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clouds are continually settling on the tops of the mountains and descending in vapor. The droughts of summer are among the most serious complaints in a great part of Brazil, especially to the east of the first range of mountains. We were greatly surprised to find so much good soil and such marks of industry and cultivation, where we expected to find every thing waste and barren. In every little winding of the torrent or shelf of rock, the ground was cultivated, and a neat cottage of brick covered with burnt tiles, peered amid the thick verdure of tropical fruit trees. The chief culture near the city is grass, which is cut daily and carried to town for the supply of the immense number of domestic animals, kept for the pleasure or use of the inhabitants. They cultivate besides, Indian corn, coffee, bananas, mangoes, oranges, and the king of fruits, the pine apple.* To describe the richness, variety, and beauty of nature, is impossible. Nothing so much strikes the stranger with wonder, as the lux uriant garb with which the earth is clothed in tropical climates; he sees plants and trees entirely new to him, or the few that he has known rising here to a gigantic size; shrubs have become trees, and humble herbs enlarged to shrubs. He sees here in their native splendor, those productions of the vegetable kingdom, which he is accustomed to admire in hot houses. Among the most conspicuous are the palms, of many different kinds, the opuntia, and others so often described by travellers in these regions; pyramids of the

* A Portuguese poet has the following conceit:
He o regio Ananaz, fructa tao boa,
Que a mesma Natureza namorada
Quiz como a Rey cingilla de Coroa.

most beautiful flowers, besides a number of aromatic plants shed the most delightful fragrance; and, as if nature were not satisfied with the exuberance of the earth, a numerous race of parasites attach themselves to the boughs and trunks of trees, receiving their nourishment from the air. The whole forms a solid perennial impenetrable mass, bound together with innumerable vines or creeping plants. Nature seems no less prolific in animated creatures; birds of the most brilliant plumage and the most melodious song; thousands of insects of the most beautiful colors, fill the thickets. Innumerable species of lizards are moving in every direction; and it is said that no country is more bountifully replenished with snakes and venomous reptiles; though we are informed that the inhabitants experience less uneasiness from them than we should imagine. Dr. Baldwin, who lost no time in examining the plants with the eye and skill of the botanist, expressed himself highly gratified. For my part, although at first as it were overpowered with admiration and astonishment, I must declare that on reflec tion, I preferred the wild forests of my own country, although stripped of their leaves during a portion of the year. The vegetation is not so strong and so vigorous, but it is more delicate and pleasing to the eye, than this unshapen exuberance. When I recollected how often I have wandered along a meandering stream in the shady groves of oak, hickory, poplar, or sycamore of my native country, .under whose boughs soft grass and flowery herbs, spring up as a carpet to the feet, I could not but give them the preference to the forests of the tropic. It is difficult to conceive how the Indians of this country, can make their way with any

facility through this continuous hedge. It is not, however, for me to judge of a vast country from the little I have seen; but if all be like this, and I am informed it is so, give me my native groves in preference to all the glories of the south.

After proceeding about two miles in this manner, we began to ascend the mountain by a very steep and winding path. We found this exceedingly fatiguing, which was probably, in some measure, owing to our having been so long shut up and deprived of the usual exercise of our limbs. It was fortunate that the day was cloudy, otherwise we should have been unable to withstand the heat. On each side of the path to our surprise, we observed a number of small patches of cultivation. When about two thirds of the way up, we came to a place where the water rushes down the rock, in a small clear stream; it was to us a most delicious treat, after having suffered much from thirst. In these climates where an eternal summer reigns, there can be no object so delightful to the eye as the cool stream gushing from the fountain. We threw ourselves upon the rock, which was shaded by enor mous trees; drank freely of the water and with reluctance thought of quitting the spot. Here commences the aqueduct which supplies the city, and chiefly from this fountain. It is a work which does much credit to the viceroy by whom it was constructed, in the year 1740, as would appear from the inscription. It is received in a kind of funnel built of brick about five feet high, and about three in width; it passes along the apex of the ridge which gradually declines to the plain of Rio Janeiro; where instead of being received into pipes, is carried into the city by an aqueduct com

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posed of a double row of arches, intended probably for ornament, as it cannot be supposed that like the ancients, the constructors were ignorant of the principles of hydraulics. This work is at present in a bad state of repair, but we observed that workmen had been for some time engaged in enlarging and improving it. The prospect from this place is one of the most magnificent I ever beheld. The scenery around the bay, is like that on the borders of some extensive lake; on the eastern side, instead of the immense mountains which enclose it on every other, the country is beautifully sloping, and with the aid of a spyglass we could discover plantations of coffee, or cotton, on a much larger scale than any we had seen in the course of our walk. Towards the north-east, at a great distance, we could discern the Organ mountains, so called from a number of singular peaks, apparently at the termination of the ridge from their unequal elevation, and resembling huge basaltic columns. The bay, or rather lake, was studded with a great variety of beautiful islands, one of them, perhaps the largest, several leagues in circumference. A number of small villages could be distinguished at intervals around it, and the water prospect was enlivened by a great number of vessels of different kinds. The fatigue and labor we had encountered, and the time we had consumed in scrambling up the mountain thus far, discouraged us from attempting to accomplish our first design. It seemed to us in fact, that we had scarcely gained more than the foot of the mountain we had intended to scale. We approached near enough, however, to form a tolerable idea of the Parrot's head; we could distinctly see it to be a huge flat rock laid horizontally as a kind

of cap-stone, on the top of a bare mass of granite; and from some rude resemblance, which I could not discover, it had received its name. Below it on the same ridge stands the sugar loaf, whose summit appeared to be on a level with us, but could hardly have been so, as its height is estimated at nine hundred feet from the water's edge, though not half that height on the side where it joins the ridge. Behind us the mountain rose to a great height, and covered with trees of a prodigious size. Having determined to return to the city, we followed the path along the side of the aqueduct, and with a much more gradual descent than that by which we had ascended. On our way we remarked a considerable space where the granitic rock, from which the soil had slipped off, was apparently in a state of decomposition; the point of a cane was thrust in without experiencing any greater resistance than from stiff clay; this was also the case with the broad veins of spar with which the mass was penetrated. As we approached the city the path gradually widened, and within a mile we found a spacious sloping walk planted on each side with beautiful trees, of which we found the advantage at this time, as the sun was beginning to send forth his rays unobstructed by friendly clouds. We were accosted repeatedly, by negroes who offered to sell us some of the beautiful insects of the country, upon which they had been taught to place a value, probably by the recent visit of the European philosophers, or by persons employed to make collections for European cabinets. We remarked a number of the lower ridges or mounds carefully cultivated in grass; but the declivity was such as to require them to be crossed in every direction in a reticulated man

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