A journey of about ten leagues from this place, which occupied two days and a half, brought us to the banks of the Rio Urucuya, at a place called San Miguel, little more than a league to the westward of its junction with the Rio de Francisco, and here we had to cross it; the stream was about a gunshot in breadth, and very deep. As there was no regular ferry established here, we hired a small canoe, by means of which all the packages were safely taken across in two hours. The horses were passed about a quarter of a mile further up, at a place where they had only about half the breadth of the river to swim. It was in the morning that we arrived at this place, and although no corn could be obtained for the horses, I determined to remain till the following day, in order to give them a rest, all being in a very exhausted state, in consequence of their long journey, and the want of nourishing provender. We were now only five leagues from the Villa de San Romão, and were the more anxious to reach it as soon as possible, as our stock of provisions had been exhausted the evening before we reached the ferry. The journey from Boquerão occupied a longer time than we anticipated, and we were disappointed on finding, that after leaving that place, we could obtain nothing by purchase at a few small fazendas we passed. I have everywhere observed during my travels in Brazil, and the same remark has been made by M. Auguste de St. Hilaire, that the nearer a traveller comes to a town or village, the less chance he finds of being able to renew his stock of provisions. The men had still a few french-beans and a small piece of fat bacon left, but not more than would suffice them for a single meal; Mr. Walker and I had now been two days and a half without tasting any solid food, sustaining ourselves during that time entirely on strong tea, for we had not been able to meet with a single wild animal of any description; we had often before suffered severely from thirst, but had never been so long without food; it was fortunate we had the tea, as it prevented us from suffering nearly as much from hunger, as I expected we should have done. We stopped at a house on the south side of the river, which was both miserable and small, belonging to an old black woman, the only resident there; she had nothing, not even a fowl to sell. We slept in a part of the house that wanted a roof, and had only a small portion of the walls entire; a large fire was kindled in the middle of the floor, by the side of which we spread out hides for our beds.