174 A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 
on the other side of the lake. Here we found one of the 
better specimens of Indian houses. On one side of the 
house is the open porch, quite gay at this moment with 
our brightly colored hammocks ; adjoining this is a large 
chamber, opening into the porch by a wide straw, or rather 
palm-leaf door ; which does not swing on hinges, however, 
but is taken down and put up like a mat. On the other 
side of the room is an unglazed window, closed at will 
in the same way by a palm-leaf mat. For the present 
this chamber is given up to my use. On the other side 
of the porch is another veranda-like room, also open at 
the sides, and apparently the working-room of the family ; 
for here is the great round oven, built of mud, where the 
farinha is dried, and the baskets of mandioca-root are stand- 
ing ready to be picked and grated, and here also is the rough 
log table where we take our meals. Everything has an air 
of decency and cleanliness ; the mud-floors are swept, the 
ground about the house is tidy and free from rubbish, the 
little plantation around it of cacao and mandioca, with here 
and there a coffee-shrub, is in nice order. The house stands 
on a slightly rising ground, sloping gently upward from the 
lake, and just below, under some trees on the shore, are 
moored the Indian's " Montana " and our two canoes. We 
were received with the most cordial friendliness, the Indian 
women gathering about me and examining, though not in a 
rough or rude way, my dress, the net on my hair, touching 
my rings and watch-chain, and evidently discussing the 
" branca ' between themselves. In the evening, after din- 
ner, I walked up and down outside the house, enjoying the 
picturesqueness of the scene. The husband had just come 
in from the lake, and the fire on the ground, over which the 
fresh fish was broiling for the supper of the familj , shone 
