Chap. YI. 
A SHADY GLEK. 
399 
was now building a number of small houses on a piece 
of unoccupied land attached to her property. I found 
these and many other free negroes most trustworthy 
people, and admired the constancy of their friendships 
and the gentleness and cheerfulness of their manners 
towards each other. They showed great disinterested- 
ness in their dealings with me, doing me many a piece 
of service without a hint at remuneration ; but this 
may have been partly due to the name of Englishman, 
the knowledge of our national generosity towards the 
African race being spread far and wide amongst the 
Brazilian negroes. 
I remained at St. Paulo five months ; five years 
would not have been sufficient to exhaust the treasures 
of its neighbourhood in Zoology and Botany. Although 
now a forest-rambler of ten years' experience, the beau- 
tiful forest which surrounds this settlement gave me 
as much enjoyment as if I had only just landed for the 
first time in a tropical country. The Zoology revealed 
plainly the nearer proximity of the locality to the 
eastern slopes of the Andes than any I had yet visited, 
by the first appearance of many of the peculiar and 
richly-coloured forms (especially of insects), which are 
known only as inhabitants of the warm and moist val- 
leys of New Granada and Peru. The plateau on which 
the village is built extends on one side nearly a mile 
into the forest, but on the other side the descent into 
the lowland begins close to the streets ; the hill sloping 
abruptly towards a boggy meadow surrounded by woods, 
through which a narrow winding path continues the 
slope down to a cool shady glen, with a brook of icy- 
