nature of my profession, for he brought with him one of his daughters, to solicit my advice respecting a complaint under which she had laboured for some time. I was also asked by him to visit one of his slaves, who for many years had been prevented from working, by a complaint not uncommon in Brazil, Sarcocele; this, however, was the most remarkable case I had ever witnessed, exhibiting an enormous mass of solid flesh in a pyriform shape, that reached the ground, weighing nearly as much as the rest of his body. The wretched being who was thus affected was a man still in the prime of life, and suffered but little, except from the inconvenience it caused him. On the afternoon of the following day, we arrived at another fazenda called Cabeceira, the distance between the two places being about four leagues and a half. On this journey, the country still continued to rise, and about half a league before reaching this place, we passed over a bare Serra of considerable height, the ascent of which was rather steep, although the road over it is excellent, being so constructed that carts can cross it without difficulty. That portion of the mountain in which the road has been made is a soft brownish-coloured clay slate, but at no little distance on each side, the more lofty summits of the Serra consist of black compact limestone. The bushy campos through which we passed in the forenoon, were beautifully adorned with a fine plant, belonging to the natural order _Compositæ_, which grew in the greatest abundance, and reached to the height of about five feet, the _Chresta sphærocephala_ of De Candolle; it has large leaves, which, together with the stem and branches, are covered with a white woolly substance, and is much branched at the top, each branchlet being terminated by a large globose compact head of purple flowers. As there was a good watering place in a wood a little beyond Cabeceira, we preferred going there, rather than remaining at the house, to which we were invited by the owner. During the whole interval since we had left the province of Goyaz, we never suffered for want of water as we had done in the dry provinces of the north. In every part of the country through which we were now travelling, we found in nearly every valley a little stream of clear, cool, and delicious water, and during our future progress it became even more abundant. We were now only two leagues and a half distant from the Villa de Formigas, but owing to the badness of the roads, we did not reach it till nearly one in the afternoon, notwithstanding we left our encampment at an early hour. The country was rather hilly, and the road stony, but it presented one great advantage to the traveller, which I knew well how to appreciate, in the bridges which are to be found crossing all the little streams that intersect the roads. They are constructed of wood, and however rude, they save the traveller much trouble, and prevent the risk of damage to the