I LEFT Searà at day-break with three Indians, and three loaded horses, and one of the young men with whom I had formed an acquaintance accompanied me to a short distance from the town. I deviated on my return to Aracati, in some measure, from the road by which I had travelled to Searà. The first day passed without any circumstance worthy of being mentioned, and I was chiefly occupied in finding out what sort of beings my Indians were, for I had had very little conversation with them before we set off. In the afternoon of the second day, having asked one of the Indians if the road was intricate to our next resting-place, and being answered, that there was no turning by which I could lose the right path, I left the loaded horses and rode on, being tired of following them at a foot’s pace;—this I had often done on other occasions. About five o’clock I put up at a cottage in which were two boys, whose appearance was very wretched, but they seemed glad to say that they would let me have a night’s lodging. On enquiry, they told me that their parents were gone to some distance to make paste from the stem of the Carnàûba, for that their usual food, the flour of the mandioc, was no longer to be had at any price in that neighbourhood. I was shown some of this paste, which was of a dark brown colour[46], and of the consistence of dough that has not been sufficiently kneaded; it was bitter and nauseous to the taste. On this substance these miserable people were under the necessity of subsisting, adding to it occasionally dried fish or meat. My party arrived about an hour after me, and late in the evening, the younger boy began to beg; inconsiderately I gave him money, but shortly he returned, saying his elder brother desired him to tell me, that it would be of no use to them, as nothing could be purchased with it. Then I understood their meaning in begging at this moment,—my men were going to supper,—the children were of course desired to sit down with them. Here Feliciano, one of the Indians, sewed two hides loosely round the two bags of _farinha_, saying, that if we proceeded without disguising what they contained, we should at some hamlet upon the road be obliged to satisfy the people, who would probably beg part of it from us. He had not known, before he enquired from these children, that this part of the country was in such a dreadful state of want. The inhabitants had eaten up their own scanty crop, and some of them had even been tempted by the exorbitant price, to carry their stock to Searà for sale. They had not heard of the supply which had arrived at that place from the southward. We reached Aracati on the fifth day.