50 To the River Plate and Back 



there were swarms of butterflies and other insects, 

 many of them long known to me through specimens 

 preserved in my cabinets, but which I here for the first 

 time saw upon the wing. The hour I had at my com- 

 mand was all too short. I could have spent days here 

 content to observe the ways of plants and insects, 

 birds, beasts, and men. 



I returned to the city as I had come, glad that I had 

 at last seen a little of that tropical life in the midst of 

 which I first saw the light of day, but which until that 

 moment had been for me little more than a tradition 

 handed down to me in my early boyhood by my father 

 and my mother. Here everything recalled to me the 

 tales told to me when I was a child of life lived in an 

 Antillean Eden. I remembered that I had been told 

 when a child that my nurse, bearing me in her strong 

 arms, used to take me into the cane-field and pare for 

 me a joint of cane that I might enjoy it. More than 

 threescore years have passed since then, but I could 

 not resist the temptation to purchase a stick of cane 

 from a passing vender, and, paring it, I tried to conjure 

 up a vision of my infancy when I was ' ' little massa. ' 



Alighting from the car which brought me back from 

 Vermilion River I spied a party of my shipmates at 

 luncheon in one of the hotels ; they beckoned to me and 

 I joined them. After luncheon we undertook a round 

 of the churches. There are eighty-four of these, most 

 of them in the upper city. The Church of San Antonio 

 first claimed our attention. It is a large building 

 the interior of which is elaborately ornamented by 

 carvings in wood, which have been gilded. They are 

 said to have been made by resident monks, who spent 

 a vast amount of time in planning and carrying out 

 the designs. The effect is gorgeous, but not otherwise 



