten miles ; in our present excursion we were 
obliged to alight at the end of about six, where horses were pre- 
pared for the further prosecution of our journey. We presently 
entered a large forest, in passing through which we were fre- 
quently obliged to dismount, in order to scramble over huge 
trunks of trees that had fallen across the path, where they 
were suffered to lie and rot without molestation. We had no 
objection to loiter under the cool shade which the venerable 
evergreens of some centuries' growth afforded, and to listen 
to the wild notes of birds that were totally new and unknown 
to any of us ; yet the frequent obstructions we met with from 
trees, and rocks, and bogs, were tedious and tiresome. From 
our quitting the town till we came to the verge of the forest 
little cultivation had appeared ; beyond it, still less. The 
lower part of the hills were skirted with forests, the glens 
were choaked up with trees of a majestic size, and the tops 
of the hills and knolls were covered with coppice. Not an 
inch of the surface appeared to be naked. 
♦ 
