A Day in Bahia 45 



session, and without money the path of the traveler 

 may be hard, even if interesting. It is pleasant to 

 read books describing the adventures of tramps abroad, 

 but it is preferable when in a strange land to have 

 enough change to enable one to buy a banana, if de- 

 sired. Brazilian money is somewhat anomalous, though 

 quite logical. The unit is the real, which is equivalent 

 in value to about iVo of a mill in the coinage of the 

 United States. The principal coin of Brazil is the 

 milreis (a thousand reis), a piece of silver worth in 

 exchange thirty-one cents of the money minted in 

 Philadelphia. Five hundred reis is equivalent to 15^2 

 cents, 100 reis to 3^ cents of our coinage. I drew ten 

 pounds sterling on my letter of credit and found myself 

 the proud possessor of 158,790 reis. Here appeared 

 to be a sudden and marvelous accession of wealth, but 

 "riches soon take to themselves w r ings and fly away.' 

 There is another side to the story. The charge for 

 sending a cable message to the loved ones at home, 

 consisting of but three words, was 9000 reis; a ticket 

 in the elevator which took me to the upper city was 

 100 reis; and the conductor of the tram-car charged 

 me the same amount for carrying me about ten squares, 

 when I got to the top ; my lunch cost me 5000 reis, and 

 it was very simple and not particularly good, consisting 

 of fruit, a leathery omelet, rolls, and coffee. If I had 

 grown suddenly rich, I began to grow as suddenly poor. 

 In the United States it is said that people have in re- 

 cent years come "to think in millions"; in Brazil they 

 think in milreis. The sign for the milreis is the well- 

 known mark of the dollar, $. It is at first blush start- 

 ling to have a memorandum presented to you in your 

 hotel after breakfast, stating that you owe for your 

 eggs and coffee the sum of 3$ooo; and it is positively 



