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Explorations of the highlands of the Brazil
Explorations of the highlands of the Brazil Author:Richard Francis Burton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. FROM PETROPOLIS TO JUIZ DE FuRA. " Au milieu d'une des valle'es les plus accidentees du globe, veritable vallec Alpine, une route magnifique, ... more »aux pentes douces et rcguliercs, comme il en existe a peine encore dans 1'Europe meme, oeuvre gigantesque par lea immenses travaux d'art qu'elle a occasiones, et qui fait honucur au Bresil, unit Petro- polis, ou mieux Rio do Janeiro, ii Juiz do Fora."—M. Llait. The dark of other days, when the difficulties of Brazilian travel were to be dreaded, used to spend half a week on mule-back between Petropolis and Juiz de Fora. The distance is 91J miles, or, more correctly speaking, 146'8 kilometres. We shall see the end of it in nine hours, halts not included. It may be divided into three sections—forty miles of descent, twenty-one of flat, riverine valley, and thirty of ascent. We were six in the jaunting car, Major Newdigate and his brother, "on the rampage," from Canada; a personage whom I shall call Mr. L'pool; and our host, Mr. Morritt. I never saw so good-tempered a man as the latter; it was admirable to mark the unflinching patience with which he stood the galling fire of interrogation from four persons armed with four several note-books, and each asking simultaneously his or her own question. We called him the "Angel Morritt." At 6 A.m. on Saturday, June 15, 1867, the top-heavy mail, carrying seventeen passengers, and twenty-eight mail bags, a weight of three tons, left the Hotel Inglez, and revived many coaching recollections. It was purely English, rigged out a la Brtsilieuae. The panel was inscribed " Celeridade," instead of bearing Her Majesty's arms. The country bumpkins were slaves of both sexes, whose Garibaldian shirts showed that they were in process of sale. The guard mounted a glazed and japanned hat;...« less