venty feet,
and is often nine feet in diameter. The branches, which only begin to
spread in the higher part of the tree, are covered with leaves about
three inches in length, and of an oval shape and dark green colour. The
blossoms, of the papilionaceous or butterfly form, produce a flat pod,
shaped like the husk of a broad bean, about four inches long, and of a
dark brown colour. When ripe, each pod contains three beans of the same
colour, of a farinaceous consistency, and with a pleasant sweetness.

The silk-grass shrub produces a leaf, the inner substance of which
consists of a number of small strong white fibres running
longitudinally. These the Indians extract by means of a small loop of
cord, through which the leaf is drawn with a jerking motion. They are
then ready for drying and twisting into cord. They make bow-strings of
great elasticity and strength.

PART FOUR, CHAPTER THREE.

CENTRAL BRAZIL.

The centre of Brazil is occupied by a high tableland, crossed by a
series of serras, mostly running north and south. The most eastern,--
the Serra de Espinhaco,--rises about one hundred miles from the coast,
and the table-land extends from it westward for upwards of six hundred
miles. Numerous peaks besides the serras rise amidst it, few of them
reaching a greater elevation than one thousand feet above its surface.
It is mostly clothed with coarse grass and bushes, and single-standing
trees, which in summer shed their leaves, when, the grass being burned
up by the sun, the region has a desert and barren appearance. Here and
there the plain as well as the hills are covered with sand, and at
others with bare rocks.

Still more desert regions exist, which may vie with those of Africa in
barrenness. Almost in the very centre of the continent is a sandy
desert, called the Campos dos Paricis. Here the surface is formed by
long-backed ridges of sandy hills parallel to one another. So loose is
the soil, that even the patient mule with a burden on his back can
hardly make his way across it.

Between the western end of this table-land and the Andes of Bolivia is a
wide plain from one thousand to fifteen hundred feet in height, with
here and there a few hills rising above it. It is mostly covered by
dense forests; but occasionally there are barren districts, in which
only a stunted vegetation appears. This plain is traversed by several
tributaries of the great River Madeira, which falls into the Amazon.