88 A NATURALIST ON THE "CHALLENGER." 



that which reached it from the chancel. The air was full of 

 incense, and the whole effect was fine and impressive. 



The floor of the church was crowded with negro women, 

 kneeling and singing at intervals a simple chant in response to 

 a choir which could not be distinguished in the gloom. There 

 were a few white women in the church, but they appeared to go 

 into the aisles and not to mix with the blacks. 



After the procession was over, fireworks, rockets full of 

 crackers and blue lights, were let off, and the soldiers marched 

 to their barracks. They were small dark-skinned dwarfed-look- 

 ing men. Fireworks are as invariable concomitants of religious 

 ceremonies in Bahia as in China, and as they are let off before 

 as well as after the ceremonies, occasionally wake one up at 

 4 A.M. 



There are tramways in Bahia leading to the railway station, 

 the Campo Grande, and out into the country. The Campo 

 Grande is a large open space, turfed and surrounded by trees. 

 It is here that the best residences are, and there are several 

 hotels, including a Swiss one, and a German one with a Kegel- 

 bahn, and where dinner is served in regular German style. 

 There are large numbers of Germans in Bahia, and a great part 

 of the trade is in their hands. 



There are public gardens in Bahia, and a theatre, and at 

 certain seasons an opera troupe comes from Bio de Janeiro to 

 perform. At the distance of a mile or two from the town, where 

 the country tramway ends, the roads degenerate at once into 

 mere green lanes, and lead between a succession of small mud- 

 built cottages, each with its fenced garden, and numerous 

 intervals of neglected land, often planted with coffee bushes 

 but overgrown with weeds. 



The principal features of the vegetation are made up of 

 banana plants and large mango and Jack-fruit trees. The Jack- 

 fruit is a huge sort of bread-fruit, as large as a man's head, and 

 grows on a large tree with dark green laurel-like foliage. These 

 three trees are no more indigenous than are the people with 

 whose well-being they are so dosely bound up, but are of Asiatic 

 origin, as the people are of European and African extraction. 



At a short distance from the town the country is covered 



