On the 10th of February, 1840, we left Natividade, with the intention of proceeding to the Villa de Arrayas, a small town about thirty leagues to the S.E. We had made all our preparations to leave on the second, but had the mortification to find one of our horses missing, which detained us eight days. It proved, in the end, that some one had taken the loan of it, for four days after our departure, it was found near the place whence it had been taken, and was sent after me by my friend the Juiz dos Orfãos. Leaving Natividade, and skirting the base of the Serra in a southerly direction, we arrived at the banks of a small river called the Riacho Salobro, which flows towards the west, and falls into the Manoel Alvez: its waters are very brackish during the dry season. The loads had all to be passed over a rude kind of bridge (pingella) formed of the trunks of two trees, and as both the river and its banks were deep, we had no little difficulty in getting the horses across, which was done by swimming them. We remained for the night at the fazenda Das tres legoas, nearly three leagues from the Villa, as its name implies. On the following morning, after a journey of one long league and a half, we again reached the banks of the Rio de Manoel Alvez, at a place where it was both much broader and deeper than where we previously crossed it; here, however, we were fortunate enough to find a canoe. My first care was to have the horses passed to the other side, which was done by two men entering the canoe, and each taking hold of a halter they were swum over, two at a time. Before all our luggage was conveyed to the opposite bank, a heavy thunder-storm passed over us from the N.E., which drenched us completely; in consequence of this I thought it best to proceed at once to the first house, which was only a league and a half distant, where we remained for the night. The country between the Villa and the river is nearly a flat plain, consisting of large open campos, marshes, and tracts, but thinly wooded with small trees. Several beautiful flowering shrubs, and a few terrestrial _Orchideæ_ were collected on this journey. From this place, a journey of about ten leagues brought us to the Arraial de Conceição, a distance that occupied us two days and a half. On the night of the 12th, we slept at a large cattle fazenda, called San Bento, and a very stormy afternoon prevented us from leaving it. Till within about a league of the Arraial, the country continues flat and open, but afterwards it became hilly, the hills being low and often rocky. So thinly is the country populated in these districts, that between San Bento and the Arraial, a distance of at least twenty miles, we passed only one house. The greater part of this district is only adapted for the rearing of cattle, but there is much also admirably suited for plantations of different kinds.