horse's back. We were bivouacking late one evening near Coquimbo, in
Chile, when my servant, noticing that one of the horses was very
restive, went to see what was the matter, and fancying he could
distinguish something, suddenly put his hand on the beast's withers,
and secured the vampire. In the morning the spot where the bite had
been inflicted was easily distinguished from being slightly swollen and
bloody. The third day afterwards we rode the horse, without any ill
effects.
April 13th.--After three days' travelling we arrived at Socego, the
estate of Senhor Manuel Figuireda, a relation of one of our party. The
house was simple, and, though like a barn in form, was well suited to
the climate. In the sitting-room gilded chairs and sofas were oddly
contrasted with the whitewashed walls, thatched roof, and windows
without glass. The house, together with the granaries, the stables,
and workshops for the blacks, who had been taught various trades,
formed a rude kind of quadrangle; in the centre of which a large pile
of coffee was drying. These buildings stand on a little hill,
overlooking the cultivated ground, and surrounded on every side by a
wall of dark green luxuriant forest. The chief produce of this part of
the country is coffee. Each tree is supposed to yield annually, on an
average, two pounds; but some give as much as eight. Mandioca or
cassada is likewise cultivated in great quantity. Every part of this
plant is useful; the leaves and stalks are eaten by the horses, and the
roots are ground into a pulp, which, when pressed dry and baked, forms
the farinha, the principal article of sustenance in the Brazils. It is
a curious, though well-known fact, that the juice of this most
nutritious plant is highly poisonous. A few years ago a cow died at
this Fazenda, in consequence of having drunk some of it. Senhor
Figuireda told me that he had planted, the year before, one bag of
feijao or beans, and three of rice; the former of which produced
eighty, and the latter three hundred and twenty fold. The pasturage
supports a fine stock of cattle, and the woods are so full of game that
a deer had been killed on each of the three previous days. This
profusion of food showed itself at dinner, where, if the tables did not
groan, the guests surely did; for each person is expected to eat of
every dish. One day, having, as I thought, nicely calculated so that
nothing should go away untasted, to my utter dismay a roast turkey and
a pig appeared in all their substantial reality. During the meals, it
was the employment of a man to drive out of the room sundry old hounds,
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