The mangroves entirely destroy the beauty which it is natural to suppose that the rivers of the country of which I am treating would possess. Until they are destroyed a dull sameness presents itself, for the eye cannot penetrate beyond them. Upon the banks of the Capibaribe they have given place to houses and gardens, and the alteration is most pleasing; upon the banks of the Maria Farinha, the mangroves are beginning to give way to cultivation at the settlements (_sitios_) of Jardim and Olaria; but the Iguaraçu is without any break, and the Goiana is, I understand, in the same state. There are plantations along these rivers, but the owners content themselves with merely cutting a path through the mangroves down to the water’s edge, so that to a stranger who goes up the rivers the country appears to be uninhabited, until he passes some of these small openings, at which a canoe or a _jangada_ is moored; but the openings are very narrow, and are only to be seen on coming immediately opposite to them. The mangroves grow as far down as low water-mark, and when the tide is out their entangled roots and sprouts, and their stems covered with oysters and besmeared with mud, are left uncovered; but at the height of the tide these are concealed, and the water reaches up to the branches of the trees, so that those which bend downwards are partly wetted, presenting to the beholder the view of a forest growing in the water. This species of mangrove sometimes attains the diameter of fifteen or eighteen inches, and the height of twenty-five or thirty feet. There are two species with which I am acquainted, the _mangue vermelho_ or red mangrove, of which I have been speaking, and the _mangue bravo_ or wild mangrove. The bark of the former is used for tanning, and the timber is much esteemed for beams and rafters in building, but it cannot be used as posts, for under ground it decays very quickly; nor as railings, for it does not bear exposure to the weather. A considerable trade is carried on from Itamaraca, and from some other parts to Recife, in the wood of these plants, which is used as fuel. The tree grows again as often as it is cut down if the root is not injured, and with such rapidity that the supply of the wood will, for a length of time—I mean unless the destruction of the plant becomes more extensive than it is at present—be fully adequate to the demand for it. The fish forsake those parts to which the trees are brought to be cut up for firewood. This may be judged to proceed from the properties of the bark. In a fish-pen, (_cural de peixe_) near to my place no fish was caught after the fuel-cutters had established themselves at the bridge hard by; of this I heard much, as there was some squabbling upon the subject. The ashes of the mangrove plants are used as _temper_ in the sugar boiling houses.[124]