About a week after our return, I made another visit to the place where we had formerly encamped; my object was to obtain additional specimens of the many new plants which I had found in the neighbourhood. On this occasion I was again accompanied by “Pai Felipe” and the other three blacks; we left the Fazenda at eight o’clock in the morning, and reached our sleeping place about three in the afternoon. On the following day I occupied myself with making excursions in various directions; during these walks I collected great plenty of _Cereus Russellianus_. This plant offers a good example of nearly allied species representing each other in different regions of the same mountain; during the many times that I passed through the woods, on my journey to and from the peaks, I always found _Cereus truncatus_ confined to the dense virgin forests below the elevation of 4,500 feet, while from this point to nearly the summit of the mountains, _Cereus Russellianus_ alone was seen, enjoying a more open and a cooler region. The day was one of the most delightful that I ever remember to have witnessed, quite like one of the finest days of an English summer; the sky was clear and unclouded, and the atmosphere being free from that haze which often, in the finest weather, renders the view of distant objects indistinct, allowed us to obtain a perfect and well-defined prospect of the high mountains far to the eastward. Having got all my specimens put into paper, I lay down to sleep shortly after seven o’clock, little dreaming what a miserable night I was to spend. I had just fallen asleep by the fire, on my bed of palm leaves, when I was suddenly aroused from my slumber by a deluge of rain pouring down; one of those sudden and heavy thunder-storms, which are never witnessed in temperate climes, was passing over us. Had we been in an open place, we might have seen it approaching and been able to form some kind of shelter before it came on, but the tops of the trees by which we were covered prevented this. I never was out in such weather; the flashing of the lightning, the rolling of the thunder, which was breaking immediately over us, the roaring of the wind among the trees, and the falling of rotten branches, all combined to render the scene terrific. In a few minutes our large fire was extinguished, and the place swimming with water; although I was covered with a thick Poncho, it was but a poor protection for such a night. In half an hour the small stream beside us, which during the day had only a few inches of water, came roaring down like a cataract. To add to our misery, the night was pitch dark, so that we could not see to remedy our situation. What a night I spent may be imagined, when I mention that I sat from half-past seven in the evening till nearly three o’clock in the morning, under an incessant deluge of rain; a more perfect picture of patience, I flatter myself, could not be witnessed. About three it began to abate, and being in a shivering