As we left Canabrava early next morning, we expected to reach our next stage, Boa Esperança, about eleven o’clock in the forenoon, but in this anticipation we were sadly disappointed. The river runs in a zigzag direction along a valley which stretches between these two places, and as the road passes through the centre, we had to cross the stream no less than eight times in this short distance, although a road might be made with very little labour, to avoid the river altogether. It is seldom, however, that travellers are annoyed so much as we were, for during the arid season the bed of the river is altogether dry. In four of the passages it was necessary to take all the loads off the horses, and carry them across on the heads of the men, but in the others, we managed to avoid this trouble, with the exception of the bundles of paper containing specimens, which I always caused to be carried over by one of the men. As we were all obliged to assist in this work, we were exposed during the greater part of the day to the burning rays of the sun, nearly in a state of nudity. My legs were very much burned, as were those of Mr. Walker, so much so, that on the following day they were completely blistered, and so greatly swollen that I was laid up for nearly two days. This taught me a lesson to be more cautious in future; but on this occasion, I thought that as the blacks did not hesitate to expose themselves to the sun, I might do so also; their skin, however, I found to my cost, was made of tougher material than mine. By the time we had crossed the river, for the eighth and last time, it was about five o’clock in the afternoon, and in ten minutes after, we arrived at the fazenda of Boa Esperança, in an almost exhausted state, from the excessive fatigues of the day. We were cheered, however, by the kind reception we received from its excellent and learned proprietor, the Reverend Padre Marcos de Araujo Costa, and his adopted son Dr. Marcos de Macedo, who had only a short time before returned from a visit to France and England, whither he had been sent at the expense of the Government to study the manufacture of porcelain, and whose acquaintance I had made a few weeks before at Crato, his native place. On this journey I added but little to my botanical collections, but in a moist meadow by the side of the river, I killed a beautiful boa constrictor, about seven feet long. Although these reptiles are frequently met with in the dry country, called the Sertão, they are neither so numerous nor so large as those found in the swampy plains of Piauhy and Goyaz.