ARRAYAS TO SAN ROMAO. 287
half
a league out of the Villa by a few of the more respectable inhabitants.
Shortly after the return of my friends, we descended the Serra on which
the Villa stands, by a very rocky path, but this descent was not nearly
so great as the ascent on the opposite side, and although we now found
ourselves in a comparatively flat country, we were still at a
considerable elevation. After proceeding half a league, we encamped
for the night under some trees by the side of a small stream ; here we
slung our hammocks, but soon after midnight the cold became so great,
from the wind that blew down from the Serra, that we could not sleep; and
long before daybreak we were glad to rise, and seat ourselves round a
large fire, such as we always made it a rule to burn every night we
slept in the open air.
A
journey of four long leagues on the following day, brought us to the
fazenda Gamelleira, where we passed the night under a large fig-tree,
there being only one small house belonging to the vaqueiro. This
fazenda belongs to a widow lady, Dona Maria Eosa, at whose house we
spent some time during the middle of the day. Soon after leaving
Gamelleira, we entered a virgin forest quite unlike any I had seen
since leaving the Province of Rio de Janeiro, and which I little
expected to find in the district where we were now travelling. It
contained many large trees, covered with numerous parasitical Orchidea. The
forest was about a league in length, after which we entered upon an
elevated thinly-wooded tract, where we halted to breakfast under a
beautiful shady wild-fig (Gamelleira). In the afternoon we accomplished
another two leagues, and passed the night at a fazenda called Mange,
the road leading over a thinly-wooded Chapada.
On
the morning of the 9th, after a ride of a league and a half, we rested
on the banks of a small brook under a group of Buriti palms. The first
part of our journey we found to be hilly and stony, with intermediate
well-wooded low tracts, but the latter part of it was through a most
beautiful country of fine open grassy campos, with occasional large
wide-spreading trees. In the afternoon, we travelled a league and a
half through % country even still more beautiful than that through which we passed in
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