LETTERS FROM BRAZIL 91 



December 11 (on board the "Ibicuhy") 

 JUST as I was getting up from breakfast I was called 

 out to see a Dr. Gustavo, one of the really good and 

 respectable men of Manaos; he was the bearer of a 

 package and a letter, which looked quite like an offi- 

 cial document for the "illustrissima Senhora." The 

 package contained a cacoa cup, mounted in silver, 

 the work of the Indians and sent to me by several 

 ladies of Manaos as a parting gift. I was the more 

 touched by this, because the ladies who signed the 

 letter (some half dozen) were not persons whom I had 

 known particularly well here, or from whom I had 

 had any cause to expect such a mark of regard. I send 

 a copy of the letter especially for you, though I am 

 almost ashamed to do so on account of its very flat- 

 tering terms; but you mustn't show it to anybody 

 else, and you will see by it that there are some women 

 here who are conscious of the injustice done them and 

 that their feeling for me is rather because I am, as it 

 were, an exponent to them of a freer kind of life than 

 any they have ever known. The same day just before 

 we went on board the steamer Agassiz received from 

 certain gentlemen not exclusively from Manaos but 

 from the province of the Amazons a box of a beau- 

 tiful dark native wood (like ebony) and containing 

 samples of all the most beautiful woods of the country 

 in small neatly finished blocks. All was the work of 

 the Indians of the Indian school here and bore this 

 inscription: "Louis Agassiz, from his friends of the 

 Amazonas. " 



