Near here I first saw the araucaria trees (Araucaria brasiliensis) in abundance; it is the most valuable timber of these parts, and goes by the name of pine. The heart of it is very hard and coloured like mahogany; from this all sorts of fine carvings can be made; the outer wood is coloured like the common fir. This tree has three distinct ages and characters of form: in the first it looks a perfect cone; in the second a barrel with flat top, getting always flatter as the lower branches drop off, till in its last stage none but those turning up are left, and it looks at a distance like a stick with a saucer balanced on the top. During the first period the branches are more covered with green; but as it grows older only the ends are furnished with bunches of knife-like leaves, and the extremities alone are a bright fresh green, looking like stars in the distance amongst the bare branches and duller old leaves. Its large cone is wonderfully packed with great wedge-shaped nuts, which are very good to eat when roasted. These curious trees seldom grow lower than three thousand feet above the sea.
After crossing the grand pass of Mantiqueira we changed the general character of vegetation. I saw there masses of the creeping bamboo, so solid in its greenery that it might have been almost mowed with a scythe; also the taquara bamboo hanging in exquisite curves, with wheels of delicate green round its slender stems, reminding me of magnified mares’ tails, and forming arches of twelve to twenty feet in span. I know nothing in nature more graceful than this plant. Over the stone fountain that marked the top of the pass was a palm tree, three of whose branches were weighted at the end by the pendent nests of the oriole bird, at least a foot long, woven cleverly out of the fibre of the palm, and of the parasite commonly called old man’s beard, which one sees hanging from the branches and waving in the wind, like masses of unravelled worsted from some old stocking. I have often taken hold of the end and pulled it out for yards; then, on letting it go, it returned again to its crinkly state. This fountain was a favourite halting place in fine weather, and there could be few more inviting places for lingering in.
Every bit of the way was interesting and beautiful; I never found the dreary monotony Rio friends had talked about. Every now and then we came to bits of cultivation, green hills and garden grounds. Once I saw a spider as big as a small sparrow with velvety paws, and everywhere were marvellous webs and nests. How could such a land be dull? Then we crossed high tablelands, which seemed quite colonised by the Jean de Barbe bird; every tree was full of their nests—curious buildings of red clay divided into two apartments, the whole as big as my head. The birds were flying about near their homes and were of the same reddish colour as the nests they lived in. Roberto climbed a tree and tried to get me one of these nests, but broke it in the attempt; it looked like a half-baked and ill-formed earthenware pot.
The ground of this same bleak region was dotted with the large wigwam-looking establishments of the termite ants, as big as sentry boxes and with no visible entrances. The small creatures who make and inhabit them tunnel their way underground from openings at a considerable distance from the erections themselves, which are full of cells and passages made of a black sticky substance, much used by the natives as putty for stopping water holes and fuel to heat their ovens; they also pound it down for the floors of their houses.
After a long day’s ride over these glaring plains, still sticky and slippery with mud, though the hot sun was shining on it, we were glad to find really comfortable night quarters in the house of a gentleman who prides himself on producing the best cigarettes in Brazil. They are all rolled up with the greatest nicety in Indian corn leaves and tied together with coloured ribbons in pretty little bundles; the daughters of this house did them so neatly that report says they were forbidden to marry or to leave the work on any pretence whatever. We were received with a most hearty welcome and lodged in their best rooms with every luxury—tubs of water, embroidered towels, and the best of coffee. Our dinner was also sumptuous, and here, for the first time, we persuaded the master of the house to sit and dine with us at the head of his own table, a post that was generally given to me as the greatest stranger. We had one dish for which the house is famous—a bowl of chicken soup with a huge chicken boiled whole in the middle of it. There was a piano here, and we sang and played all we knew for the benefit of our entertainers, whose musical attainments were as yet very young indeed; but they formed a most enthusiastic audience, and the Baron declared, with tears in his eyes, he could not smoke while I sang. It affected him so much afterwards that he put the wrong end of his cigar into his mouth and burned it; no wonder he cried!
At this point in our journey Mr. G.’s carriage met us. Such a carriage! But if we had been ill I suppose we should have gladly submitted to its jolting; it was a sort of double sedan chair, intended to contain two persons sitting opposite one another, and hung on two long bamboos, with a mule harnessed between them before and behind. Persons travelling in these liteiras are very apt to be seasick from the swinging motion; but I am thankful to say none of us required to go through this ordeal, and the machine was sent on ahead with the baggage mules. The sunshine continued as we rode on over the high country to Barbacena, the chief town of this district, beautifully situated on a hill about four thousand feet above the sea, with fine araucaria and other trees shading its garden slopes. Two tall churches made a finer show in the distance than they did near. The horrible paved road up to it was good neither for man nor beast, and reminded one of North Italy. These abominations seem a plague common to all Latin nations.
We were entertained at the house of the agent of the mining company most hospitably. I was shown a well-furnished and perfectly windowless room that I could have if I liked to stay and paint flowers and scenery on my return. After breakfast we went to see the old chemist who was the naturalist of the neighbourhood. He had many valuable books, curiosities, and rare orchids, which he took the greatest delight in showing to us; but his chief pride was in one wretched little cherry tree, which after ten years of watching, had produced one miserable little brown cherry: he had brought the original stone from his dear native Belgium, and it reminded him of home.
The flowers on these high campos were lovely—campanulas of different tints, peas, mallows, ipomoeas creeping flat on the ground, some with the most beautiful velvety stalks and leaves; many small tigridias, iris, and gladioli, besides all sorts of sweet herbs. There are many peculiar trees and scrubby bushes with brown or white linings to their leaves, and the stems powdered over with the same tints. I have never seen these elsewhere. When we descended into the greener hollows and crossed the swollen streams, the vegetation became dense again and wonderful in its richness. Gorgeous butterflies abounded and seemed to be holding dancing parties on the gravelly water’s edge. Birds, too, chirped and fluttered from branch to branch, canaries abounded, and small green parrots flew screaming across our path. Once I saw a great lizard nearly a yard long run along the road in front of us, with his tail held up in the air like a cat; he was very stupid about getting out of our way, and we had a good look at him.
We meant to make up for lost time now we neared the end of our journey. Mary had a threatening of diphtheria and longed for home and her mother’s care; so we toiled up and down the high ridge of Morro Preto, whose white sharp rocks stuck up like bleached bones, and whose cracks were filled with the brightest red, purple, or yellow earths. Occasionally there were fantastic earth pyramids standing up, balancing balls of harder earth on the top, instead of stones, as in the Tyrol. At the top of this ridge I saw many strange plants for the first time, including the vellozia, a kind of tree lily peculiar to these mountains. One of the varieties was called the ‘Canela-de-Ema’ (Vellozia squamata). It had a stem like an old twisted rope, out of which spring branches of the same, terminating in a bunch of sharp-pointed hard leaves like the yucca; out of these again come the most delicate, sweet-smelling blue-grey flowers with yellow centres, much resembling our common blue crocus in shape. There are many other vellozias,