Remember the Rainforest 1

Home

Expedition Index

Itinerary

Etchings

Maps

Plants

Animals

People / Scenes

Green Girl's Eco Club

Lessons

Free Posters

Authors / Artists

Contact us

in these disgraced beings the talent for nautical life; they used them as sailors, using them, especially on coastal voyages between Bahia, Pernambuco and Rio de Janeiro. This measure, too, was not helpful at all; Indians loathe sea life and try by all means to evade it.

Tapera
   
From Pedra Branca village, we returned to the main road towards Tapera, from where, in two days of march, we reached the port of Sao Felix, on the Paraguacu River, flowing from there to Bahia.

Rio Paraguacu

We breathed freely in a pleasant, uncovered region, whose vegetation already had spring clothing, and whose ever-growing cultivation and population already announced the proximity of a large town. For us, exhausted travelers, the small villages of Curralinho, Genipapo, Salgado, Catingas, Torto and others, were the most pleasant aspects that faced us there, with their chapels, their imposing farms, with large dependencies and well-stocked shops, or with the extensive plantations of coffee, tobacco, corn and cassava.

The terrain through which we passed still always indicated granitic formation and, in fact, in constant transition to gneiss, followed orientation N. N. W. to S.

Granite

Gneiss

S. E., sloping sharply to the east. Here and there (as, for example, near Curralinho and Cruz), appear between the gneiss large deposits of schist amphibolite

Amphibolite schist

or (as near Mangabeira) mica schist, and alternating with it in the same proportions large deposits of schist amphibolite.

It was on November 4 that we reached the end of this exhausting and dangerous journey; Filled with the most intimate joy and gratitude to Divine Providence, we descended from the high plateau of the continent, by an abrupt path, until we

reached the port of Sao Felix, and found ourselves on the bank of Paraguacu, a navigable river, animated by great commercial movement, by the ocean, only half a day's journey from the river to the goal of our wishes, the capital of the province of Bahia.

Rio Paraguacu

The port of Sao Felix, on the south bank of Paraguacu, is part, as it were, of the great village of Cachoeira, on the opposite bank, is of great importance to this area, as well as to the city of Salvador itself, as a place of expeditions.

Sao Felix, Cachoeira, and City of Bahia, Sao Salvador

Numerous troops receive European goods from the river here to transport them into the empire, and the full activity of a terrestrial port reigns there, while in

Vila da Cachoeira

Vila da Cachoeira everything reflects the neighboring sea and the maritime trade. The aspect of this town, of beautiful buildings bustling with European activity, was a real joy for us, after the long season in the sertao. Cachoeira reclines atop a virgin hillock planted with reeds and tobacco.

Cachoeira

147