110 TRAVELS IN BRAZIL.
complaints
were made of the scarcity of provisions, but it is impossible to feel
much commiseration for the starving condition of the poor people, when
it is known that it is entirely owing to their own want of industry
that sufficient crops of mandiocca are not raised, not only for their
own consumption, but for exportation to other parts of the country.
There is abundance of ground around the city lying waste, which is well
adapted for the growth of this plant, and but little labour suffices
for its cultivation, but the indolent disposition of the people is
such, that, with all the advantages which the country offers, they are
contented to obtain just sufficient for immediate use and seldom look
forward to the future. Towards the head of the lake, the country is
said to be much richer than it is near the city, and it is in that
direction that the largest and most productive sugar and cotton
plantations are seen. The lake is not of sufficient depth to admit of
vessels of any size, all traffic between the sea and the city is
carried on in large canoes, and a small class of flat-bottomed sailing
vessels called Lanchas. Opposite the city the lake is about a league
broad, the water is quite fresh, and yields abundance of fine fish,
which forms the chief part of the animal food of the inhabitants, to
whom it is sold at a very cheap rate. Much fine timber is floated down
the lake from the upper parts of the country for exportation along the
coast; the two wooden bridges at Pernambuco are for the most part
constructed of it.
During
my rambles in this neighbourhood, I found several species of plants
which I had not previously met with. In a small stream of beautifully
clear water the curious Cabomba aqmtica, Aubl., grows
abundantly, which to the Botanist is a most interesting plant, as, both
in habit and structure, it forms a transition link between the Ranunculus family and that of the water lilies. In the same stream I likewise collected specimens of a Marsilaa, a pale blue flowered Pontederia, and a large white flowered Nymphaa different from that which grows in the lake at Olinda, In brackish water a little above Maceio, a Potamogeton grows in vast quantities, which on comparison, does not seem to differ from the British P. pectinalus. We returned to Maceio by
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