136 A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 



the swinging, cradle-like beds to which they were accus- 

 tomed, and which they evidently find very comfortable. 

 When Mr. Agassiz remarked, as we passed through the 

 dormitory, that sleeping in a hammock was an experience 

 he had yet to make, one of the boys took his down from 

 the shelf, and, hanging it up, laughingly threw himself 

 into it, with a lazy ease which looked quite enviable. The 

 kitchen and grocery rooms were as neat as the rest of the 

 house, and the simplicity of the whole establishment, while 

 it admitted everything necessary for comfort and health, 

 was well adapted for its objects. A pretty little chapel 

 adjoined the house, and the house itself was built around 

 an open square planted with trees, a pleasant playground 

 for the boys, who have their music there in the evening. 

 On our return to town we heard that, owing to the break- 

 age of some part of the machinery, the steamer would be 

 detained in this port for a couple of days. We have, how- 

 ever, returned to our quarters on board, preferring to spend 

 the night on the water rather than in the hot, close town. 



August Itli. To-day we have all been interested in 

 watching the beautiful Medusae swept along by the tide, so 

 close to the side of the steamer that they could easily be 

 reached from the stairway. We have now quite a number 

 disposed about the deck in buckets and basins, and Mr. 

 Burkhardt is making colored sketches of them. They are 

 very beautiful, and quite new to Mr. Agassiz. In some 

 the disk has a brown tracery like seaweed over it, while 

 its edge is deeply lobed, every lobe being tinged with an 

 intensely brilliant dark blue ; the lobes are divided into 

 eight sets of four each, making thirty-two in all, and an 

 eye is placed on the margin between each set ; the tubes 

 running to the eyes are much larger than those in the in- 



