LIFE IN ENTRE RIOS, MINAS GERAES. 167 



thousand left in the course of Easter Sunday and Monday, 

 when the cidade resumed its ordinary appearance. 



April 17. This evening on my way home I met four 

 niggers carrying the body of a man in a shallow coffin only 

 some six inches deep. He was dressed in a very good suit 

 of clothes and a new pair of patent leather boots ; his face 

 was covered by a handkerchief. The niggers were laugh- 

 ing, as if going to a picnic. 



After dinner, Joscelino's eldest boy brought me a large 

 leaf, from the under side of which hung four of the most 

 gorgeous chrysalides I ever saw. They were about the 

 size of the pupae of the Large White (Pieris Brassic<z\ but 

 appeared as if covered with plates of silver or burnished 

 steel. On the morning of the 2ist, four days later, while I 

 was dressing, I saw the chrysalides changing colour and 

 becoming dappled red, yellow, and brown. An hour later 

 the butterflies all emerged, and turned out to be Mechanitis 

 polymnia, which is very abundant here. All the brilliant 

 lustre was then gone from the pupae cases, which were 

 transparent and colourless. 



We have had another disturbance at the post-office, 

 in consequence of our chief having written to Rio de 

 Janeiro about certain irregularities, at which the authorities 

 here, who go on the let-things-take-their-chance plan, are 

 very irate. Several of the townsfolk are delighted, as they 

 have long been inconvenienced by the carelessness that 

 rules in this town ; but being Conservatives, while the 

 powers that be are Liberal, they were afraid of moving in 

 the matter, as it would be put down to party spite. 



I told you some time ago that Padre Pinto wished to 

 see me about the railway, after having treated us with 

 scant courtesy when I passed his fazenda several times. 

 He is a poor miserable cripple, his left side being paralyzed, 



