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page 309 ---plains---Pindamhongaba---
Village of Pindamhongaba, province of Sao Paulo Pindamhongaba consists of some rows of low huts lying scattered upon a hill, and does not appear to be in a thriving condition. The capitao môr of the place received with great politeness his guests, who were wet through, and afterwards invited us to view the church, which is only half finished, and loaded with tasteless wooden ornaments. It was handsomely lighted up, and adorned with a manger, in which the infant Christ lay. There was something affecting in this emblematical custom in this place, because we dwelt with pleasure on the idea that the doctrine of salvation had found its way into these lonely, beautifully wild tracts. Since we had descended from the mountains into the valley, the physiognomy of the landscape had changed more and more, and the difference in its character became more independent and unmixed, the farther we removed from the dark primeval forests of the Serra do Mar. From this place the road lay in the broad valley of the Paraiba, over low hills, which, in the beginning, we found covered with all kinds of dwarf bushes and single trees; but farther on it became opener, and clothed with grasses and herbs, or with long rows of ananas.
Valley of the Paraiba river Herds of mules and horned cattle were grazing
in these pleasant tracts. The Brazilian distinguishes the two principal
forms in the physiognomy of the vegetable world, wood and plain, by the
names of Mato and Campo; but they have many other names
for the numerous varieties of the latter, which determine, more or less,
the local character of the landscape. The greater part of the valley of
the Paraiba is covered
with pastures (campos), which descend from the eminences, and
are but seldom broken by low woods.
On the road to Sao Paulo (1) Declieuxia satureoides, D. spergulaefolia, D.
myricoides, D.
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oenanthoides
