The road was good, and more frequented than any I had yet seen in the Brazils.

Handsome wooden bridges traverse the rivers Vicente and Cubatao; one of these bridges is actually covered, but then every one is charged a pretty high toll.
In one of the vendas at the foot of the mountain we fortified ourselves with some excellent pan-cakes, laid in a stock of sugar- canes, the juice of which is excessively refreshing in the great heat, and then proceeded to scale the Serra, 3,400 feet high.

The road was execrable; full of holes, pits, and puddles, in which our poor beasts often sank above their knees.

We had to skirt chasms and ravines, with torrents rolling loudly beneath, yet not visible to us, on account of the thick underwood which grew over them.

Some part of the way, too, lay through virgin forests, which, however, were not nearly so beautiful or thick as some I had traversed on my excursion to the Puris.