ARRAYAS TO SAN ROMAO. 291
flesh
was not dry enough to be packed for two days more. The owner of the
fazenda, Captain Faustino Yieira, we found to be of a very niggardly
disposition, and much less hospitable than the fazenderos I had
generally met with in this province. Athough his house was a good and
commodious one, we had during our stay to put up in an open shed, which
served to cover the sugar mill belonging to the farm. He was most
exorbitant in his charges for all we had purchased of him, requiring
one half more for the cow than its usual price in that part of the
country; he charged in like manner for the farinha, and the Indian corn
for my horses.
On
the day we left San Joao, we made a journey of three long leagues, and
put up for the night at the Fazenda de San Bernardo. During the
afternoon, one of the horses in passing between two trees broke his
pack-saddle, and it was necessary to remain here half the following
day, in order to get it properly repaired; in the interval I
went out to botanize near a large marsh, through which a small river
runs. This river, as well as several others about the same size, which
we passed both before and after we left San Joao, loses itself beneath
a low serra of limestone which runs parallel with the Serra Geral, and
nearly two leagues to the west of it. These rivers take their rise in
the Serra Geral, and are said to enter beneath the range before
mentioned, where they all unite, and at the distance of three leagues
still further to the westward, they again appear above ground in one
stream, forming the Rio de San Bernardo, which afterwards falls into
the Bio Parannan. A person belonging to the fazenda took me»down to see
the spot where the stream, that passes this place, disappears in the
mountains, when contrary to what I expected, I found that it did not
enter by an open cave, but by an aperture far below the surface of the
water, forming what the Brazilians call a Soumi-douro; the current here
runs with considerable rapidity, strikes against the nearly
perpendicular face of the limestone rock, and forming a few whirlpools
is lost in the gulf below. By these streams the remains of many of the
animals of the country must be entombed in the deep caverns through
which they pass, and it
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