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page 313 ---customs---households---
We halted one day at Taubaté, in order to dry our effects,
which were quite soaked through. The house, which an inhabitant of the
village shared with us, was but ill calculated to afford us comfortable
shelter. The houses in general are seldom above one story high; the
walls are almost in all cases of thin rafters or laths, interwoven with
twigs, plastered with loam, and covered with a white clay (tabatinga),
which is found here and there on the banks of the rivers; the roof is
carelessly covered with pantiles or shingles, rarely with maize straw, and the wall has in it one or two wooden latticed windows. The
interior corresponds with the light construction and scanty materials. The entrance, which is generally half or entirely closed by a latticed
door, leads directly into the largest room in the house, which being without
boards, and often with unwhitewashed walls, resembles a barn. This division
serves for the habitation of the family.
Store-rooms, and in some cases a side room for
guests, occupy the remainder of the front of the building. The back part
contains the apartments for the wife and the rest of the family, who,
according to the Portuguese fashion, must immediately withdraw on the
entrance of strangers.
From this we enter the veranda, which generally
runs along the whole  length of the building, and opens into the court-yard.
A similar veranda is sometimes annexed to the front of the house. The kitchen and servants' apartments, generally miserable sheds, lie opposite
the house, at the further end of the court. The furniture of these houses
is confined to the most necessary articles; often they have no more than
a few wooden benches and chairs, a table, a large chest, a bed, consisting
of a straw mat, or an ox hide on boards, supported by four pegs (giráo).
page 314 ---Campo
Grande---Sahida do Campo---Paranangaba---S.
Jose---Jacarehy---
Instead of beds, the Brazilians almost always make use of the woven or braided hammocks (marqueiras), the best and most durable of which
Hammocks were used for sleeping, and in this case, travel
are manufactured, in the provinces of S.
Paulo and Minas,
of white or coloured cotton threads. The traveller nowhere meets with
any wells, and must therefore be satisfied with rain, spring, or river
water, for every purpose. The inhabitants of Taubaté have the appearance of more prosperity and refinement than those of the
other small places through which we had before travelled; which is perhaps
owing to their more lively intercourse with Rio
de Janeiro and S.
Paulo. A few vines also are cultivated here, the fruit of which
was just ripe, and of an agreeable flavour.
Valley of the Paraiba river, province of Sao Paulo Southward of Taubaté, the road extends through the valley
of the  Paraiba, over
several woody and moist hills, which are covered with lovely ferns, melastomas, and aroidea, which thrive in wet situations. The low plain
is likewise rich in the finest plants and insects: among others, we found
here the Cerambyx longimmanus;
the birds, a new long-tailed brown Tyrannus,
and the Cuculus Guira.
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