hollow sheltered places they often occnr in groups; large Cacti are not uncommon, and we passed over some elevated open shrubby tracts abounding in a species of Krameria.
The
Villa de Lavra de Mangabeira is situated on the banks of the Bio
Salgado, and contains about eighty or a hundred houses, all small, and
many of them falling to decay. Gold is found in the neighbourhood, in a
dark coloured alluvial soil a little below the surface; from time to
time washings have been established, which have never yielded
satisfactory results; the most extensive of these was undertaken about
two years before my arrival. The president of the province and some
others having formed themselves into a company, sent for two English
miners to conduct the operations; they continued their labours to
within two months previously, when the work was abandoned. About a year
afterwards I met with one of these miners in a far distant part of the
country, and from him I learned that the gold exists in too small
quantities to repay the cost of its extraction; scarcity of water at
times was also another drawback. Here I found, growing in vast
quantities on the sandy margins of the river, a species of Grangea, which
is a powerful bitter, used by the natives as an infusion in dyspeptic
cases in the same manner as camomile, which, indeed, it much resembles,
and to which they give the same name (macella).
We
left Lavra on the afternoon of the same day on which we arrived, and
halted for the night at a small house near the river. On the following
morning as we were advancing quietly, one of the horses struck its load
against a tree, by which means it was thrown off; thus disencumbered it
ran away at full speed among the trees, and was soon followed by the
remainder, who in like manner quickly rid themselves of their cargoes;
an hour was thus lost in recapturing and replacing the loads, and even
while tins was doing, one of the animals laid down and began to roll,
first breaking the cords by which his burden was held on, and thus a
second time freeing himself. I mention this, as an instance of one of
the many annoyances to which a traveller in such countries is liable;
in these respects horses are more unmanageable than
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