also in pans, in order to
facilitate the lifting of the young plants, and putting them into
the cases that I had brought for the purpose. The heat being
excessive, we purchased mats, that we might shelter them from the
sun, and we gave them water far more frequently. Many of the seeds
that we had sown a month previously, were already appearing above
the ground, but the soil being of too compact a nature, some did not
come up, which warned us to make choice in future of a lighter kind
of soil.

The period now arrived when I was to visit the tea plantations in
the province of St. Paul; and hoping that the cultivators would give
me some of the young shrubs, I took M. Houlet with me, leaving the
charge of our collections and seedlings to M. Pissis, a French
geologist and engineer, with whom I had formed an intimate
acquaintance, and who most obligingly offered to attend to them
during my absence. Many were the influential persons at Rio Janeiro,
who gave me introductory letters to the proprietors and tea growers
of St. Paul.

We started on the 15th January, by steam-boat, and in two days
reached Santos, the principal port in the province of St. Paul;
thence crossing the great chain of mountains, named the Serra do
Mar, in caravans drawn by mules, we reached the city of St. Paul on
the 20th January, where I experienced the warmest reception from the
governor, two ex-governors, and some other gentlemen.

* * * * *

Accompanied by M.J. Gomez and a M. Barandier, an historical painter,
whom the desire to visit a new country, and to see its inhabitants,
had induced to become _my compagnon de voyage_, we visited almost
immediately a M. Feigo, ex-Regent of the Empire, and now President
of the Provincial Senate. We found this venerable ecclesiastic at
his country-house, two leagues distant from the city, and here we
saw all the process pursued on the tea leaf, commencing by the
bruising, drying, and scorching of a large quantity of foliage
picked the preceding evening. The chief difference that struck me in
the mode here adopted, was, that the tender, flexible, and not
brittle leaves, were gathered with the petiole and tip extremity of
every bud, and that some water was put with them into the iron pan,
in which the negresses twisted, squeezed, broke and sho