The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

138 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA.
becomes gradually poorer towards the interior. To the matta, or forest zone of
the seaboard, succeeds the catiiuja, a more open or scrubby district, which merges
higher up in the agreste, where trees and shrubs become rarer, and consist of
species which shed their leaves in summer. Lastly comes the sertuo of the arid
uplands, with poor pasturage, where stock-breeding is the only possible industry,
except in the brejos or combes, marshy or fed by springs, forming so many oases in
the wilderness.
In these dry inland regions the prevailing species are the gummiferous or
aromatic plants, whose foliage is deciduous in the summer season. The charac-
teristic palm is the carnauba or wax-tree {copcrnivia cerifcra), one of those useful
plants which supply the natives with all their wants—food, drink, light, clothes,
and habitations.
Formerly the fauna of Ceara and neighbouring districts was very rich, and at
the beginning of the seventeenth century the " ostrich " (rhoa) still roamed the
coastlands opposite the island of Maranhao. In the limestone caves of the Mar-
anhao, Piauhy, and Ceara mountains, frequented by myriads of bats and vampires,
the remains have been found of huge extinct mammals, such as the mastodon
and the megatherium. Even Fernando de Noronha had its special fauna, repre-
sented by a large species of rat, birds, lizards, snakes, insects, and shells, showing
that the island had been separated from the mainland since the close of the
Mesozoic epoch.
Inhabitants.
One of the caves in the valley of the Quixeramobim affluent of the Jaguaribe
contained part of a human skull evidently of great antiquity. But it is uncertain
whether it belonged to an ancestor of any of the dominant races—Tupi, Tupi-
namba, Tupinambulx, that is " Brave Men," or Tabajara, " Village Lords "—with
whom the first French settlers in Maranhao entered into friendly relations during
the sixteenth century. Nor has any knowledge survived of those Indians who
formed alliances with the French immigrants, all having long been merged in
the general Bi-azilian population.
Although the Guajajaras of the Pindare valley were exterminated by the gold-
hunters, some of this race are still met at the sources of the Upper Grajahu.
They are a vigorous people of Mongolic type, and the neighbouring " White
Indians " are remarkable for their light complexion. Farther east, on the
higher parts of the plateau, there still survive some fragments of distinct tribes,
such as the Akroas and Caj'apos between the Tocantins and the Grajahu, in the
Serra da Cinta and the Serra do Negro. These natives, who appear to be of
Ges stock, approach the coastlands in AYest Maranhao, where they are known as
Timbiras and Gamellas, the latter term having reference to their " lip disk."
On the Piauhy and Pernambuco borderlands still roam a few scattered bands
of the Pimenteiras, whose speech shows traces of Carib afEnities or contact. In
the sixteenth century the Caethes of the Pernambuco district had already begun
to amalgamate with the Europeans, who were later again crossed with the slaves