A Day in Bahia 49 



shore by seeing something of tropical nature. He ad- 

 vised me to take a certain street-car, the directions 

 for reaching which he kindly gave me, and by that 

 means to go to the Vermilion River, a favorite bath- 

 ing-resort by the side of the sea. I thanked him, took 

 his advice, and was well repaid for so doing. 



Leaving the upper plateau covered with buildings, 

 the electric tramway descends by a number of sharp 

 turns into a narrow valley, where I found myself 

 journeying along rapidly under a growth of fine tropi- 

 cal trees. After a while we emerged from the shadow 

 of the woodland and came out to the beach. Here 

 the vermilion-colored cliffs were bordered by a strip of 

 clean white sand, through which protruded great rocks 

 clothed with seaweed where the tide reaches them. The 

 blue ocean was full of dancing waves, which came roll- 

 ing ashore, throwing up great clouds of spray. A 

 headland covered with stately palms jutted out to the 

 right, its red cliffs circled below with a wreath of white 

 spume. Hawks and vultures were lazily sailing in the 

 air. A fisherman on a catamaran was plying his 

 calling amidst the surf. At intervals of about ten 

 minutes he would venture out, cast his throwing-net, 

 and then ride in on the top of the rollers, bringing in his 

 catch of fishes, which glittered in the sunlight as if 

 they had been made of burnished silver. As he hauled 

 his rude craft ashore, an old negro crone, only a little 

 less naked than the man, and a couple of children 

 went down and helped him to disentangle the fishes 

 from the net. They had already filled several large 

 baskets. The fishes seemed all to be of one species, 

 allied to the herrings of our northern waters. But 

 what interested me most was to find the beach behind 

 the sandy reaches full of flowering plants, upon which 



