intelligent Portuguese merchant, at Vista Alegre, fifteen miles
above Cameta. This was the residence of Senor Antonio Ferreira
Gomez, and was a fair sample of a Brazilian planter's
establishment in this part of the country. The buildings covered
a wide space, the dwelling-house being separated from the place
of business, and as both were built on low, flooded ground, the
communication between the two was by means of a long wooden
bridge. From the office and visitors' apartments a wooden pier
extended into the river. The whole was raised on piles above the
high-water mark. There was a rude mill for grinding sugar-cane,
worked by bullocks; but cashaca, or rum, was the only article
manufactured from the juice. Behind the buildings was a small
piece of ground cleared from the forest, and planted with fruit
trees-- orange, lemon, genipapa, goyava, and others; and beyond
this, a broad path through a neglected plantation of coffee and
cacao, led to several large sheds, where the farinha, or mandioca
meal, was manufactured. The plantations of mandioca are always
scattered about in the forest, some of them being on islands in
the middle of the river. Land being plentiful, and the plough, as
well as, indeed, nearly all other agricultural implements,
unknown, the same ground is not planted three years together; but
a new piece of forest is cleared every alternate year, and the
old clearing suffered to relapse into jungle.

We stayed here two days, sleeping ashore in the apartment devoted
to strangers. As usual in Brazilian houses of the middle class,
we were not introduced to the female members of the family, and,
indeed, saw nothing of them except at a distance. In the forest
and thickets about the place we were tolerably successful in
collecting, finding a number of birds and insects which do not