Our first stage from Boa Esperança was the Villa de Santa Anna das Mercês, and when about two leagues from it, we halted under the shade of an Imbuzeira to dine and to give the horses a rest. The dry rocky places in this neighbourhood were covered with a little gregarious _Melocactus_, bearing very long recurved spines, and in a moist sandy place I found many pretty annual plants. About sunset we came in sight of the Villa, which is situated on a slight eminence; on entering it, we put up for the night in a large unfinished house belonging to the Padre Marcos of Boa Esperança, but we were glad to retreat from it as quickly as possible, for it was so full of fleas that we were completely covered with them, nor was it till a large fire had been kindled in the middle of the floor, that the place became at all bearable. As both Mr. Walker and I had on very long boots, we suffered much less than the blacks whose legs, from the knees downwards, were bare: I observed that when they were kindling the fire they would hold first one leg and then the other over the flame, and with their two hands stroke them downwards to get rid of these annoying creatures. In other places in Brazil I have met with these insects in abundance in houses which have been shut up for some time, but never did I see them so numerous as they were here; to escape their attacks during the night, we were obliged to sling our hammocks very high, and to undress on the top of a table. The Villa de Santa Anna das Mercês, or as it is more commonly called Jaicóz, is situated about five leagues to the west of Boa Esperança, and contains about seventy or eighty houses built in the form of a large square, but only three sides of it were then completed; in the centre of this square there is a very handsome small church. The outskirts of the town contain many huts belonging to the poorer classes, chiefly constructed of the stems and leaves of the Carnahuba palm, which grows abundantly in the neighbourhood; a few shopkeepers and tradesmen, such as tailors, shoe-makers, &c., reside constantly in the town, but the greater number of the houses belong to the neighbouring fazendeiros, who only occupy them during the Christmas and other festivals. Shortly after leaving the Villa, on the following morning, we ascended a low Serra which runs past the northern end of it; like almost all the other Serras which exist in the north of Brazil it is quite level on the top; it consists entirely of a coarse white sandstone very full of rounded quartz pebbles; the latter are also very abundant to a great distance round the Villa, and in many places the roads have the appearance of having been gravelled with them. The breadth of this Serra at the place where we crossed it, is about a league and a half; and it is principally covered with low _Mimosas_ and _Croton_, which in many places grow so thickly together as to be almost impenetrable. The few open tracts which