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page 79 ---Porto Feliz---diseases---plants---wildlife---

Some imagined that they were destined for Paraguay, to be sent to the Portuguese who were at war with Buenos Aires; others thought of an expedition against the eastern province of Chili. In a country cut off from the neighboring states, nay, even from the capital, where political events are seldom heard of, every military movement, however trifling, produces great fear and alarm.

Town of Porto Feliz, state of Sao Paulo

At Porto Feliz, the bad construction of the low houses, the walls of which are often covered with a saline effluorescence, the nearness of the woods

and the rivers, which are frequently covered with thick fogs, cause goiters, intermittent fevers, dropsy, and catarrhs, which are almost endemic. We found the grown-up persons bloated; and the children of our host, and some neighbors were suffering from a malignant whooping cough, which we found often ends up in consumption. But the same causes which prove injurious to the animal economy, greatly promote the growth of plants. Maize and rice thrive in perfection and generally produce two hundred and fifty fold. Rice is sown in the hollows, and particularly not far from the rivers, by rows in tufts. On our return from Porto Feliz to Ypanema, we met with a marshy spot in the wood, which was thickly grown with Canna Indica, an agreeable discovery, because it removed all doubts respecting the original country of this universally spread elegant plant.* In all these low woods, we observed numbers of a beautiful black crane with a purple neck (Corvina rubricollis, Vieill.), and three species of pies, azure blue and white colored (Corvus Cyanopogno, Neuw.); parrots, as well as monkeys, become scarcer in this latitude, which may be chiefly owing to the cooler climate.

page 80 ---cattle---wildlife---

From the Ypanema river, the grassy plains interrupted by a small wood, extend southward to Curitiba, and to the capitania of S. Pedro which is similar in the nature of its soil, its elevation above the sea, its vegetation, and is adapted to the same purposes of rural economy. In the whole of this extensive part of South America, they follow, in general, the same system of farming which Azara describes as practiced in the pampas of Buenos Aires.

The breeding of cattle is the principal occupation of the inhabitants. Every landlord possesses, according to the extent of his farm, from several hundred to two thousand, nay, even forty thousand head of cattle. They generally reckon from three to four thousand head on an estate which has two square miles of good pasture. All these roam at liberty in a wild state.

But every farmer keeps, besides, as many tame draught oxen and cows as he requires for the purposes of agriculture, and for milk, which is partly made into cheese. The attendance on the wild cattle gives but very little trouble, all that is required is to brand them with the mark of the owner, to castrate the bulls, and to catch the animals intended to be slaughtered.