56 A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 
She had a troop of thirty-one pack-mules, laden with all 
conceivable baggage, besides provisions of every sort, fowls, 
hams, &c., and a train of twenty-five servants. Their hos- 
pitality is said to be unbounded ; you have only to present 
yourself at their gates at the end of a day's journey, and 
if you have the air of a respectable traveller, you are sure 
of a hearty welcome, shelter and food. The card of a 
friend or a note of introduction insures you all the house 
can afford for as long as you like to stay. 
The last three miles of our journey was over what is 
called the " temporary road," the use of. which will be 
discontinued as soon as the great tunnel is completed. 
I must say, that to the inexperienced this road looks ex- 
ceedingly perilous, especially that part of it which is 
carried over a wooden bridge 65 feet high, with a very 
strong curvature and a 'gradient of 4 per cent (211 feet 
per mile). As you feel the engine laboring up the steep 
ascent, and, looking out, find yourself on the edge of a 
precipitous bank, and almost face to face with the hindmost 
car, while the train bends around the curve, it is difficult 
to resist the sense of insecurity. It is certainly greatly 
to the credit of the management of the line that no 
accident has occurred under circumstances where the least 
carelessness would be fatal.* 
It gives one an idea of the labor expended on this 
railroad, to learn that for the great tunnel alone, now 
almost completed (one of fourteen), a corps of some three 
* Some weeks after this I chanced to ask a beautiful young Brazilian 
woman, recently married, whether she had ever been over this temporary 
road for the sake of seeing the picturesque scenery. "No," she answered 
with perfect seriousness, " I am young and very happy, and I do not wish 
to die yet." It was an amusing comment on the Brazilian estimate of the 
dangers attending the journey. 
