Shortly after leaving San Antonio we passed through a forest of Carnahuba palms, in which were several large lakes, which contain water only in the dry season. On the margin of one of these we saw a number of water-fowl, called by the inhabitants Jabirú (_Mycteria Americana_, Linn.); these birds, which are nearly related to the adjutants of India, are of immense size; they are of a white colour, with the exception of the head, neck, beak, and feet, which are black; the black skin investing the head and neck is destitute of feathers. We afterwards met with them in much greater abundance by the margins of streams and lakes, where they feed upon small reptiles, fishes, &c. The vegetation of the other parts of the country through which we passed was principally virgin forest, with an underwood of _Croton Bauhinia_ and trailing _Mimosa_. Near a fazenda called Ambrosia, the road led under some large trees, on one of which I observed some hundreds of Marmoset monkeys. One of these I shot for a specimen; it fell before it was quite dead, and its pitiable screams brought back all its companions to the tree from which they had fled when I fired; here they remained for about ten minutes, when the cries of the wounded one having ceased, they left, and soon disappeared among the branches of the other trees of the forest; it was impossible not to admire the graceful activity they displayed in passing from tree to tree, and from bough to bough. On the following day we travelled about five leagues, and shortly after mid-day arrived at a fazenda called Retiro. The two first leagues led through a virgin forest, consisting almost entirely of a kind of _Mimosa_ called Angica, (the bark of which is used all over the Sertão for tanning leather, and a gum which it exudes is said to form the principal food of the Marmoset monkey,) a _Zizyphus_ (Joazeira), and a few large species of _Bignonia_, with an underwood of _Croton_, _Bauhinia_, _Lautana_, _Myrtles_, &c. The road continued quite level, and we frequently passed the same stream we crossed the day before, without the necessity of removing the loads. Leaving this forest tract we entered one more open, and abounding in Carnahubas; in many places the soil was very sandy, and scant of herbaceous vegetation. At about three leagues from Cachimbinho we passed through a small hamlet called Samambaia, consisting of about twenty scattered houses. The principal occupation of the inhabitants is the manufacture of hammocks, which are sold chiefly to travellers who pass this way. They are made of cotton, which grows very well in the neighbourhood. From Samambaia the country still continues very flat till within a short distance of Retiro, when it becomes more undulating, exhibiting several ridges of limestone, nearly bare of vegetation, or of a fine red sandstone, which lies beneath the limestone, full of nodules of iron-stone, which from the wearing away of the rock are thickly strewn