In the afternoon we made another journey of about a league and a half, through a flat sandy country, which yielded me several novelties, and remained for the night at a large cattle fazenda, called Lagoa Comprida. This house was one of the largest we had seen since leaving Brejo Grande; it is situated on the margin of a lake about four hundred yards long, from which it takes its name; no rivulet empties itself into the lake, which becomes filled during the rainy season, and if the rains have been heavy, it does not dry up before the next wet season. By the proprietor I was informed, that on the previous year very little rain fell, and that in consequence of this, and of the very great drought afterwards, the lake dried up before the setting in of the present rains, the result of which was the death of nearly all the cattle belonging to the fazenda. The people were still in an almost starving state, and although both at Campos and here I endeavoured to purchase some provisions for our own use, nothing was to be had, neither fowls, sheep, goats, pigs, nor beef; money I found to be of no use. Our next stage was one of three leagues, and brought us to another fazenda, called Corumatá. The country was undulating but not hilly, and in many places it was covered with immense blocks of granite; so large and square are some of these blocks, that at a distance we mistook a cluster of them for a large village. Two circumstances occurred to detain us a long time on the road. Having dismounted to collect some specimens, my horse ran off into the woods, and it was nearly an hour before he could be taken; and a little further on, in passing over a sandy piece of ground abounding in ant-hills, the road gave way while a loaded horse was passing over one of their large excavations, and as he was more than half-buried in the sand, it was a long time before we could extricate him. Shortly afterwards, we descended by an exceedingly bad road, consisting of large blocks of granite, into a valley through which a small river runs, immediately after crossing which we arrived at Corumatá. The owner of this farm does not reside on it, the charge of it being given to a cowherd (vaqueiro). Here again we could obtain nothing to purchase, but the vaqueiro presented me with a small piece of dried beef, and abundance of excellent milk; the fazenda, he told me, produces yearly about two hundred calves; the cattle go at large in the woods and fields, but at this season, which is the one in which the calves are produced, the vaqueiro and his assistants, who are generally slaves, are constantly on the look out for such as may have calved. The calves are then brought to the house, and put into a large enclosure called a curral, and as a matter of course the mother follows. In this enclosure the cows and the calves are shut up together at night, but during the day, the cows are turned out to feed; this is a very necessary precaution in such a wild country, to prevent the