Not far from this fazenda, to the right of the high road, lies another very considerable one, called Papagais; besides these we saw several smaller plantations, which lent a little animation to the uniformity of the scene.

St. Anna (sixteen miles distance) is a small place, consisting of only a few poor houses, a little church, and an apothecary’s; the last is a necessary appendage to every Brazilian village, even though it only contains twelve or fifteen huts.  We here made a repast of eggs with a bottle of wine, and gave our mules a feed of mil, for which a cheating landlord, Herr Gebhart, charged us three milreis (6s. 6d.)

Today we did not proceed further than Mendoza (twelve miles), a still more insignificant place than St. Anna.  A small shop and a venda were the only houses at the road-side, though in the background we perceived a manioc-fazenda, to which we paid a visit.  The proprietor was kind enough first to offer us some strong coffee, without milk (a customary mark of attention in the Brazils), and then to conduct us over his plantation.

The manioc plant shoots out stalks from four to six feet in height, with a number of large leaves at their upper extremities.  The valuable portion of the plant is its bulbous root, which often weighs two or three pounds, and supplies the place of corn all through the Brazils.  It is washed, peeled, and held against the rough edge of a millstone, turned by a negro, until it is completely ground away.  The whole mass is then gathered into a basket, plentifully steeped in water, and is afterwards pressed quite dry by means of a press.  Lastly it is scattered upon large iron plates, and slowly dried by a gentle fire kept up beneath.  It now resembles a very coarse kind of flour; and is eaten in two ways—­wet and dry.  In the first case, it is mixed with hot water until it forms a kind of porridge; in the second, it is handed round, under the form of coarse flour, in little baskets, and every one at table takes as much as he chooses, and sprinkles it over his plate.

4th October.  The mountain ranges continue drawing nearer and nearer to each other, and the woods become thicker and more luxuriant.  The various creeping plants are indescribably beautiful:  not only do they entirely cover the ground, but they are so intertwined with the trees that their lovely flowers hang on the highest branches, and look like the blossoms of the trees themselves.  But there are likewise trees whose own yellow and red blossoms resemble the most beautiful flowers; while there are others whose great white leaves stand out like silver from the surrounding mass of flowery green.  Woods like these might well be called “the giant gardens of the world.”  The palm-trees have here almost disappeared.