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#27 Forest on Monte
Corcovado near the head of the aqueduct of the Carioca spring, city of Rio
de Janeiro
Latin translation by
Ben Hennelly
In etching #26 we presented to the kind reader
a view of the outlines of all of Mt. Corcovado; in this one,
also copied from a picture by Thomas Ender, we are sent down into a
valley of this most beautiful mountain. The position of the artist should
be estimated at about a third of the way up the mountain, not far removed
from the place where the aqueduct of the Carioca spring, a square-sided granite structure that bestows the waters' sweetness
upon the city of Rio de Janeiro, comes forth from the deep
shadow of the forests to descend along the mountain-side with slow step,
as it were, down into the plain. You are situated in a spot already
On the wall of the aqueduct, Carioca spring, above Rio de Janeiro
high enough for you to see part of both the bay named after the city
of Rio de Janeiro, and of the opposite shore. The areas that
lie closest remain for the most part untouched by the axe's violence,
and gleam with the fullness characteristic of the vegetation that shades
the lower zone of the mountain.
Here to the left you will see tall trees, Ficus
doliaria Martius (1) and Couratari rufescens St.
Hillary, connected by numerous vines; more to the right, a Spondia bearing edible
fuit, which I designate with the name  Spondia
venulosa (2); and
in just about the middle of the etching, a pleasant Huberia
ovalifolia, a tree adorned with innumerable white panicles when in flower. To the front, you have a multitude of the most magnificent
plants, which in our greenhouses we never see cloaked in such a wealth
of foliage and flowers as they grow with in their native land; tall
clumps of Cyperaceae and ferns, various Bromeliaceae and Anonaceae and Aroideae with simple
or digitate leaves, which in some places shoot up from the moist, lively
soil, and in others encircle fallen, rotting trunks with new life. To
the right, near the edge of the etching, the lovely form of a certain Theophrasta L. or Clavija Ruiz, which from afar seems to imitate the
shape of a small, branching palm.
As well as other remarkable
plants, I collected in these regions a beautiful tree of Mimusops
subsericea Mart. (Synarrhena Fisch.), Schmidelia
levis St. Hil. (the Fruta de parao of the inhabitants), Machaerium brasiliense Vog., Myrodia
penduliflora St. Hil., Picramnia
ciliata Mart., Combretum
variabile (3), Lagetta
Funifera, etc. When you have climbed higher, an path cut with
an axe will lead you through a low-growing grove that no longer excels
with that great fullness, but contains smaller trees with many branches.
It is what is called Capoeira, a forest of the second order,
which arises where primeval forest has been destroyed; we have already
treated this matter in etchings #6 and 16.
#27 of 42 expedition commentaries
 
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