BAH1A. 93 



clothing them ; only in the actual foreground do the palms 

 and feathering bamboos, planted in long lines as boundaries, 

 distinguish the scenery as tropical. The bamboos are especially 

 conspicuous, from the bright yellow green of their foliage. The 

 steamer left Bahia at 10 a.m. and reached Caxoeira at 4 p.m. 



caxoeira. — There are two towns at Caxoeira, one on each 

 side of the river. These consist of the usual whitewashed 

 houses and two or three churches, one broad street and several 

 narrow ones, with mostly dirty dilapidated two-storied houses 

 tailing off towards the country into one-storied hovels. On 

 the river, canoes hollowed out of a single tree trunk, simple 

 and trough-like in form and pointed at both ends, ply between 

 the town and its suburb. They are large enough to contain six 

 persons. 



The hotel at which we stayed consisted of a restaurant below 

 and a long barn-like chamber above, with a passage down the 

 middle, and a series of small bed chambers on either hand, 

 enclosed by partitions about twelve feet in height. As one lay 

 in bed one looked up at the bare rafters and tiles, and was apt to 

 receive unpleasant remembrances from the bats. I have seen 

 sleeping places arranged in the same manner in the hotel at 

 Point de Galle, Ceylon, and it is closely similar in all Japanese 

 houses ; the great disadvantage is that you have to put up with 

 the snorings and conversations of all the guests in the hotel. 



In the evening, just outside the town, in a small pond, a 

 number of small toads were making a perfectly deafening noise. 

 The sound is like a very loud harsh cat's mew, and I could not 

 at first believe that it would come from so small an animal. It 

 is however not unlike the extraordinary moan made by the 

 fire-bellied toad of Europe {Bomhincdor igneus), but much louder 

 and with more distinct intervals between the sounds. The frog 

 tribe made a horrible noise at night at Caxoeira, a bull frog 

 shouting the loudest with a deep bass voice. 



Trip inland. — I started on my trip in the morning. I was to 

 go to Feira St. Anna, about 28 miles from Caxoeira, to see the 

 great fair held there every Monday, and from thence go down to 

 St. Amaro, a town on another river running into the bay, whence 

 I could take steamer for Bahia. Caxoeira, Feira St. Anna, and 



